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June 2004 Articles
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DV Articles
November 2003
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My home town is one of those slowly rotting East Coast burgs that makes passers-through think to themselves: "What the hell is this? Mayberry USA on crack?" The town's 250-year old core is a blighted clot of ramshackle houses carved into apartments and cheesy businesses. Its outer rim of slurb is the typical ugly gash of commercial hell, an assortment of mindlessly jammed-together tire dealers, grim asphalt, slurp and burps, and car dealerships of the type that make the U.S. one of the ugliest nations on earth. A sign in the median strip of this gash proclaims Winchester an official U.S. "All-American Town." To its credit however, the town does have that special kind of seediness found only in the American South. It might even be considered weirdly colorful in an America Studies sort of way, with its hard-faced characters straight out of Grapes of Wrath and spooky and well-scrubbed Bible thumpers. Beauty being in the eye of the beholder, our local Chamber of Commerce calls it "Historic Winchester, Virginia." But many of us who grew up here call it Dickville; if you were born and raised here you were probably dicked from the beginning....(full article)
Taking Turkey as the focal point and with a start date of 1998, it is easy to speculate why Sibel Edmonds indicated that there was a convergence of US and foreign counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism and US national security and economic interests all of which were too preoccupied to surface critical information warning Americans of the attacks of September 11, 2001. After all, who would have believed drug runners operating in Central Asia? And besides, President Clinton was promoting Turkey, one of the world’s top drug transit points, as a model for Muslim-Western cooperation and a country necessary to reshape the Middle East. The FBI’s Office of International Operations, in conjunction with the CIA and the US State Department counter-narcotics section, the United Kingdom’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s ISI, the US DEA, Turkey’s MIT, and the governments and intelligence agencies of dozens of nations, were in one way or another involved in the illicit drug trade either trying to stop it or benefit from it. What can be surmised from the public record is that from 1998 to September 10, 2001, the War on Drugs kept bumping into the nascent War on Terror and new directions in US foreign policy....(full article)
On March 20, the first anniversary of the Iraq war, Bill Mitchell, a devoted father, joined the worldwide protest in San Luis Obispo, Calif. He carried a big photo of his son that read, “Bring my son home now.” A week later, his son, Sgt. Michael Mitchell was killed attempting to rescue a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Sadr City --killed in an occupation his father tried to end. All tragedies are unique. Last week, I reached Bill Mitchell in Atascadero. We talked about his grief, his son’s courage in battle, the fire in his soul and his campaign to halt the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Mitchell is a new member of Military Families Speak Out -- more than 1,500 soldiers, veterans and relatives opposed to war in Iraq....(full interview)
The debut of Michael Moore’s film
“Fahrenheit 9/11” juxtaposed with the turnover of power to the Iraqis by
the coalition authority in Baghdad represent the reality and the fiction
of the Iraq War. But which is which?
Much of the establishment press has been especially critical of Michael Moore. In the past few days, it has questioned every word he has said, every line in his third documentary, “Fahrenheit 9/11.” The film attacks President George W. Bush, the Bush Administration, corporate America, and the media. It has been called propaganda and manipulative; Moore has been called obnoxious, arrogant, and detestable....(full article)
Everyone knows that Michael Moore is against George Bush, but after watching “Fahrenheit 9/11” last Friday I was left wondering what he’s for. Is he for peace, or is Moore just against Dubya? (full article)
So, what's up with the New York Times? Looks like being publicly ridiculed for dumping the WMD crap too close to the house and then tracking it in on the rug in those critical months before attacking Iraq would have taught it something. It's a new experience for those of us who once revered the Times as the epitome of solid journalism to read it now with a grain of salt, and even then we can't keep the truth from slip-sliding away. Does this country's "newspaper of record" not have fact checkers? Editors? Considering that nobody seems to care about the truth anymore, figuring out if Times reporters are liars or ignorant -- or both -- is getting to be a real head-scratcher....(full article)
Good news out of Baghdad: the Program Management Office, which oversees the $18.4 billion in US reconstruction funds, has finally set a goal it can meet. Sure, electricity is below prewar levels, the streets are rivers of sewage and more Iraqis have been fired than hired. But now the PMO has contracted with British mercenary firm Aegis to protect its employees from "assassination, kidnapping, injury and" -- get this -- "embarrassment." I don't know whether Aegis will succeed in protecting PMO employees from violent attack, but embarrassment? I'd say mission already accomplished. The people in charge of rebuilding Iraq can't be embarrassed, because, clearly, they have no shame....(full article)
Baruch Kimmerling reviews American
conservative guru Samuel Huntington's new book, Who We Are?: The
Challenges to America's National Identity. Huntington claims that
alongside its immigrant nature, the American nation was, and remains, a
white, religious, Puritan-Protestant nation that absorbed human elements,
especially from (white) Europe, along with ideas from the European
Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. It became an immense melting pot in
which people and ideas were subjected to a blunt process of
Americanization. As long as the mechanisms of Americanization functioned
properly (while also carefully selecting who would be allowed to join the
nation), the US became the fulfillment of prosperous humanity's most
advanced dreams, and it marched vigorously on toward a world hegemony. But
like all other hegemonic empires in human history, it, too, began to
crumble from within as it reached its zenith. And that is exactly where
the US stands today. Huntington believes that unless appropriate measures
are taken soon, the US will implode and come to resemble the countries of
South America. Such a prospect fills the heart of any "real" American with
deep dread....(full article)
"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" I’m not talking about the “end of occupation” or the farcical “transfer of power” in Iraq. Nor do I mock the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, which Dr. King himself borrowed from an old Negro spiritual for his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. No, I’m celebrating freedom as only the freed can -- the precious gift granted to all Americans last week, when Vice President Dick Cheney, “during a photo session in the usually decorous Senate chamber,” exploded in “colorful profanity,” according to the Washington Post, and told Vermont’s Senator Patrick Leahy to “f—k” himself....(full article)
A chance meeting on the Senate floor during a photo session on June 22 between Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., turned into an argument about Cheney's questionable ties to Halliburton Co., and it ended when Cheney offered this crass advice to Leahy: "Fuck yourself." Since that is a physical impossibility, Cheney's remark should not be interpreted in its literal sense; however, the Washington Post printed it verbatim as they have been wont to do with anything emanating from the aura of the Bush administration. "For nearly three years, murky speculation, innuendo and inaccurate information have kept a connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks of Sept.11 alive in the American mind," said The New York Times....(full article)
Dick Cheney on great f***en moments in
American history....
toni solo in Central America reports on widespread popular protests and resistance throughout Latin America to US economic aggression and imperialism, which the US mainstream media fails to cover....(full article)
This morning I mailed a form changing my party registration from “decline to state” to the Green Party. It’s a tiny individual step in response to a hugely important collective action – the party’s decision at its national convention to nominate David Cobb for president....(full article)
The Green Party of the United States took a huge step forward on Saturday, June 26th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And it wasn't because the assembled delegates nominated someone, David Cobb, for President. It was because of HOW it was done....(full article)
Recently had the misfortune of belatedly happening upon a Ronald Reagan commemoration penned by the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass, who holds down the page-2 column space formerly claimed by legendary Chicago journalist Mike Royko. Like Royko, Kass does an often-good job of criticizing the reigning local Richard Daley administration (Richard J. in Royko’s day and Richard M. in Kass’s day). When he’s not usefully pricking Daley II, however, Kass often goes off the reactionary deep-end. In past articles, I have shown him slandering the global justice movement and idiotically embracing the senseless waste of American lives in Iraq. Kass’s right-wing crap was really flying in a June 11th column he titled “Reagan Taught Us To Stand Tall as Americans.” Below I present the entire column, but I have broken it up with rudely interjected anti-authoritarian commentary. Reading Kass’s column closely, I was taken aback at its practically fascist implications and its relentless stupidity. I know many people who can think and write circles around the certainly well-paid John Kass and who struggle to make ends meet. But there’s no amount of money that could get them to produce the sort of atrocious nonsense that Kass gets away with on a fairly regular basis....(full article)
At the end of June, Paul Bremer will don a silk suit and his trademark combat boots and take one last short drive to Baghdad International Airport. On the last five-mile stretch leading to the terminal, he will hold his breath and pray the Iraqi insurgents won’t take one final shot at his convoy. Accompanying Bremer will be a well-armed contingent of former Navy Seals prepared to take on all comers. Behind him, he will leave a legacy of chaos and abject failure. The only part of Iraq that Emperor Bremer will leave with a semblance of normality will be a fiefdom known as the Green Zone....(full article)
If the Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal was a moral tipping point -- the final step in transforming Iraq's foreign liberators into its oppressors -- it came in-between two military tipping points in the ongoing struggle between armed insurgents and the US-led occupation forces; in-between, that is, the battle for Falluja in the Sunni triangle and the battle for Najaf in the Shia heartland. In combination, these put George W. Bush in a listening mode during his meeting with French President Jacques Chirac in early June and led to a series of redrafts of the Anglo-American resolution on Iraq at the UN Security Council....(full article)
Baghdad:
How
much worse does it need to get here before the occupiers consider changing
their policy? 100 dead every day? In light of what happened here
yesterday, it appears as though we're heading in that direction. For those
of you who think June 30 will signify a decrease in the number and
magnitude of attacks against the occupation forces after the "transfer of
sovereignty" -- think again....(full
article)
Bush's War on the Truth Bush and Cheney have in recent days flip-flopped on the their claims about an imagined link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Last September Bush said, “We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11.” Three days earlier on Meet the Press, Dick Cheney was less emphatic, “We don’t know. We’ve learned some things.” Now, as the 9-11 Commission’s staff report states that they found no evidence of “a collaborative relationship” between Al-Qaeda and Saddam’s regime, let alone a link between Saddam and 9-11, Bush and Cheney have reasserted their belief that Al-Qaeda and Saddam had “ties” or "contacts" -- depending on their moods apparently....(full article)
It is clear that important new evidence about al Qaeda has been gathered and released by the 9/11 Commission. But it is also clear that the commission did nothing when a Justice Department official, in commission testimony last week, brazenly covered up the embarrassing relationship of the FBI to a senior al Qaeda operative, Ali Mohamed. By telling the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to release Mohamed in 1993, the FBI may have contributed to the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya five years later....(full article)
In his book Weapons of Mass Persuasion, University of Toronto history professor Paul Rutherford takes a cultural studies approach to “Marketing the War Against Iraq.” This was a “War by Disney,” as one of his informants commented. The representation of this war “bore the signature of some of the most successful products of…made-in-America popular culture.” In an interview cited by Antonia Zerbisias in the Toronto Star just before the book’s release, Rutherford seemed to lay out his own point of view clearly: "For a brief time the United States ceased to be a democracy and became a propaganda state."....(full article)
Kim Petersen on Bush's recent decision to defy international law and approve Israel's ethnic cleansing and annexation of territory seized in the war of 1967, and Congress's overwhelming support for Bush's move....(full article)
Along the route of the separation barrier in the West Bank, a new culture is springing up: on one side, soldiers and bulldozers; on the other, Israelis and Palestinians embracing the land and the trees, trying to save them both. Last week, Ariel Sharon decided he was secure enough in the role of man of peace to start pushing the wall towards the settlements of Ariel and Kedumim, deep in the West Bank, about 20 kilometres from Israel. And since then the Israelis and Palestinians have also been there....(full article)
Daniel Patrick Welch on Michael Moore's new film, Fahrenheit 9-11, and the potential impact it may have in galvanizing an apathetic and mislead American public into action....(full article)
Lethal new regulations from President Bush’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, quietly issued with no fanfare last week, complete the right-wing Republicans’ goal of gutting HIV-prevention education in the United States. In place of effective, disease-preventing safe-sex education, little will soon remain except failed programs that denounce condom use, while teaching abstinence as the only way to prevent the spread of AIDS. And those abstinence-only programs, researchers say, actually increase the risk of contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)....(full article)
When tourists view a famous and oft-photographed vista site, they often say, “Pretty as a picture.” After hearing this exact statement and similar others, many times at tourist sites, I’ve come to understand this strange statement to mean that the actual vista is there to corroborate a mind/memory photograph. Its origin is a photograph seen in the print or electronic media, downloaded and stored in the viewer’s mind. Though artificial, this mind/memory photograph is the real vista site rather than the vista itself....(full article)
News about financial markets is 24/7.
Coverage of this or that stock price moving up and down comes fast and
hard. Earth’s orbit would appear to be dependent on what the Federal
Reserve Bank does or does not do to interest rates. The inquiring minds of
investors want to know that, and more. Constantly, they search for a
crystal ball to tell them what tomorrow may bring for their investments.
Such knowledge is a precious thing to them, indeed. What is assumed here
needs to be explained. Namely, why is it that investment capital flows
into financial markets in the first place? Why not invest in producing
things that people make/grow, sell, buy and use?
Dear Future Democrats:
Mark Hand reviews Mickey Z.'s latest book, The Seven Deadly Spins: Exposing the Lies Behind War Propaganda: What if every American were handed a toolkit that could be used to break down the lies of the war planners in Washington? Would it be enough to cleanse our minds of the diet of myths we’ve been fed our entire lives about the righteousness of our military and its foreign interventions? (full review)
Picture this: Al-Qaeda offers Washington a "provisional" guarantee not to attack the country or seek to target US interests abroad in return for the US dismantling its military. The agreement would depend on the US giving international inspectors access to US military sites and meeting a series of deadlines for disabling and dismantling its military facilities, and then shipping them out of the country. Would Washington agree? Never. No country would deliberately leave itself defenseless, simply because an enemy promised not to attack, and then only provisionally. Yet absurd as the proposal is, this is what Washington is offering North Korea....(full article)
On June 15, guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) massacred 34 coca farmers in Norte de Santander. The rebels woke the victims in the middle of the night, tied their hands and feet, and then executed them with automatic weapons. Most U.S. mainstream media outlets immediately broadcast the news of this brutal act. While the FARC were rightfully condemned in the media for this slaughter of civilians, coverage of two recent large-scale paramilitary massacres was virtually non-existent. Following a long established pattern, the mainstream media continues to emphasize human rights abuses by leftist guerrillas, while often ignoring those perpetrated by right-wing paramilitaries allied with the Colombian military....(full article)
My Life is an extraordinary book that should be read and reread by every socialist. Of course, we mean My Life by the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. My Life by Bill Clinton, on the other hand, is pompous piece of junk -- lies and distortions served up with Clinton’s teary-eyed smile, rather than trademark snarl that we’re used to from George Bush....(full article)
Despite the president's campaign pledge that "W stands for Woman," Bush tends to bomb out with the fairer sex. Unsurprisingly, a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has registered women voters favoring Kerry over Bush by a full 12 percentage point. So it's no wonder that the Bush campaign is working overtime to nab critical female voters, enlisting wife Laura and various female administration members to carry Bush's message from the Oval Office to the powder room. But Bush just doesn't seem to get it. "What women want" is to be heard, not to receive a message. Women want to be asked questions and to be given honest answers -- and that's precisely the area over which Bush is losing female voters....(full article)
When a federal judge compares George W. Bush to Benito Mussolini, is that newsworthy? (full article)
The Roman Catholic Church is making the "abortion" issue its main concern in the upcoming 2004 election, just as it did when Ronald Reagan first captured the White House back in 1980. It calls abortion "the greatest social issue of all time," and it's doing everything it can to back anti-abortion candidates, without regard to critically important social and geopolitical matters, such as the evil of perpetual wars....(full article)
In a number of states and in the American Congress, legislation is being advanced, usually under the deliberately misleading heading of the "consumer's right to know," to restrict the ability of companies and government agencies to use call centers abroad. The legislation is nothing less than the kind of non-tariff barrier so castigated by the same American legislators when one appears in another land. The legislation dangerously plays to the considerable xenophobia found in America....(full article)
We are in the midst of a global crisis.
Political and economic theories further divide and inflame a world fervid
from centuries of national, racial, cultural, and religious intolerance.
Technology has enabled us to view the universe from new perspectives, and
the results have been chaotic: Old answers of how the universe works have
been discarded and new answers have replaced them. The structure of
religion has ultimately depended on and interacted with prevailing
worldviews, and with every increase in scientific knowledge of natural
forces there has been less need for divine intervention in earthly
affairs. But a moral compass is not to be found in the contingency of a
physical world where one cannot prove that a particular path is the
correct one to take. Time passes, paths split, and the world is changed
forever in the flash of an unexpected event. It cannot be said with
certainty that there does not exist in the physical universe a principle
that unites design and purpose with phenomenal reality; it can only be
said that as yet there is no science that can unite them....(full
article)
Pretentious Innocence Unmasked
Tracy McLellan review international law
specialist Francis Boyle's latest book,
Destroying World Order: U.S. Imperialism
in the Middle East Before and After September 11....(full
review) June 23-26
Incredible as it may seem, despite the 9/11 commission’s conclusion that Al Qaeda and the regime of Saddam Hussein had no “collaborative relationship,” President Bush and Vice President Cheney continue to insist that there was a “relationship.”...(full article)
It is an exquisitely delicate and dangerous time in America and in the world. Equally, it is a time of great confusion and disorientation and, perhaps too, a time of potential change so vast and deep as to still be unimaginable, hidden as it is just below the lip of tomorrow’s horizon. As counterintuitive as it may seem, it is on President George W. Bush’s watch that America finds itself awash in liminal space. We are in the midst of a great rupture of the American Mythos that is political, social, cultural and psychological in its scope. It is a rupture that is still unfolding and expanding, wherein the dust has yet to settle....(full article)
There is an amazing attack on John Kerry in Saturday’s (6/19) New York Times, authored by one of the Times’ newly appointed columnists recruited from the ultra-right fringe. David Brooks, whose articles would be right at home in the Washington Times, has attacked Senator Kerry for saying the CIA funded and directed Varela Project to destabilize the Cuban government was "counterproductive." Unlike his opposite number at USA Today (DeWayne Wickham) who two years ago recognized that the "Varela Project is a nonstarter" with Cubans, Brooks is trying to peddle the line that this CIA scheme is actually a homegrown popular Cuban initiative for "democracy...(full article)
In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. "Spoiled votes" is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them -- half of the rejected ballots -- were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate. This year, it could get worse....(full article)
Photos showing an affirmative action group of Americans treating their Iraqi captives as inhuman sex toys have shocked some, leading to angry charges and countercharges. This wartime prison porn has been deemed intolerable by our leaders, and many well-intentioned followers, while the serial killings of “normal” warfare remain unquestioned by both groups. Low level scapegoats will be punished, but the high level murderers most responsible are likely to be untouched by the sound and fury this incident creates....(full article)
Will the Sept. 11 Commission follow the example set by Congress and the Intelligence Community and let itself be intimidated by Vice President Dick Cheney? Now that the commission’s staff report has pulled the rug out from under the notion so successfully fostered by the administration that Iraq played a role in the attacks of 9/11, no one should be surprised if the commissioners pull the rug out from under the staff. There are disquieting signs that this has already begun to happen....(full article)
While more than 140,000 US troops in Iraq
continue trying to impose security in advance of the June 30 handover of
limited sovereignty to the new Iraqi administration, the security
situation in nearby Afghanistan continues to deteriorate....(full
article) Gary Corseri critiques DV contributing writer Norman Solomon's critical articles on presidential candidate Ralph Nader....(full article)
What an emotional rollercoaster the Green Party Presidential nomination contest has been! What a fascinating development, Independent Ralph Nader choosing Peter Camejo, the 2002-03 Green Party California gubernatorial candidate and, as the AP reported, who "ran for president as the Socialist Workers Party nominee in 1976," as his Vice-Presidential running mate, doing so despite his often-expressed and carried-through on plans to reach out to disaffected Republicans, conservative independents and what's left of the Reform Party! It is clear to me that a primary reason Nader did so was because he realized that there is a very real possibility that he will not be endorsed in Milwaukee this coming Saturday. Even more, he probably came to realize that he overestimated what he could do without the Green Party and decided that he needed to reach out to an organization that, right now, collectively, is at best lukewarm to his candidacy....(full article)
Hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets before the invasion of Iraq. During the Democratic primaries, thousands more came out to listen to Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich speak against the US policies of preemptive strike. The media quickly began to tag Howard Dean as the “Anti-war Candidate” and Dennis Kucinich as the “Peace Candidate”. Carol Mosely Braun, Al Sharpton, Wesley Clark, and many others went on the road to discuss Bush’s “Iraq quagmire”. Protest was heated! Debate was energized! “Anti-war” sentiment was strong! But where are these anti-war voices now? (full article)
The deeper reasons for the participation of the Japanese imperialists in the looting games of Uncle Sam may in fact go far beyond what appears on the surface as the promise of the contracts and/or the future acquisitions to be had, although these do form the more crass requisites. The Rape of Nanking is a good place to start for a glimpse of the urges driving the military-financial-industrial captains in Japan....(full article)
There he goes again. Here's what Bill O'Reilly had to say on his June 17 broadcast of The Radio Factor: "Because look ... when 2 percent of the population feels that you're doing them a favor, just forget it, you're not going to win. You're not going to win. And I don't have any respect by and large for the Iraqi people at all. I have no respect for them. I think that they're a prehistoric group that is -- yeah, there's excuses. Sure, they're terrorized, they've never known freedom, all of that. There's excuses. I understand. But I don't have to respect them because you know when you have Americans dying trying to you know institute some kind of democracy there, and 2 percent of the people appreciate it, you know, it's time to -- time to wise up. And this teaches us a big lesson, that we cannot intervene in the Muslim world ever again. What we can do is bomb the living daylights out of them, just like we did in the Balkans. Just as we did in the Balkans. Bomb the living daylights out of them. But no more ground troops, no more hearts and minds, ain't going to work."....(full article)
Saddam Hussein has sent a letter to his
family, according to Newsweek. Most of if was redacted by military
censors. No telling what Saddam attempted to write in those squelched
lines. Maybe he urged the Fedayeen to kill more US soldiers. Or gave
solace to the bitter and dead-enders. Is it possible he said something
about those weapons of mass destruction Dubya’s daddy and Reagan sold him
oh-so long ago? (full article) June 21-22
When journalist Daniel Pearl was murdered in
Pakistan, George W. Bush vowed to "rid the world of these agents of
terror." When Nicholas Berg was beheaded in Iraq, Bush offered his
condolences to the Berg family. When Cassey Auguste, a 22-year-old
American citizen, was brutally gunned down in Haiti on March third, Bush
said nothing. The U.S. embassy in Haiti turned a deaf ear to his sister's
desperate pleas for help, saying there is nothing they could do about it.
They advised her to file a report with the Haitian National Police (PNH)
instead. Since when is it the sole responsibility of the PNH (who were
probably complicit in the murder) to investigate the murder of a U.S.
citizen? The U.S. didn't tell Daniel Pearl's wife to send her complaints
to the authorities in Pakistan. Likewise for Berg's family. Why is the
U.S. government stonewalling this family's search for justice? (full
article)
A Crusade of Torture On June 18th, the Associated Press reported that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan delivered a letter to members of the UN Security Council urging the opposition to a resolution extending exemption from war crimes prosecution for US military personnel and officials. According to the story, Annan’s letter cited the Abu Ghraib atrocities as a central concern. Annan doubted if the exemption was legal and described passage of such a resolution as an "unfortunate signal" to send "particularly at this time." All signs indicated that the exemption would not be granted. Scrutiny of how the atrocities at Abu Ghraib became, in the words of a confidential January 2004 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, "a practice tolerated by the CF [coalition forces]" rather than "exceptional" reveals how the Bush administration conducted an American crusade of torture....(full article)
Ms. Yanar Mohammed,
a long time activist, working against the Baathist regime as well as for
women's rights, was born in Baghdad in 1960. Finding that she could no
longer make a living with the economic sanctions against Iraq in the
1990s, she moved to Canada and continued her activism from there. Last
spring she returned to Iraq for four months to work directly with women
during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. We spoke recently about her trip, the
current the situation for women in Iraq, and what she was able to
accomplish while she was there....(full
article)
George Bush, Destroyer of the Faith Ironically, the President who touts faith-based initiatives as the salvation of America is himself the Destroyer of the Faith. It is not religious faith that Mr. Bush destroys – although he has certainly undermined that, too – but the faith in the myth and systems that form the foundation of American power. The bedrock of that power is 1) a belief in unlimited, inexpensive access to natural resources, 2) faith in our economy and the robustness of the dollar, 3) confidence in our institutions, and 4) unshakable faith in our security systems....(full article)
Last week an interesting article appeared in the New York Times under the title “Report Says Aid to Weak States is Inadequate” (June 9, 2004, p. A3). The story, written by Elizabeth Becker, notes that a bipartisan federal “Commission on Weak States and U.S. National Security” has issued a report recommending that the U.S. do more to “improve societies” that are being badly governed by “failed states.” “Failed states,” as everyone knows, are “breeding grounds for terrorists.” According to Becker, “failed states” are “those that generally cannot provide security for their citizens, or their territory, and that are corrupt and illegitimate in the eyes of their citizens.” So where does that place the United States? (full article)
While the major media screams about the latest beheading in the Middle East, John Ashcroft's destruction of a man in the middle west -- likely for political purposes -- has gone unnoticed. The ghastly court appearance here in Columbus, Ohio, of Nuradin Abdi has underscored the high likelihood that the Bush Administration used variations of torture to break this impoverished Somali immigrant. And his dubious indictment may well have been used to overshadow a campaign visit here by John Kerry. No Republican has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio....(full article)
The grand plan is panning out well indeed.
The US will transfer “sovereignty” to the Iraqis in nine days time amidst
a worsening security situation. It’s time to rejoice as Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has promised Enduring Occupation for the Iraqis,
like in Afghanistan, even after the “handover of power.” The “Iraqi
security forces” he claims, are just “not ready to assume their job.”
The bombings, kidnappings and killings have gone up. Worse still, CNN’s
Paula Zahn is fading, and might need another “offending” zipper promo to
disprove her ex-boss's confident prediction that “a dead raccoon could get
higher ratings.” We like a drama where Nielson’s and newscasters’ figures
are more captivating than a couple of dead things -- soldiers, raccoons or
otherwise. It can’t be news we are watching. Certain things are unraveling
fast, as tantalizing as a zip being drawn down....
The June 30 deadline for the delivery of "sovereignty" to the people of Iraq is right around the corner. If the talk coming out of the administration is to believed, this will be an historic moment: The United States of America will deliver freedom to a people long oppressed by a brutal dictator. After seventeen car bombings in seventeen days, with whole sections of Iraq beyond the control of American forces, and with 840 American soldiers dead, it appears that the Iraqi people are not so sanguine about this proffered American liberty. Many here on the home front cannot understand why these people would bite the hand that is trying to feed them. After all, who would not want our brand of freedom? (full article)
Despite admitting to having no "coherent
approach," Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld says US is considering new fronts
in the "war against terrorism."....
Political myth-making goes into overdrive every four years. With presidential campaigns fixated mostly on media, an array of nonstop spin takes its toll while illogic often takes hold: When heroes are absent, they’re invented. When convenient claims are untrue, they’re defended. Many supporters come to function as enablers -- staying silent or mimicking their candidate’s contorted explanations to try to finesse the gaping contradiction. Fast talk substitutes for straight talk. A kind of “covering fire” across media battlefields makes it easier for the candidate to just keep on dissembling....(full article)
It was Alexis de Tocqueville who said that despotism can govern without faith, but liberty cannot. For Americans it has always been a matter of faith that their government's intentions were noble. But recent history has twice proven this to be delusional....(full article)
George W. Bush’s environmental record can be dummied down to one simple word: devastating. And yet Bush's pillage has been given a big assist by the Democrats....(full article)
There is a brouhaha simmering, within the American Catholic Church, over the issue of whether to give or deny communion to Catholic politicians who support abortions rights. A right wing cleric, Bishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis, has gone out of his way to publicly target Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA), who is pro-choice on the issue. Burke has boasted, like a medieval clerical tyrant, that he would not give the Massachusetts senator the sacrament, the communion wafer, if Kerry, who is running for president on the Democratic ticket, showed up at a church in his diocese. Bishop Burke must think he’s a soul reader, too, able to look inside Kerry’s spiritual life. He must have as yet an undivulged distant surveillance device, which lets him see that the senator isn’t in a state of grace which would allow him to take communion. I wonder, how does Bishop Burke feel about politically reactionary Catholics, such as that raving egomaniac, Sean Hannity, the radio, cable and TV windbag for Fox News? (full article)
We constantly hear that George W. Bush is a
born-again Christian, having at the tender age of 40, foresworn the youthful
indiscretions of binge-boozing and coke-snorting for a life of
compassionately conservative public service doing God’s work here on Earth
(and in Texas). Here in
June 17-20
In the 60s best-seller, The Games People Play, popular psychologist Eric Berne, creator of transactional analysis, described four types of transactions or exchanges between people, depending on whether their ego states felt positive or negative. I'm OK You're Not OK people are prone to anger and hostility and feel smug and superior. They tend to be high achievers with the self-confidence and ruthlessness to get what they want.. While they can at best be do-gooders patronizingly rescuing others, they usually belittle those Not OK others as incompetent and untrustworthy. Often competitive, power-hungry, and paranoid, at worst they’re killers and warmongers. A pattern has emerged in commentary on the Abu Ghraib torture scandal....(full diagnosis)
If torture were made
legal under American and international law, would an avowed God fearing
Christian consider it moral? After all, abortion is legal but George
considers it immoral. So, one has to assume that even Dumbya can make the
distinction between morality and legality. How would Jesus treat Abu
Ghraib inmates or Afghan “illegal combatants”? Are American values
consistent with torturing inmates to death? Did George Abu Ghraib Bush
abandon his values when he approved twenty-eight “kinder gentler” forms of
torture? (full article)
128,000 Reasons to Defeat Bush
Buried inside the pages of a recent edition
(6/10) of the newspaper of record, The New York Times, a
headline at the bottom of the page catches the eye: "Study Ranks Bush Plan
to Cut Air Pollution as Weakest of 3." It seems, as we shall soon see,
that death comes from our friends the capitalists in many forms. The
Bushites, it turns out, have been exposed by a report on air pollution
from a commission they themselves authorized to study the effects of their
anti-pollution proposals....(full article)
The Cheney Connection: Tracing the
Halliburton Money Trail to Nigeria Was Halliburton, the oil conglomerate once headed by Dick Cheney, involved in a massive $180 million bribery scheme in Nigeria on Cheney’s watch? Hopes that the veil may finally be lifted on yet another odoriferous Halliburton scandal were raised last Friday, when it was announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission has finally opened a formal investigation into the alleged bribery — which French authorities have been probing for a year. In Paris, official documents revealing that Cheney might be among those indicted on corruption charges as a result of the French investigation made front-page news there last Christmas — but not here....(full article)
Pattrice Jones on what progressives can learn from the animal rights movement, and the case of the Shac 7 -- activists facing domestic "terrorism" charges under the PATRIOT ACT, and how you can support them....(full article)
Kim Petersen examines contrasting US reactions to ethnic cleansing in Sudan and the Palestinian territories....(full article)
In Part 1 of this Media Alert we described some of the horrific reality of the Reagan years for the people of Central America. The United States did not impose this vast terror out of a sadistic love of torturing people but out of a pragmatic determination to protect “good investment climates.” It is a simple matter for readers to compare the version of events we have presented not just the terror, but the logic of the terror (see below) with media retrospectives of the Reagan presidency. How many times have we been told about Saddam Hussein’s alleged responsibility for the deliberate gassing of 5,000 civilians at Halabja? The name Halabja, like the footage of gassed bodies in dusty streets, is seared into our memories. And how many times have we been told of Ronald Reagan’s training, arming and funding of the mass murderers and torturers of hundreds of thousands of people in Central America in the 1980s? (full article)
According to imperial United States
doctrine, rational and progressive “America” is engaged in a life and
death struggle with nihilism. The U.S. “war on terrorism” is infused with
great and powerful meaning: the advancement of freedom, democracy, and
civilization. The mysterious, vaguely Muslim enemy represents regression
and dumb, medieval nothingness. “We” are light, and “they” are dark. “We”
are modern enlightened purpose. “They” are primitive, sub-human
meaninglessness. Among many stories that unintentionally challenge this
sickly narcissistic national narrative (the horrors of American behavior
and policy at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay for example), one appeared on
the front page of Monday's New York Times (June 14, 2004) under the title
“Recruiters Try New Tactics to Sell Wartime Army.” This article tells the
not-so inspiring tales of James Nelson (19) and Katherine Jordan (18),
both from Kansas. Nelson is seeking admission to the U.S. Army on the
advice of a curious mentor – his probation officer....
Given its strutting brownshirt quality, here is a slogan that might well have been coined by America's most articulate political thug, Pat Buchanan. But the slogan, with little waving-flag pictures, is being used for bumper stickers selling John Kerry. Good marketers know that you want an offering for every niche, so here's Kerry for the belly-over-the-belt, beer-belching, walrus-mustache set. Niche marketing also explains goofy pieces about Kerry's military service versus that of Republican chicken hawks (for those unfamiliar, "chicken hawks" is an informal American political term for men who never fought yet advocate sending others off to war, a group largely, but not exclusively, consisting of Republicans). Never mind the moral obtuseness of opposing an armchair-psychopath like Bush with arguments in favor of a man who did his own killing, there's a weird market niche out there to be reached. They sell everything in America....(full article)
The Democrats have chosen their presidential
candidate. We are confronted again with a three way race between a
frightening Republican, a Democrat with not much of an agenda beyond not
being the frightening Republican, and a progressive candidate viewed by
many as a “spoiler.” Like many, I believe that the Nader candidacy is not
a good thing. However, my main worry is not that a Nader will take votes
from the Democrats. Rather, I am concerned that marginal progressive
third-party efforts in general elections, and similar campaigns in
Democratic Party primaries, take money and organizing resources away from
long-term grassroots work for a more peaceful, fair, and ecologically
sustainable world, without expanding the capacity of progressive movements
in the long term. I am not arguing that either a determined effort to take
back the Democratic party or a third-party campaign is intrinsically bad
(and which of the two offers more promise for significant social
transformation is a different debate). My contention is that national
electoral campaigns of either sort are premature. Under current
conditions, such campaigns take far more away from efforts to develop
alternative institutions that would constitute the foundation for any
genuinely progressive political alternative on the national level than
they put back....
More than 60 American scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, signed a statement that accused the Bush administration of suppressing or manipulating scientific evidence in order to promote their right-wing political agenda. The statement was issued in February along with a full report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and it can be viewed at their web site. The UCS substantiated their claims with internal government documents and interviews with current and former government officials. They found a "well established pattern of suppression and distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking Bush administration political appointees across numerous federal agencies." . . . The UCS concluded: "There is significant evidence that the scope and scale of the manipulation, suppression, and misrepresentation of science by the Bush administration is unprecedented." All this may be unprecedented in American history, but it is not without precedent in world history....(full article)
Last week, I dreamed I was buying drugs from Nancy Reagan in my Maidenform Bra. Well, all right – I wasn’t wearing a bra. But it was Nancy Reagan, and I was buying drugs from her. All kinds of pills, poppers and unlawful paraphernalia, which she kept in a Galanos handbag and doled out to me, one by one, as we sat downtown drinking shots of whiskey on New Year’s Eve, in a kind of reverse, anti-“First Night,” where only drinking and drugging were allowed. Dream-wise, you had to be blotto to be part of this scene, but you had to be that anyway in order to get through the Reagan obsequies last week without throwing yourself under a car....(full article)
So it's wrenching being back in Canada confronting the prospect of Stephen Harper as our next prime minister. This is a man who so longed to join George W. Bush's coalition of the willing that he called former defense minister John McCallum an "idiot" in the House of Commons, declaring we should be in Iraq with the United States, "doing everything necessary to win." This is a man who was so eager to "support the war effort" that he went on Fox and claimed that "the silent majority of Canadians is strongly supportive" of the invasion, defying the findings of every credible opinion poll. If the Conservatives are given the chance to turn Canada into more of a card-carrying combatant in Mr. Bush's disastrous war on terrorism than we are already, the little bit of grace I encountered in Iraq will quickly disappear. When I go back, showing my passport to the ad hoc inspectors could well have a very different effect....(full article)
Iraq’s new interim government has no time to lose. Though it was welcome news when the new Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, announced that the militias of nine major political parties would disband and join the government’s security forces by January 2005, this is only one of the monumental tasks and formidable obstacles that the new government faces. As I discovered in a recent visit to Baghdad, Iraq is in dire need of reconstruction -- not only from the miseries of Saddam Hussein’s long dictatorship, but also from the failed policies of the one-year occupation by America’s Coalition administration, which has left demoralization, humiliation, and a weak security and economic infrastructure in its wake....(full article)
Now that Move America Forward has changed
hands, it is time to look at the new owner. WHOIS reports the new
registrant and administrator as Howard Kaloogian.
So, who is Howard Kaloogian? Kaloogian is a lawyer who previously "served"
three terms in the California state legislature. He is off to the right of
Bush, if that is possible. Kooky Kaloogian is perfect for the job of
denying Americans the right to see Michael Moore's latest film,
"Fahrenheit 9-11." He has plenty of experience....(full
article) June 14
The U.S. Army has employed as many as 27 contractors to run its interrogation operations, according to media reports. But while CACI and Titan are getting all the mainstream media play, it appears that far more than 27 contract employees were involved in recruiting and placing interrogators in various locations. Some of the firms involved in the Bush administration’s “TortureGate” include an odd assortment of telecommunications companies and executive placement firms that have jumped into the lucrative torture business in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Iraq and at secret locations throughout Central Asia and North Africa....(full article)
Editor's Note: DV considers Thomas Frank one
of the finest and wittiest writers on politics and culture today. He is a
founding editor of
The Baffler magazine, and author of the must-read books One Market
Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic
Democracy and The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture,
Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. His latest book is
What's the Matter With Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
(Metropolitan Books, 2004). By far the best and most insightful book I've
read in a couple of years. Frank uses Kansas as a metaphor for the rest of
the country in order to examine why so many working and middle-class
Americans consistently act against their own self-interests. The following
is an interview with Thomas Frank....
What will be done to prevent a swell of domestic violence when tens of thousands of soldiers return home from Iraq and Afghanistan? (full article)
Jerusalem: The bulldozers have been working around the clock building the separation barrier, and it is now clear that the end is at hand. The residents’ expulsion is imminent; they will soon be forced to move from their homes and ancestral land. This, at least, is the impression I had after leaving the small village Nu’eman....(full article)
So desperate are Bush Republicans to kill Michael Moore's latest film, Fahrenheit 9/11, they have hired a public relations firm to set up a web site attacking Moore. The site, MoveAmericaForward.com, claims to be "non-partisan," but a glance at the "About" page of the site reveals the director and staff of Move America Forward are all diehard Republicans, anti-tax activists, and former legislative staffers. The PR firm is Russo Marsh & Rogers....(full article)
Last year, during the 1st session of the
108th Congress, the Republican leadership slipped a provision into the
Intelligence Authorization Act of 2004 (which mainly appropriates the
funds to the intelligence organizations.) This was done behind closed
doors. Who on the House Judiciary Committee would vote against this
nonpartisan bill? This bill was needed to pass as it has every year. What
wasn’t needed was a provision taken from the leaked draft of Ashcroft’s
Domestic Security Enhancement Act (DSEA.) This provision expanded the
already far-reaching USA PATRIOT Act by easing the FBI’s ability to
acquire "financial" records with nothing more than an easily drafted
National Security Letter (NSL.) It also broadened the definition of
"financial institution" to include insurance companies, real estate
agencies, stockbrokers, car dealerships, pawnbrokers and more. This had
the effect of further eroding what was left of our civil liberties after
the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act. So there it was -- Ashcroft’s dream –
a portion of the ill-fated DSEA brought to fruition. Now, it is happening
again....(full article)
Stepford America
Next month, Americans will flock to theaters
nationwide to be amused by the performances of Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler
and Matthew Broderick in a remake of “The Stepford Wives.” I hope to see
it myself. While I hasten to add that in these times, humor is essential
to our survival, and that I do not wish to suggest that we all need to
wear “American Gothic” faces, I find curious the timing of this Hollywood
redux....(full article)
24/7 and Your Dreams: An Interview with
Barbara Mor
A wide
ranging interview with Barbara Mor.
Mor, born and
surreally programmed in Southern California, has since lived in the desert
Southwest and Pacific Northwest. She was involved in feminism when the
first Women’s Studies program in the U.S. began at San Diego State
University (1969), and is the author of
The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth.
Despite its dumb title (which makes her cringe; her manuscript’s working
title was The First God), the book has remained in print 17 years,
thanks solely to smart readers. Topics covered include religion, marriage,
What's Left?, war, and imagining the Cosmos as a gigantic Clitoris...
"This is Imperial Arrogance"
The most psychologically difficult thing for anyone to admit is that they’ve been living a lie. As hard as it is to acknowledge that reality in the personal realm, it’s much worse to accept that our beloved country has been fundamentally wrong, even objectively evil. Folks will resort to amazing mental gymnastics to try to avoid that very painful conclusion. But ultimately most of them relent. It simply becomes impossible to deny mounting horrors, as the eventual mass radicalization of the Vietnam era plainly demonstrated. Once again, in connection with Iraq, we’re at a similar juncture....(full article)
During an interview on CBS's "60 Minutes," Richard Clarke, the top adviser on counter-terrorism to President Bush, said that immediately after the attacks of 9/11, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted to bomb Iraq. Even after he was told that Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld still insisted that bombing Iraq was a better idea: "There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan, and there are lots of good targets in Iraq," he told Clarke. Rumsfeld's response was obviously irrational, and if the subject weren't so serious, even comical. Clarke said this would have been akin to Franklin Roosevelt wanting to attack Mexico after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. But giving Rumsfeld the benefit of the doubt, he was probably still in shock from the enormity of this unprecedented terrorist attack. But what compels seemingly intelligent men to react this irresponsibly? (full article)
Russian President
Vladimir Putin has a point. Democrats have "no moral right" to
criticize Bush for invading Iraq. Why? Because they were gung-ho about
invading Yugoslavia. Putin made the comment at the G8 neolib feast on Sea
Island, Georgia.
Ray Charles, the superb African American
musician who died on June 10, got over in more ways than one. He appealed
to Americans of all ages and backgrounds. For five decades, they enjoyed
Charles’ music. He expressed his people’s efforts to transcend the racial
lines of America, a struggle recognized around the world....
The National Rifle
Association announced today that it would open up a field office in
downtown Baghdad, one of four Iraq offices it hopes to establish before
years end. Other offices are slated for Fallujah, Najaf, Basra and Tikrit
(Saddam's former hometown and stronghold)....(full
article)
June 11-13
GOOD RIDDANCE: Ronald
Reagan (1911-2004)
The intensity of the patriotic focus surrounding D-Day, and also the death of Ronald Reagan, suggests a state-corporate system desperately trying to reassert its credibility after a catastrophic failure of propaganda over Iraq....(full article)
Two quintessential American political leaders of the so-called “greatest generation” -- polar opposites in almost every way -- died in the past few weeks: Ronald Reagan, fortieth president of the United States and Dave Dellinger, an anti-war activist who went to jail for his pacifist beliefs. Both suffered from Alzheimer | |
