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January 2004 Articles
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DV Articles
November 2003
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Like the main character in Christopher Nolan's noir film Memento, members of the House and Senate intelligence committees seem to have lost their short-term memory. They can't remember who exactly pedaled Bush's lies about Saddam's illusory weapons of mass destruction. They recall Iraq had WMD at one time, although they say nothing about who provided those weapons (the US government did). Looking around for scapegoats to cover Bush's calculated lies, or rather the calculated lies of his neocon advisors -- Bush only repeats what these advisors tell him -- members of the intelligence committees are determined to blame the CIA for "bad intelligence," for the absurd contrivances repeated by the president. . . (full article)
Engaged in a continuous PR blitz, presidential campaign strategists always strive to portray their candidate as damn near perfect. Even obvious flaws are apt to be touted as signs of integrity and human depth. Such media spin encourages Americans to confuse being excellent with being preferable. Eager to dislodge George W. Bush from the White House, many voters lined up behind John Kerry in late January. It’s true that the junior senator from Massachusetts is probably the best bet to defeat Bush -- and, as president, Kerry would be a very significant improvement over the incumbent. But truth in labeling should impel acknowledgment that Kerry is not a progressive candidate. . . (full article)
An array of high-profile Americans -- including Rev. Jesse Jackson, feminist Gloria Steinem, Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, leaders of the ACLU and the Newspaper Guild, and artists such as Sean Penn, Bonnie Raitt and Martin Sheen -- released a joint statement Thursday (Jan. 29) in support of Katharine Gun, a British whistleblower. Ms. Gun faces two years in prison in England for alerting the public about U.S. spying on United Nations diplomats aimed at securing U.N. approval for war against Iraq. . . (full article)
Retired Gen. Anthony
Zinni began warning that ousting Saddam Hussein, let alone invading Iraq,
risked destabilizing the entire Middle East back in 1998, when he led U.S.
Central Command and testified against the Iraq Liberation Act that made
“regime change” official U.S. policy. And just six months before the actual
invasion last March, in October 2002, he told the annual Fletcher Conference
on National Security Strategy, “we are about to do something that will
ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started.”
While President George W. Bush tried hard to project a sense of confidence
and control concerning Iraq and the larger Middle East in his State of the
Union Address on Tuesday, a careful look at the news this week suggested
that Zinni's fears were not unfounded. . .
While the rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination battle it out in a succession of grueling primary elections and caucuses, Vice President Dick Cheney appears to be fighting to secure his spot on the Republican ticket behind President George W. Bush. . . (full article)
In his state of the union address, George W. Bush pledged to "finish the historic work of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq." That's a promise which differs markedly from the reality on the ground. . . (full article)
Finally, some honesty.
But mounting problems for the White House. The CIA's chief weapons
inspector, David Kay, has driven the final nail into the coffin where rests
the Bush administration's policy of preemptive war. It turns out that there
was nothing to preempt. Which calls into question the real reason why more
than 500 U.S. troops have been killed and at least 6,000 severely
wounded—and why untold thousands of Iraqi army conscripts and civilians have
also been killed. . .
"Two U.S. marshals
approached a two-story brick garden apartment building erected 50 years ago
for Washington D.C.-based military personnel. One rapped on the door and
shouted his presence. His partner fingered the gun at his hip…A young woman
talking on a cell phone opened the door and a small boy peered out through
her legs. As a dozen movers laboriously removed all the family's possessions
and threw them out on the street, a young girl "pointed at her toys tied up
in a bed sheet, carried away in a reverse Christmas morning where Santa
takes her gifts back up the chimney. She began to cry and hugged the woman's
legs. The oldest boy, perhaps five or six…his lips pinched and his jaw
tightened as his face filled with rage and helplessness, as he experienced
something hurtful beyond his control." This is how Michael Herlihy described
an eviction in a 1998 article, cited in the newly-released study "Evictions:
The Hidden Housing Problem". . . similar scenes are repeated every few
minutes around the country. . .
While global warming is
being officially ignored by the political arm of the Bush administration,
and Al Gore's recent conference on the topic during one of the coldest days
of recent years provided joke fodder for conservative talk show hosts, the
citizens of Europe and the Pentagon are taking a new look at the greatest
danger such climate change could produce for the northern hemisphere - a
sudden shift into a new ice age. What they're finding is not at all
comforting. . .
We are introducing
ourselves, and our host tells me, “In all honesty, I tell you that my only
name is “Returner/`A’id,” i.e. “one who is returning to his home.” This is
the masculine version of the name known to opera lovers for Verdi’s
heroine, Aida. You hear it frequently as a name for women, but not for
men. Our host never does say his real name, but I hear it when the others
address him. Another attendee, the convener of the poetry salon, defers to
“our professor,” the self-taught returner, and asks him to open the
session by reciting a poem. He agrees, but first introduces his daughter,
telling the story of her name. If the baby was a girl, he and his wife
decided they would call her Palestine. However, since he was away when she
was born, his wife yielded to the political tension of the times, giving
her the name of a fragrant flower instead. But he still calls her
Palestine. . .
"S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine"
directed by Cambodian filmmaker, Rithy Panh, brings together survivors and
torturers from Pol Pot's death centre, Tuol Sleng, in extraordinary
scenes. But John Pilger reminds us that the genocide did not begin at
'Year Zero' with the Khmer Rouge, but with the secret and illegal American
bombing five years earlier, which killed 600,000 people and was the
catalyst Pol Pot was waiting for. . . (full
article) January 29-30
David Kay, the president’s handpicked weapons of mass destruction snoop in Iraq, has resigned and criticized U.S. intelligence for not realizing that Iraqi weapons programs were in disarray. He now thinks that the stocks of chemical and biological weapons were destroyed in the 1990s — out of fear that U.N. weapons inspectors would discover them — and that new production was not initiated. He also believes that Iraq’s nuclear program had been restarted but was only at a very primitive stage — hardly the imminent threat alleged by the Bush administration as a justification for immediate war. So with the final nail being driven into the coffin of the administration’s main rationale for war against Iraq, Iraqi weapons programs are not the only things in disarray. After Kay’s initial comments, Secretary of State Colin Powell had to admit that the Iraqi government may no longer have had such arms. . . (full article)
He did not say, "hello," or even his name, just left a one-word message: "Whitewash." It came from an embattled journalist whispering from inside the bowels of a television and radio station under siege, on a small island off the coast of Ireland: from BBC London. And another call, from a colleague at the Guardian: "The future of British journalism is very bleak." However, the future for fake and farcical war propaganda is quite bright indeed. Today, Lord Hutton issued his report that followed an inquiry revealing the Blair government's manipulation of intelligence to claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass murder threatening immanent attack on London. . . (full article)
Suicide bombings that killed two peacekeepers from Britain and Canada in 48 hours have abruptly reminded Washington and its NATO allies they face major challenges in ensuring sufficient security in Afghanistan to hold credible elections scheduled for June. Already, some officials are suggesting the vote might have to be rescheduled as a result of both delays in the registration process and the security situation, particularly in the south, southeast and eastern parts of the country, where the Taliban, which was ousted by U.S.-led forces in late 2001, is resurgent. . . Reports this week that the Pentagon is preparing a major "spring offensive" against the Taliban and members of the al-Qaeda terrorist group, both in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan, suggest Washington has opted for a proactive strategy aimed precisely at minimizing the ability of those groups to disrupt the elections. . . (full article)
The great historian E.H. Carr once advised to
“Study the historian before you begin to study the facts… By and large, the
historian will get the type of facts he wants." The principle behind this
advice is pretty obvious, and it need not be confined to the practice of
history: reality will be framed in a way as to support the legitimacy and
interests of those doing the framing. If the latter happen to possess real
power—especially control of the mass media, educational institutions, and so
forth— their version of history and reality will be all the more dominant.
The Iraqi people are being taught a blunt lesson in what does and does not
constitute legitimate history. A January 20 article from Reuters is quite
revealing, if one was lucky enough to catch it before it quickly left the
headlines. Titled “Iraqis want to see Saddam’s American allies on Trial”,
the report began: "If Iraqis ever see Saddam Hussein on trial, they want his
former American allies shackled beside him." . . . (full
article)
Kerry vs. Dean; New Hampshire vs. Iraq
So the results are in.
After shellacking Dean in Iowa, Kerry once again won a very convincing
victory in New Hampshire. Democrats who made up their minds last year tended
to favor Dean, while those who made up their minds in the last four weeks
favored Kerry; those who voted based on the issues favored Dean, while those
who voted based on "electability" favored Kerry. Some cast this as a matter
of Kerry's greater experience in Washington, dealing with national and
international issues. Much more important, however, is the elephant in the
room that Democratic strategists alternately discuss feverishly and ignore:
the significance of Iraq in the upcoming election. . .
(full article)
A Populist Make-Over: Meet
John Edwards, the Corporate Man John Edwards has the best smile, the best hair and the most effective populist discourse of all the Democrats who want to be president. His endlessly repeated “Two Americas” stump speech — flaying the haves for fleecing the have-nots — has been carefully honed over months on the campaign trail. It won him second place in Iowa. But it takes more than one speech to give a contender real staying power — as the cash-strapped Edwards discovered when, by an eyelash, he lost the third-place ticket out of New Hampshire to a treasury-rich general with a weightier résumé. But what’s under the hair and behind the smile? (full article)
The facial topography of Senator John Kerry -- gravity and the exactions of time pulling his features inexorably southward, a forlorn Hawthornian feel to the whole ensemble -- remind us of another conqueror of New Hampshire in 1972: Senator Ed Muskie of Maine, on whose cheek a single tear (or was it just a snow flake?) turned into a mighty river of defeat as the press derided him for being a cry-baby, chided him for not winning by a larger margin and consigned him to history's trashcan, same way they're trying to do with Howard Dean. . . (full article)
General
Wesley Clark is a war criminal.
In a Democracy Now!
exclusive, General Wesley Clark responds for the first time to in-depth
questions about his targeting of civilian infrastructure in Yugoslavia, his
bombing of Radio Television Serbia, the use of cluster bombs and depleted
uranium, the speeding-up of the cockpit video of a bombing of a passenger
train to make it appear as though it was an accident and other decisions he
made and orders he gave as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander. . . (full
article)
(Israel-Palestine) There's
No Democracy Like No Democracy JERUSALEM: Anyone who follows the news has no doubt come across the claim that “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.” Usually, this claim is followed by its logical inference: “As an island of freedom located in a region controlled by military dictators, feudal kings and religious leaders, Israel should receive unreserved support from western liberal states interested in strengthening democratic values around the globe.” Over the years, some of the fallacies informing this line of argument have been exposed. Whereas many commentators have emphasized that foreign policy is determined by selfish interests rather than by moral dictates, few analysts have challenged the prevailing view that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. . . (full article)
Fed up with their inexcusably low poverty-line wages and bare-minimum medical care, Full-time Food Service Workers and Noon Time Aides working for the Philadelphia school District have been waging a campaign for decent wages and benefits. Recently M. Junaid Alam, co-editor of the new radical youth journal Left Hook had the opportunity to discuss the situation with Warren Heyman, chief negotiator for Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union Local 634 and Secretary Treasurer of Local 217. . . (full article)
It’s a deluge of bad news Bush stories: Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's revelations on the genesis of the war in Iraq -- initiated within weeks of President Bush taking office; O’Neill’s criticism of the president's less-than-commanding performance during cabinet meetings; a report by the Army War College's Jeffrey Record, calling the war on terrorism unfocused and the war on Iraq "a strategic error"; reports and news stories confirming no weapons of mass destruction stockpiles in Iraq. Inundated by stories such as these, Team Bush came up with its own unlikely union of initiatives -- one that shoots for the Moon and Mars, and one that aims to protect and encourage marriages here on Earth. . . (full article)
In the United States we have a group, conservative and unenlightened, ignorant to the tunes of history, in many ways similar but not as extreme as the Taliban, that is trying to impose unclimbable walls of razor sharp wire around progress for the sake of attempting to change our society to suit their conservative agenda. George W. Bush, the American Taliban, heads this group. . . (full article)
First things first. Allow me to introduce Benny the Barbarian, a Professor of history at Ben-Gurion University. His opinions are considered progressive in Israel and in certain western circles, including The Guardian, a leftist British paper that regularly publishes his articles. Of late, Benny the Barbarian has come across newly released documents from Israeli Archives that deal with the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948. . . In an interview with Haaretz, Benny “the barbarian” Morris voiced some candid and disturbing opinions about his newly acquired knowledge. Being a barbarian, Morris apparently enjoyed the accounts of massacres, rapes and forced transfers. So much so, that he opines that Ben Gurion was a wimp who didn’t have the stomach to finish off the Palestinians by cleansing them all the way to the Jordan River. He goes on to make a case for future episodes of ethnic cleansing that would include the possible transfer of Israeli Arabs. Just so you get a visual of Benny the Barbarian, the account in Haaretz noted that Morris “describes horrific war crimes offhandedly, paints apocalyptic visions with a smile on his lips.” Remember that smile as you review the discoveries of Benny the Barbarian. Here, in his own words, is a sample of the atrocities that so delighted this Israeli "progressive" historian. . . (full article)
What has and is happening to our basic
founding principals of “…establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare…”, and remember
“…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” For one, I will not sit idle
and silent while neo-con, right-wing, hand picked judges attempt to tell us
that those words do not carry constitutional weight, while at the same time
making decisions that are effectively handing this country over to
multi-national corporate America. It has been and is the duty and obligation
of our federal courts to help preserve, protect and guarantee that those
“ideas” are adhered to by all, all the time. But what if the federal court
system becomes a collection of right-wing judges that are political
ideologues? Just take a brief look at the decisions being handed down by the
Bush appointed federal judges and it’s not to difficult to see what the
result to this country will be. . . (full
article) January 27-28
Left democrats
should not mourn the Iowa debacle and possible unraveling of Howard Dean’s
supposedly populist Democratic presidential campaign. There are at least
two reasons for them to hold back the tears. . .
"Thus Far and No
Further":
Journalists Screen Presidential Candidates Last autumn, long before Democratic Party insiders Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina finished one-two in the Iowa Caucus, the most important primary of the political season was already underway. But unlike the Iowa Caucus, or the Washington DC primary held one week before it, this primary does not involve actual voters going to the polls. Rather, it is the process through which major news outlets "elect" the presidential front-runners and frame the issues, thus setting the boundaries for acceptable political discussion. Such a process - call it the Media Primary - established Kerry and, to a lesser degree, Edwards as serious candidates worthy of attention, while at the same time, it declared the campaigns of several other candidates to be unworthy of public interest. . . (full article)
How many times have you heard someone say: "I love Kucinich ... but I just don't think he's electable"? I often encounter staffers for other candidates out here in Los Angeles where I'm based, and even they often say these words to me. Saul Landau recently said on National Public Radio that Dennis's name has apparently been changed to the hyphenated "Kucinich-ButHeCan'tWin." The Congressman himself has been asked about the phenomenon repeatedly in the presidential debates. Our campaign's overarching theme is 'Fear Ends / Hope Begins.' Over and over again, people say to us: "Dennis stands for so many of my hopes and dreams. But I so intensely fear George Bush's re-election ... that I will not vote for Dennis, or donate to Dennis, or volunteer for Dennis. I will support instead some other, lesser candidate who does not really reflect my aspirations for the human community, but who has a better chance of winning on November 2nd." At the Kucinich campaign, we believe our single most effective strategy now to gain new votes is to move these individuals to change their minds. . . (full article)
My fellow American media
consumers: At a time when news cycles bring us such portentous events as the
remarkable wedding of Britney Spears, the advent of Michael Jackson's actual
trial proceedings and the start of the Democratic presidential primaries, it
is time to reflect upon the state of the media union. . .
Will there be jobs on the
moon? Or will American workers have to wait until we get to Mars? These
kinds of questions were inevitable as the White House announced a bold new
initiative to establish a base on the moon, as a first step towards sending
people to Mars. On the same day, the Labor Department surprised everyone by
reporting that only 1000 new jobs had been gained for the month of December.
. .
In reading the latest
news reports of uncontrollable corporate greed, I recalled the cover of
Fortune Magazine about 2 years ago which headlined the runaway
compensation packages of the big corporate bosses and why nothing would be
done about it. Also recalled was the Business Week cover story in the
year 2000 titled "Too Much Corporate Power?" which this leading magazine
answered yes! yes! yes! in a long article. The editors took a poll and found
72% of the responders believed that corporations had too much control over
their lives. And that response was before the corporate crime wave (Enron,
Worldcom, Tyco, Wall Street, etc.) that looted or drained trillions of
dollars from tens of millions of small investors, workers and pension
holders! Now comes Jason Adkins, the leading attorney challenging
self-enriching conversions of mutual insurance companies to stock companies,
to report on the John Hancock shenanigans. With apologies to the American
patriot, John Hancock, whose name this company seized and slandered, here is
what the top executives pulled off. . . (full
article)
Monkey See, Monkey Do
Last week, in
anticipation of George W. Bush’s State of the Union address, I took steps to
prevent a full-scale attack on my intelligence and credulity by shutting off
the television, powering down the computer, turning out the lights,
canceling the newspaper, drawing the blinds, locking the doors, hopping into
bed and pulling the covers over my face for two whole days. I believe this
is what the people at Homeland Security recommend during a Red Alert, which,
in my opinion, any speech from Boo-Boo Brain automatically becomes. Well, it
didn’t work. I got a nice rest, but that was all. Because, when I dared to
come out again, there he still was, reprinted, re-broadcast and re-spun,
lying through his teeth about “peace” and “prosperity,” vowing to keep the
world safe from “terrorists,” posing, strutting, taunting, smirking, turning
black into white and tin into gold. . .
The year 2003 saw a
number of tragedies in the efforts of conservation groups to restore our
state’s marine, anadromous and fresh water fisheries. Just as the Klamath
River fish kill dominated the headlines in 2002, the horrendous fish kill of
90 percent of the threatened spring chinook run on Butte Creek in July and
August was the big fishery story of 2003. Other notable setbacks included
the die off of salmon fingerlings and the dewatering of steelhead redds
(nests) after flows on the American River were reduced by the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation in February. . .
Don't get me wrong. I'm no corporatist. I don't know anything about markets, free or otherwise, so I really have no right to comment on them. Nevertheless, my natural hatred of authority, and something inside me that says that every child should have at least a decent opportunity to get an education, three squares a day, and sleep every night with a roof over his head, and old and sick people should have access to medical care, naturally pushed me to the left side of the spectrum, where I thought these values were cherished. On the other hand, I'm no socialist, I don't believe in any kind of government doing anything but, if the people so decide, building roads, schools and hospitals, with money the people decide to allocate, not have taken from them, stolen actually, to the tune of 40 percent of their yearly income. . . (full article)
India celebrates its
55th Republic Day on January 26, 2004. The guest of honour on the occasion
is President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil. This is the best tribute
which India can pay to the architect of G-22 coalition and a friend of the
Third World farmers. . . (full article) January 26
In his recent "Disgrace
of the Union" speech, President Bush once again highlighted his
administration's bent knee proposal to deal with the problems facing
low-income women; particularly single mothers. In three words: marry them
off. Under his recently "unveiled" $1.5 billion "marriage initiative,"
$100 million dollars a year of taxpayer's money will be distributed among
religious organizations to coerce low-income couples out of sinful
co-habitation, with the other half going to state agencies to do pretty
much the same thing. Administration Tribal Elders are clearly hoping to
revive the archaic tradition of placing daughters on the matrimonial
chopping block in the hopes of fobbing them off to the highest bidder, or
in many cases, the guy who knocked them up in the first place. . . (full
article)
Celestial Land Grabs and
the Demise of Science Bush's rhetoric has been inspiring, filling us all with images of the great advances opening for mankind, as if travel to the moon and Mars were the apex of science and, therefore, humanity. Certainly back when John F. Kennedy announced America's race to the moon it was. Sure it was about beating the Soviets but it was also about nation-building, a vast quest underpinned by the desire to make America the leading scientific nation in the world. But this time around you don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize things are a little different. . . there's the extensive investigation released last year on the state of science in Bush's America. Prepared by Democratic Representative Henry Waxman, the report, "Politics and Science - Investigating the State of Science Under the Bush Administration," charges the White House with misusing science to advance a conservative agenda. . . (full article)
The three most powerful
letters in American politics are ‘FDR.’ Franklin Roosevelt unleashed a
political revolution so powerful and complete that it required the
incredible extremism of the Bush administration to bring it to heel. That
is not to say the revolution wasn’t flagging before George took the Oval
Office chair. Democratic Presidents and Presidential hopefuls have been
running on Roosevelt rhetoric since the titan died in his fourth term, but
the facts on the ground are clear. The country has been steadily
retreating from the legacy of FDR for decades. Enter Dennis Kucinich,
Democratic congressman from Ohio, former Mayor of Cleveland, and
candidate for President in
2004. There is not a single polling indicator that puts him above ten
percent support at this point, and he managed only a 1% showing in the
Iowa caucuses. Pragmatism dictates that he is merely tilting at windmills,
but a closer look reveals something far different in play. . .
President Bush spoke on Jan. 21 about training for workers in Arizona and Ohio. In the 2000 election, he barely beat Democrat Al Gore in both states. The president’s campaign for a second term faces a bit of a “soft patch” around national job creation. A job loss economy with growth equals a potentially big presidential campaign issue. Karl Rove, Bush’s main political adviser, knows it. Millions of U.S. workers are living it. . . (full article)
On December 17 officials from Guatemala,
Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua finished negotiations with the United
States on the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). CAFTA is a bad
deal, one that promises to extend the harmful impacts of NAFTA to Mexico's
weaker southern neighbors. At the same time, boosters like US Trade
Representative
Robert Zoellick are premature in declaring victory for their hemispheric
"free trade" agenda. A week of intense negotiations in Washington
demonstrated that developing countries are not as easily browbeaten as in
the past. And the coming fight to stop ratification of the agreement will
likely show opponents of corporate globalization to be in a stronger
position than ever...
Anyone who spends anytime on a college campus these days cannot miss how higher education is changing. Strapped for money and increasingly defined in the language of corporate culture, many universities seem less interested in higher learning than in becoming licensed storefronts for brand name corporations--selling off space, buildings, and endowed chairs to rich corporate donors. . . (full article)
Iraqis have a slang term for those whom they believe guilty of thievery and chicanery, those people who steal, lie, cheat and are endowed with low levels of scruples. This term, Ali Baba, in reference to the great fictional work Arabian Nights and its story, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, has, since the occupation began, spread throughout Iraq’s population when talking about American soldiers, and, to a more extreme personality, George W. Bush. . . (full article)
Returning to Jerusalem yesterday, an Israeli soldier at the Bethlehem checkpoint glanced at my passport and mumbled "Did you enjoy the visit?" "Yes" I replied. "Well," he said pointing towards the town "it stinks in there. I smell it every day." Taken aback, I asked "What do you mean?" He repeated the comment and waved me through. The previous day at the al Hamra checkpoint, south of Jenin, I had watched a soldier order people out of their cars. It was 7:00 in the morning and the slopes of the hills down one side of the valley were bathed in soft dawn light. Songbirds flitted from tree to tree and the valley floor was lush and green – the sky pristine blue. An extensive queue of cars taking Palestinians to work had formed already and the soldier was strutting up and down in Chaplinesque fashion, his rifle comically large in proportion to his diminutive frame. Passengers were shouted instructions to line up in front of him – even local UN personnel – and harangued, while he jabbed his finger repeatedly in their direction. The intention was to humiliate and the process continued until appropriate signs of submission were displayed. Only then were the passengers permitted to continue on their way. The charade took hours and did nothing for security. But that was not the intention. . . (full article)
Israeli historian Benny Morris crossed a new line of shame when he put his academic credentials and respectability in the service of outlining the "moral" justification for a future genocide against Palestinians. . . (full article)
There is evidence of a concerted effort afoot to obfuscate the number of casualties in the US-led “war on terror.” May 1st was the day the president Bush landed on an aircraft carrier and declared the end to the war and the start of the occupation of Iraq. [1] Since then many casualty numbers have been publicized, most of them disingenuous fudges of the real death toll. There are many reasons why the casualty toll is understated, which we dissect in this brief essay. . . (full article)
I am starting to believe that America is currently operated from a bingo hall in Florida. If this sounds outlandish, just pay a little attention to the neo-con lads who now infest the corridors of power in the Beltway. Most Americans don’t know what a neo-con looks like. You could load all the neo-cons in America on a Greyhound bus and still have room for a dozen US marshals to accompany them to their treason trials. Statistically, you are more likely to meet an American Maoist than a neo-con of any nationality. If you think I exaggerate the minuscule size of this political "movement", than how come you’ve never met a real live neo-conservative? Just because these freaks are constantly beamed into your living room by FOX doesn’t mean they actually exist. In the real world you can’t find a trace of them on the political landscape of America’s heartland. In political parlance, they have no footprint, no constituency and are not a political party. . . (full article)
As Jane's Intelligence Digest and the Jerusalem Post report, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld is considering "provoking a military confrontation with Syria by attacking Hezbollah bases near the Syrian border in Lebanon." The "multi-faceted US attacks" would fall under Bush's war on terrorism, according to Douglas Davis of the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli newspaper where the dual-allegiance Richard Perle, Pentagon Defense Policy Board member, serves as director. . . (full article)
Governor
Howard Dean repeatedly defended dangerous levels of pesticide use on
Vermont farms. Vermonters for a Clean Environment has been reporting as
much ever since it issued a report almost a year ago, in March of 2002. .
. (full article) Relinquishing Sovereignty: People Power or the Police State by Kim Petersen
Canadians
often distinguish themselves from Americans by pointing to Canada’s more
progressive social politics as opposed to the harder line conservatism of
the US. Cases in point are the Canadian reluctance to openly support an
invasion of Iraq, the push behind the international treaty banning
landmines (much to the chagrin of then US president Bill Clinton who found
himself alienated from the international Zeitgeist), relaxing of
marijuana possession laws, and recognition of same-sex marriages. These
progressive trends stand in stark juxtaposition to an emboldened surge of
the political right-wing in Canada.
Canadian politics is beginning to resemble the same
two-corporate-party choice Americans have. . .
We Refuse to Take Part in the Occupation
I am Yonathan, one of the
initiators and signatories of the pilot’s letter. Until some weeks ago I
was a pilot and active leader in a squadron of “Blackhawk” helicopters in
the air force. On the eve of last Yom Kippur I was called for an
interview with the commander of the air force, wherein he told me that I
was dismissed and that I was not a pilot anymore in the Israeli air force
and all this because I announced that I will not agree to take part in
obeying illegal and immoral orders. . .
“The people of Iraq are free,” declared U.S. President George W. Bush in Tuesday’s State of the Union. The day before, 100,000 Iraqis begged to differ. They took to the streets of Baghdad shouting “Yes, yes to elections. No, no to selection.” According to Iraq occupation chief Paul Bremer, there really is no difference between the White House’s version of freedom and the one being demanded on the street. Asked Friday whether his plan to form an Iraqi government through appointed caucuses was headed towards a clash with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani ’s call for direct elections, Bremer said he had no “fundamental disagreement with him.” It was, he said, a mere quibble over details. . . (full article)
President Bush's
State of the Union address was one small example of self-aggrandizing
puffery and one large chutzpatic attempt to wipe the failed occupation of
Iraq from our collective memory. I'll let you decide if the president: a)
said enough about the hundreds of US and Iraqi dead and the thousands of
US and Iraqi wounded; b) recognized the reality of bombs bursting in cars
on the streets of Baghdad and other cities; c) explained why he won't
extend the time for investigating the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon; and d) addressed Paul Bremer's desperate attempts
to get the United Nations involved in resolving the question of elections
in Iraq. Did Bush really say that David Kay had discovered evidence of
dozens of "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" in
Iraq? And, did the president actually boast of the involvement of Norway
and El Salvador in his bought-and-paid-for "coalition of the willing?"
Shame on you
thinking with your monkey heads these 5 thousand years. Shame on you all
for wasting this planet without at least consulting me. Your heads above
and below incurred this outrageous bill from Mother Earth, but we're out
of all the Time we borrowed we have no collateral we cannot pay we’re
through as a species, finished. . . (full
article)
January 22-23
Go
ahead, George, and lie to me. Lie to my dog. Lie to my sister. But don't you
ever lie to my kids. Deep into your State of the Siege lecture last night,
long after sensible adults had turned off the tube or kicked in the screen,
you came after our children. "By passing the No Child Left Behind Act," you
said, "We are regularly testing every child ... and making sure they have
better options when schools are not performing." You said it ... and then
that little tongue came out; that weird way you stick your tongue out
between your lips like the little kid who knows he's fibbing. Like a snake
licking a rat. I saw that snakey tongue dart out and I thought, "He knows."
And what you know, Mr. Bush, is this: you've ordered this testing to hunt
down, identify and target for destruction the hopes of millions of children
you find too expensive, too heavy a burden, to educate. . . (full
article)
State of the Union 2004
George W. Bush's most recent state of the union address didn't contain the caliber of bald-faced, smoking-gun lies that we have come to expect from him, like the "sixteen words" in the last one (about Iraq supposedly seeking uranium from "Africa"), but it was certainly replete with dishonesty and misrepresentation. Disclaimer: The author in no way undertakes to assure that the examples of dishonesty presented below constitute an exhaustive list. . . (full article)
George
Bush went on TV Tuesday night and told us all how good it is in America
thanks to all the things he has done. He painted a rosy picture of economic
recovery, renewed prosperity, new job growth, and many victories in the war
on terror. The facts he presented to America did not even remotely resemble
the true facts behind the greatest crisis America has ever faced. No matter
how he described the current situation in America, nothing he said came
close to the truth about the real state of the union. The facts Bush used to
show how great we are doing are just so many more lies and deceptions on top
of an already long list of betrayals and deceits that he has committed
against the country as a whole. . .
Stephen Zunes takes apart the foreign policy side of Bush's State of the Union Address. Commentary you won't hear on CNN or Faux News . . . (full article)
In America's early years, only a few men of considerable substance could vote. Any concept of wider democracy disturbed America's founding fathers as risking their wealth to the votes and whims of men without any. With the gradual, unavoidable extension of the American franchise over two hundred years of wars and social movements, a political system gradually emerged preserving the founders' concerns. Americans in theory can vote for anyone, but the candidates they see and hear and whose names appear on all the ballots in so vast a land will only be people effectively pre-selected by those of great substance. It is an inherently conservative system. . . (full article)
In the face of non-stop assaults on peace, justice, and common sense, even hardened radicals are suddenly touting mainstream Democratic candidates and ruthlessly attacking anyone who has stuck to the belief that both parties merely offer different versions of the same poison. Thanks to the antics of people like Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, war criminal Wesley Clark has even convinced Michael Moore of his "anti-war" status. Dubya and his cartoonish band of reactionaries have accomplished something Al Gore couldn't manage: They've made the Democratic Party appear distinct...even (shudder) progressive. From my perspective, the key word in that last sentence is "appear." While the parties are not monolithic (spending time with Cynthia McKinney will convince anyone of that), at the highest level (i.e. presidential candidates, powerful Senate and House members), perception surmounts reality. Bush may talk the talk on national security while Ted Kennedy regurgitates his pro-social services spiel but neither really gives a shit about the soldiers dying Iraq or a disabled (dis-labeled?) child in an inner city school. They're selling an image, a package...and we're the all-too-willing consumers. . . (full article)
The American nation-state led by the Bush Administration, and the transnational rebel group led by Bin Laden, has brought to life the artificially fabricated insanity that Hannah Arendt so dreaded. But the situation is far worse than she could have imagined. The insanity that permeates the psyche of the United States of America and the mysterious Al Qaeda is being carefully nurtured by Bush and Bin Laden, the products of wealthy families intertwined in business dealings for decades. Rather than trying to find a mid-point where some commonality and reduction of violence might be found, these two zealots and their minions have eliminated the possibility of any peaceful outcome and, instead, daily sow the seeds of destruction for the causes they claim to promote. In short, perpetual ideological conflict played out on the battlefields of the world. . . (full article)
I am a reporter, who values bearing witness. That is to say, I place paramount importance in the evidence of what I see, and hear, and sense to be the truth, or as close to the truth as possible. By comparing this evidence with the statements, and actions of those with power, I believe it’s possible to assess fairly how our world is controlled and divided, and manipulated – and how language and debate are distorted and a false consciousness developed. . . (full article)
Iowans
seem pretty happy with their quadrennial caucuses. The results are now in
and the 2004 presidential election season has been kicked off. Half a
world away, however, Iraqi Shiites have launched massive demonstrations
against the Bush administration’s plan for caucuses to elect an interim
national assembly. Why do Iowans love what Iraqi Shiites hate? (full
article)
The Syrian Threat
"Out
of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the
land" (Jer 1:14) is a verse every Israeli pupil learns by heart. This
biblical truth has never been more true than these days: the Syrian
President, in a major threat to the Jewish state, offers Israel to resume
peace talks. A blatant crime against
war itself.
Israel, understandably, is forced to defend itself. . . (full
article)
Iowa's Lessons The Dean movement was always more interesting than its candidate. It carried seeds of hope for the progressive left because it appeared to be coagulating a new, grassroots, alternative power center within the Democratic Party to fight its money-addicted, poll-driven establishment. But that movement was dealt two fatal body blows Monday night—once by the Iowa voters, 82 percent of whom voted against its candidate. And once by the candidate himself. . . (full article)
The prime beneficiary of the Iowa caucuses was the battered Iowa economy, pulling in $100 per voter in the caucuses, spent by the candidates mostly in TV advertising. In terms of political import history instructs that the victory in these caucuses offers a high likelihood of imminent political extinction. . . (full article)
A pervasive illusion has been dissolved this week, creating an opportunity for a powerful step forward. It's an illusion that has gone under the banner of "electability" -- rational people assessing which candidate has the best chance of beating Bush. Underneath the surface debate, there's another truth, driven more by fear and emotion than an accurate appraisal of the landscape. People have been afraid that, in order to defeat a colossal bully, we need an even more macho fighter in our corner. And thus a lot of very well-meaning people propelled Dean to the foreground, believing his fire, attitude and military-like campaign would prove a clear match for the other, much nastier bully. A natural, very human instinct. Round 1 is over. The unstoppable, win-win-win bluster of our favored tough guy detonated back on him. . . (full article)
In a sign of abject and anyone-but-Bush desperation, leftie filmmaker Michael Moore and George McGovern, the dove of the Democrats in 1972, have both come out for General Wesley Clark. Moore, in a January 14 posting on his website, wrote, "I believe that Wesley Clark will end this war. He will make the rich pay their fair share of taxes. He will stand up for the rights of women, African Americans, and the working people of this country. And he will cream George Bush." Why Moore thinks Clark will get the United States out of Iraq and end that war is beyond me. . . (full article)
Is the tide turning?
George W. Bush and his puppetmaster Karl Rove tried to upstage the Democrats
with a State of the Union Address full of tricks and gimmicks, martian
distractions and rattling sabers. It backfired. The stunning results from
Iowa far overshadowed Bush's lame, malapropic stump speech. Space travel,
gay marriage, steriods in baseball, these are the burning issues for a
Republican Party smug enough to be certain they can steal any election. The
week's signature GOP moment came from Tom DeLay's Texas, where a woman who
sells vibrators was arrested for possessing more than two. In a state that's
just been redistricted to prevent any Democrats from going to Congress, we
see the GOP as the ultimate Luddites. Are Texas men that insecure? What will
they ban next? Massage oil? (full article) January 20-21
Today the President gives his annual address. As the election battle begins, how does his first term add up? (full article)
As if we didn't have enough to worry about here on "Terror Firma," the Bushi'ites have now set their unblinking, beady eyes on space, starting with a plan to extend Texas's borders to the moon and moving on to conquering the war planet itself. In the wake of NASA's success with "Spirit", a Mars probing rover now scouring the Martian soil for signs of life, Bush has cashed in on the moment with a blank check to cover the future costs of destabilizing the solar system, with the eventual goal of establishing a permanent military presence on Mars. For the evil geniuses plotting Intergalactic Armageddon from their revolving steakhouse headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue, regime change can now be applied to any ravaged and barren "wasteland", particularly ones ill-equipped to defend themselves against their "liberators". . . (full article)
When astronauts first walked on the moon back in 1969, the original "Star Trek" had just ended, our poverty rate was 12.1 percent, the unemployment rate was 3.5 percent, the federal budget had a surplus, the national debt was an inflation-adjusted $1.8 trillion, the Vietnam War was raging, and the National Environmental Policy Act signaled a greener future. Three-and-a-half decades later, our poverty rate is 12.1 percent and unemployment is nearly 6 percent, not counting workers so discouraged by the longest job-loss period since the Great Depression they've given up seeking work. The budget deficit zooms toward $500 billion, the national debt is over $7 trillion, casualties mount in Iraq, and catastrophic climate change is a real and present danger. With the state our union is in, we must not squander billions to boldly go where man has gone before. . . (full article)
Iraqi chickens are coming to roost as President Bush's advisors attempt to draft a State of the Union Message without the embarrassing flaws of their last try. With last year's hyperbole -- replete with the knee-slapper about Baghdad's seeking uranium in Africa -- forming part of the backdrop, they have their work cut out for them. And the facts are not cooperating. Administration claims originally adduced to justify war could not withstand close scrutiny, and even the likes of columnist George Will have disdainfully rejected ''retroactive'' justifications. The gap between earlier claims about the Iraqi threat and last year's experience on the ground has become a chasm too wide to be bridged by rhetorical finesse. . . (full article)
It is well established that money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Neoliberalism has accelerated the ever-widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. The developing nations are a source of massive profits for the foreign corporations that exploit the resources; meanwhile the locals become poorer. Within the rich nations, the same economic dichotomization plays out with the poor becoming increasingly worse off and the rich becoming obscenely richer. Is this the kind of world that most people want? (full article)
When is a Democracy Not a
Democracy?
In a speech on November 19 last year, President George W. Bush extolled the virtues of democracy. "We will help the Iraqi people establish a peaceful and democratic country in the heart of the Middle East," he said. The call for democracy has become so constant that one Gulf-based political analyst, Moghazy al-Badrawy, likens it to a boring, broken record that nobody believes. But while Arabs are skeptical about America's motives and its methods of bringing democracy to their world, closer to home few people are querying the supposed base of their society. Perhaps they should be. It's not only the growing reality of Fortress America and the increasing level of civil constraints that are causing some Americans to question their democratic basis; the integrity of the electoral system itself is under fire. . . (full article)
Jenin: A Town of Wasted Hopes
We hate to sound like your parents, but
people must take responsibility for their actions. Steal from the grocery
store, go to jail. Double park, pay the ticket. But why doesn't this
simple principle apply to corporations and their executives?
Bushwhacking Mother
Nature: US Environmental Destruction Abroad
While
some German politicians are worried about the closing of US military bases
in their regions, others fear nasty surprises will surface after the
Americans depart. The United States has consistently valued military power
more than the environment - but at what price? (full
article)
The Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You
Think
When President Bush signed the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2004 on November 24, 2003, the event received considerable attention in the news media. At $401.3 billion, the public's visible cost of funding the nation's defense seemed to be reaching astronomical heights, and the president took pains to justify that enormous cost by linking it to the horrors of 9/11 and to the “war on terror.” He pledged that “we will do whatever it takes to keep our nation strong, to keep the peace, and to keep the American people secure,” clearly implying that such payoffs would accrue from the expenditures and other measures that the act authorizes. Although the public may appreciate that $401.3 billion is a great deal of money, few citizens realize that it is only part of the total bill for defense. . . (full article)
The International
Human Rights March of Women has finally come to an end, and it was much
harder and more successful than any of us had hoped for. This was a 3-week
march (from December 20 through January 10) through Israel and Palestine,
and 100-150 women came from overseas to participate, in addition to the
locals - Palestinians and Israelis - who joined intermittently.
Women marched in all the major cities of Palestine (with the exception of
Nablus, then under curfew) and Israel (with the exception of Haifa).
Along the way, the women witnessed and often experienced the brutal heart
of the occupation -- checkpoints, curfews, closures, demolished homes, the
'security' wall, refugee camps, and -- on the Israeli side -- sites of
terrible suicide bombings. . . (full
article) January 17-19, 2004
One thousand. That is the total number of new jobs the U.S. economy created in December, the Labor Department reported. On average, 65,000 new jobs were created each of the three previous months. Then in December there was a sharp stop in U.S. job creation. Officially, the American economy is in a recovery mode. It is growing since the recession that began in March 2001 ended eight months later. But recovering is not what the 309,000 people who left the U.S. work force in December are doing. These hapless and nameless souls are surely struggling to survive as best they can. . . (full article)
The administration of President George W.
Bush "systematically misrepresented" the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction (WMD), three non-proliferation experts from a prominent
Washington think tank charged last week. In a
107-page report, Jessica Mathews, Joseph Cirincione and George
Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) called
for the creation of an independent commission to fully investigate what
the U.S. intelligence community knew, or believed it knew, about Iraq's
WMD programme from 1991 to 2003, and whether its analyses were tainted by
foreign intelligence agencies or political pressure. . . (full
article)
Memo for the President: Your
State-of-the-Union Address We write this, our fifth such memorandum to you since our critique of Secretary of State Colin Powell's UN speech last February, out of concern that the same advisers who served you so poorly in drafting the Iraq section of last year's state-of-the-union address will embarrass you again. Your credibility and that of the intelligence community suffered a major blow from the hyperbole that characterized that speech-not to mention the infamous 16 words based on the forgery alleging that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa. The panel led by Gen. Brent Scowcroft, whom you asked to investigate how that wound up in your speech, reportedly attributes it to desperation on the part of your staff to "find something affirmative" to support claims like those made by Vice President Dick Cheney that Saddam Hussein had "reconstituted" Iraq's nuclear program. We suggest you ensure that those over-eager functionaries responsible for the 16 words, and for your claim last spring that weapons of mass destruction had been found in the form of two "bio-trailers"-since proven to be generators of hydrogen for weather balloons-take no hand in drafting this year's address. . . (full article)
These are desperate
days for Entergy, the big Arkansas-based power conglomerate that owns the
frail Indian Point nuclear plant, located on the east bank of the Hudson
River outside Buchanan, New York-just 22 miles from Manhattan. First, a
scathing report by a nuclear engineer fingered Indian Point as one of five
worst nuclear plants in the United States and predicted that its emergency
cooling system "is virtually certain to fail." . . . (full
article)
MLK Day More Than A Dream
"I have a dream.” The words were not just a
vision, but an attitude of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
for all Americans. But, we had to get there first. 41 years later, where
are we? (full article)
Nabokov and “W” I recently saw a TV special on the First Lady -- Mrs. Laura Bush. As TV cameras rolled I got a nagging feeling that I had experienced this once before until I remembered one passage in “Bend Sinister” written by a Russian born American writer Vladimir Nabokov in the years between Hitler’s rise to power and his defeat, depicting the home life of two of its protagonists: “With conventional humour and sympathy bordering upon the obscene, Mr. Etermon and the little woman were followed through all mentionable stages of their existence, which despite the presence of cozy furniture and high tech gadgets did not differ essentially from the life of a Neanderthal couple.” . . . (full article)
Can the President of
the United States arrest any American he suspects of being a terrorist and
toss him in a military brig, deny him a lawyer, omit to bring any charges
against him -- yet indefinitely keep him imprisoned nonetheless?
At a time when people
speak of a new world order, when production, capital, the labor force, and
the market are all being internationalized, when borders no longer seem
important, suddenly there emerges the phenomenon known as the radical
right, associated with extreme nationalism. We see it in Europe and in the
US administration, while among the have-nots we find its counterpart in
Islamic fundamentalism. Before what, then, do we stand: before an era of
globalization or before one of nationalism and religious fanaticism? Is
the world opening or closing?
Benny Morris is the dean of Israeli "new historians," who have done so much to create a critical vision of Zionism--its expulsion and continuing oppression of the Palestinians, its pressing need for moral and political atonement. His 1987 book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, chronicled the Zionist murders, terrorism, and ethnic cleansing that drove 600,000-750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948, thus refuting the myth that they fled under the orders of Arab leaders. . . But in an astonishing recent Ha'aretz interview, after summarizing his new research, Morris proceeds to argue for the necessity of ethnic cleansing in 1948. He faults David Ben-Gurion for failing to expel all Arab Israelis, and hints that it may be necessary to finish the job in the future. Though he calls himself a left-wing Zionist, he invokes and praises the fascist Vladimir Jabotinsky in calling for an "iron wall" solution to the current crisis. Referring to Sharon's Security Wall, he says, "Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another." He calls the conflict between Israelis and Arabs a struggle between civilization and barbarism, and suggests an analogy frequently drawn by Palestinians, though from the other side of the Winchester: "Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians." . . . (full article)
The Bush administration, in the mid-November Agreement on Political Process signed by L. Paul Bremer for the Coalition Provisional Authority and Jalal Talabani for the Iraqi Governing Council, came face to face with the fundamental issue in Iraq. In the pursuit of democracy, does the United States work out a process and a calendar that fits Iraqi needs or one that dovetails with the logic of the 2004 presidential election? Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the White House opted for the latter. . . (full article)
Once
again, the U.S. government is contradicting itself with regard to
democracy in Iraq. By denying the people a chance to vote, with UN
monitors, the U.S. is pushing the idea of selected caucuses with voting to
be done in limited ways; by doing this, the U.S. is showing that it is
being hypocritical when it says it wants “democracy” for Iraq. What it
actually wants is a fractured country, with Shi’a, Sunni and Kurds all
having small sections of the country and a legislature that will be
powerless to agree on anything because of these three divisions. If we are
to be the leader in "democracy," then we have to be consistent and
responsible in our behavior; otherwise, we will continue to be seen as a
hollow imitation of democracy in the third and even in other first world.
. . (full article) In a world seemingly gone mad, it is ironic that one of most sane and reasonable actions to come out of the Middle East recently has emanated from the government of Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator long recognized as an international outlaw. Libya's stunning announcement that it is giving up its nascent biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs and accepting international assistance and verification of its disarmament efforts is a small but important positive step in the struggle to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). It would be a big mistake, however, to accept claims by the Bush administration and its supporters that it was the invasion of Iraq and other threatened uses of force against so-called "rogue states" which pursue WMD programs that led to Libya's decision to end its WMD programs. . . (full article)
Tom Stienstra, San Francisco Chronicle outdoor columnist and author, once described the American River Parkway as the "crown jewel" of the Sacramento region. For the hundreds of thousands of anglers, bicyclists, runners, kayakers, picnickers and other users of this unique urban river and parkway, this description is perfect. . . However, this wonderful parkway and the great fishing and other recreational opportunities may be shut down if the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors proceeds with their proposed budget cuts. According to the Sacramento Bee front page story on January 12, "the county likely will consider closing the American River Parkway and other regional parks February 10 on its way to cutting another $10 million and 92 jobs." . . . (full article)
Anyone who doubts former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s recent claims that President Bush mislead the public and secretly planned the Iraq war eight months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 needs to read the two letters sent to then President Bill Clinton in 1998 and Speaker of the House Trent Lott by current members of the Bush administration urging Clinton to launch a preemptive strike against Iraq. . . (full article)
I believe that this Administration is indeed leading this country to a perilous place. It has broken faith with the American people, aided and abetted by a Congressional majority willing to pursue ideology at any price, even the price of distorting the truth. On issue after issue, they have moved brazenly to impose their agenda on America and on the world. They have pursued their goals at the expense of urgent national and human needs and at the expense of the truth. America deserves better. . . Nowhere is the danger to our country and to our founding ideals more evident than in the decision to go to war in Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has now revealed what many of us have long suspected. Despite protestations to the contrary, the President and his senior aides began the march to war in Iraq in the earliest days of the Administration, long before the terrorists struck this nation on 9/11. (full article)
For decades, one of the most important public voices of clarity has come from Ralph Nader. First known as a “consumer advocate” in the 1960s, his focus soon broadened to include the fundamental imperatives of fighting corporate power and promoting genuine participatory democracy. When he ran for president in 1996 and more vehemently in 2000, he seemed to embody a cause much greater than himself. Nader was a leader with a keen sense of hearing ordinary people -- including activists strategically at work to improve our country. But now, Nader seems to be so transfixed with his own vision that he’s much less inclined to be listening. Many who supported his previous presidential campaigns (myself included) are opposed to a 2004 Nader race -- and aghast that he’s on the verge of deciding to go ahead with it. . . (full article)
Paul O'Neill, in interviews to publicize | |
