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November 2004 Articles
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DV Articles
November 2003
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With the re-election of George W. Bush, religious fundamentalism seems to be in overdrive in its effort to define politics through a reductive and somewhat fanatical moralism. This kind of religious zealotry has a long tradition in American history extending from the arrival of Puritanism in the seventeenth century to the current spread of Pentecostalism. This often ignored history, imbued with theocratic certainty and absolute moralism, has been quite powerful in providing religious justification to the likes of the Ku Klux Klan, the parlance of the Robber Barons, the patriarchal imbued discourse of “family values,” and the recent spectacle of Mel Gibson’s cinematic display of religious orthodoxy. The historical lesson here is that absolute moralism when mixed with politics not only produces zealots who believe they have a monopoly on the truth and a legitimate rationale for refusing to engage ambiguities, it also fuels an intolerance towards others who do not follow the scripted, righteous path of officially sanctioned beliefs and behavior. Family values is now joined with an emotionally charged rhetorical appeal to faith as the new code words for cultural conservatism. As right-wing religion conjoins with political ideology and political power, it not only legitimates intolerance and anti-democratic forms of religious correctness, it also lays the groundwork for a growing authoritarianism which easily derides appeals to reason, dissent, dialogue, and secular humanism. How else to explain the growing number of Christian conservative educators who want to impose the teaching of creationism in the schools, ban sex education from the curricula, and subordinate scientific facts to religious dogma....(full article)
The U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report. “Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah,” 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. “They used everything -- tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground.” Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of illegal weapons....(full article)
We are nearing the end of 2004. And if there has been one lesson that we should have all learned this year it is that the US electoral system sets all challenges to the power-elite up for a horrifying defeat. Hence the reason so many liberal and progressive voters deemed John Kerry our only hope for defeating George W. Bush this November. Faulty logic indeed. They said, and still say, that Kerry was at least marginally better than Bush. After all, who in his or her right (or left) mind did not support the Kerry campaign? Bush, we were told, was (and now again is) the worst president in history. An Adolf in the making. Or is he? (full article)
In his book from early 2000, The Lexus and The Olive Tree, globalization bull-dog Thomas Friedman, amongst his other grand ideas like McDonald’s being the key to world peace, speculates that one day governments will run on a for-profit basis. Rather than privatizing education completely, they will hire other countries to run their education systems or lease out their own. This would effectively mean that newly appointed Education Secretary Spellings would act more as a CEO than national superintendent. While I find it more likely that the education system in the United States will be privatized out right than operate like a corporate consultant firm, Friedman does point out an interesting trend. Governments are being forced to act more like corporations. Business has been the business of government for quite sometime, but that line between business and government is becoming more obscured. Today, government is business....(full article)
Top officials in Washington are now promoting jitters about Iran’s nuclear activities, while media outlets amplify the message. A confrontation with Tehran is on the second-term Bush agenda. So, we’re encouraged to obliquely think about the unthinkable. But no one can get very far trying to comprehend the enormity of nuclear weapons. They’ve shadowed human consciousness for six decades. From the outset, deception has been key....(full article)
The People’s Mojahedin of Iran has of late been receiving increasing coverage by the Western and especially the US mainstream press, who quote them copiously, ala Ahmed Chalabi, as “opposition sources.” Since any aggressive move to be made against Iran by the US will likely include this opposition grouping in some form or shape, some of us leftist opposition members feel obliged to present a dissuasive picture of this organization to our good friends in the US left, so as to prevent the good folks from taking the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, in their current incarnation, as any friend of the Peoples of Iran....(full article)
On Tuesday, November 16th, George Bush put
forward Condoleezza Rice as his proposed Secretary of State to take over
the diplomacy of US warmongering from the outgoing fraud Colin Powell. Two
days later on November 18th leading Venezuelan judicial prosecutor Danilo
Anderson was killed in a car bomb attack eerily reminiscent of the
murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit in Washington in 1976 by
Cuban terrorists working for Augusto Pinochet and protected by the CIA.
The Venezuelan authorities believe Anderson was killed by two charges of
C4 plastic explosive fixed to his car and detonated remotely, apparently
by cell phone. The timing of Rice's nomination and Anderson's murder are
unlikely to be fortuitous. With Rice's appointment, George Bush sustains
the incestuous link between his regime and earlier, still extant,
plutocrat state terror Godfathers like George Bush Sr., James Baker and
George Schultz. Rice, a protégé of Schultz, the former Bechtel president,
could hardly be a more emblematic representative of the nexus between
state terror and big business. Chevron may have renamed the former
"Condoleezza Rice" oil tanker "Altair Voyager", but that all-too-recent
link to an
outfit boasting it "... now ranks among the most important
international petroleum producers in Venezuela and Colombia, is one of the
largest private integrated oil companies in Brazil and is the
third-leading producer in Argentina," bodes ill for people in Latin
America....
Anthropologists' recent discovery of a new
branch in the origins of humankind is rewriting our understanding of
evolution. Homo floresiensis, a small-brained, proto-human that
apparently lived on the islands of Indonesia as recently as several
hundred years ago, walked upright, used basic tools and, according to
local legend, had the ability to simulate human speech by “parroting”
words without actual comprehension. Most anthropologists believe that
homo floresiensis became extinct and only a skeletal record of their
existence remains. A minority of anthropologists, however, particularly
those in the field of political anthropology, are convinced that homo
floresiensis did not go extinct. “In fact,” says Dr. Friedrich
Nudelmann who is the chair of the political anthropology department at the
Spukenheim Universität of Wahlgestohlen-Pferdapfel, “the evidence is
overwhelming that this distant relative of homo sapiens sapiens has
flourished and continues to thrive right under our noses.” Dr. Nudelmann
notes that while it may be difficult to obtain definitive DNA proof for
his contention, the anecdotal and empirical evidence prove that homo
floresiensis walk among us today....
Kevin Zeese served as Press Secretary for the Ralph Nader Presidential Campaign in 2004. He recently spoke with Joshua Frank....(full article)
Since the political birth of this country there has been a raging debate between those who feel the collective good of society is best gained by a government focused on maintaining the social health of its people and those who feel it is best gained by one that fosters their complete and unrestricted economic freedom. We cannot have both. This debate has been silent since the 1980s, when one side apparently lost the initiative to speak. Now is the time to reengage that debate, out loud, for all to hear. It is our duty as the citizens of a critically wounded democracy to not only question the corrupt authority that now governs it, but to deeply consider the very institutional rules of the game that allowed it to come to power. There are countries all over the world that are rebelling wildly in response to the deplorable corporate practices that we in America seem to have taken as standard operating procedure....(full article)
The kid and I were chatting happily last week about really really important things such as this country's top movie, Spongebob Squarepants, when, suddenly, she pointed at the TV screen behind me. Then, as her face contorted in anger, she said ominously – “He's e-e-e-e-v-u-l...” Startled by the look on her face, I turned to the TV, expecting to see the Red Skull with his boot on the neck of Captain America -- but it was only George Bush, smirking and chortling and kissing members of his cabinet on the lips. “No, honey,” I said, “that's only the president. That's George Bush.” “Well, okay,” she said, with a shudder. Then, squenching her eyes shut and pursing her lips, she muttered – “But I'm gonna call him Stinky.” I don't know which is more appalling -- that millions of comatose adults flock to theaters to pay homage to Spongebob Squarepants while the world goes to hell around them, or that a single 8-year-old, familiar with the stark, good-versus-evil battles waged by Spiderman, Captain Marvel and the entire battalion of Ninja Rangers, could take one look at George Bush and instantly recognize a villain....(full article)
In a recent article, I declared: “I believe someone needs to write a definitive book on the Tupamaros of Uruguay.” This belief was based primarily on what I had read about the group (a.k.a. “Movement for National Liberation” or MLN) in William Blum's Killing Hope. “Perhaps the cleverest, most resourceful and most sophisticated urban guerrillas the world has ever seen, the Tupamaros had a deft touch for capturing the public's imagination with outrageous actions, and winning sympathizers with their Robin Hood philosophy,” Blum wrote. “Their members and secret partisans held key positions in the government, banks, universities, and the professions, as well as in the military and police...Once they ransacked an exclusive high-class nightclub and scrawled on the walls perhaps their most memorable slogan: ‘O Bailan Todos O No Baila Nadie’ -- Either everyone dances or no one dances.” After reading that paragraph, you can't blame me for wanting a whole damn book written on this topic, huh? Well, in response to my public plea, friend and colleague Greg Elich took time to set me up for an e-mail interview with Hiber Conteris, a former Tupamaro now living and working in the U.S....(full article)
Evelyn Pringle on Neil Bush and the collapse
of Silverado Savings and Loan -- Crime Does Pay if you're a
corporate crook and Bush family member....
Condi Rice was still in a half-dream state as she recalled the frivolities of the previous evening. Georgie Pooh and Laura Pooh, and the two charming harridan-vixens they called daughters, had joined her round the White House piano for a rousing chorus of “Shall We Gather at the River.” As she idly stirred Creamo into her morning coffee, she recalled the President’s playful nudging: “Louder, Condi, louder!” he’d cried. Condi had never felt so loved, so needed. Now, with the brooding presence of Collin Powell soon to exit the scene, with her confirmation as Secretary of State a foregone conclusion, she’d achieved the pinnacle of prominence she’d craved since childhood. Oprah might have a billion dollars and--recently!--a better booty, but she, Condi, by God, had the sweet, salacious aphrodisiac of power....(full article)
Though there have been harvest festivals for time immemorial, Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. In addition to all the football and feasting, the core message behind our national fable rings particularly true with George Bush preparing to begin his second term. Briefly put: America with all its flaws and strengths existed as an amalgam of the various groups; we can call them tribes of Americans. Into this functioning, but at times uneasy mix, a new group arrived: the religious fanatics. These fanatics had come to the “New World” seeking freedom from the oppression they’d met in the “Old World.” But as soon as they secured the pretense of a peaceful co-existence with the Americans, they immediately set up a social structure to oppress both themselves and the Americans that was far more rigid than anything they’d faced in Europe....(full article)
It’s Thanksgiving and I look forward to the holidays. But wait. I cannot get certain images out of my mind, try though I may. I see the documented 100,000 innocent Iraqis, mainly women and children, that America has recently killed. I see our soldiers torturing people. Whole towns, like Falluja, were destroyed, allegedly to save them. I am not too good at denial, even at this joyous time of year. Then I remember the Nov. 2 elections and the American people’s apparent support for such war crimes. What to do? How to celebrate the birthday of the baby Jesus—the “Prince of Peace”—in such a time? I certainly do not feel like buying a lot of American-made goods and further fueling the war machine....(full article)
Doctors in Fallujah are reporting there are patients in the hospital there who were forced out by the Americans,” said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33 year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad, “Some doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die.” He looks at the ground, then away to the distance. Honking cars fill the chaotic street outside the hospital where they’d just received brand new desks. The empty boxes are strewn about outside. Um Mohammed, a doctor at the hospital sat behind her old, wooden desk. “How can I take a new desk when there are patients dying because we don’t have medicine for them,” she asked while holding her hands in the air, “They should build a lift so patients who can’t walk can be taken to surgery, and instead we have these new desks!” Her eyes were piercing with fire, while yet another layer of frustration is folded into her work....(full article)
American corporate mass media exhibits a curious ongoing alternation between harsh hyper-masculinist proto-fascism and a soft, more officially feminine and receptive consumerism. One minute you’re watching Dubya receiving “Hooahs” from an audience of military cadets or censored clips of rugged Marines conquering Fallujah. The next minute you’re gazing at a delicate white woman soaking up her Oil of Olay or confidently proclaiming her worthiness for L’Oreal. One second you sit amazed as a muscle-bound free safety tries to decapitate or at least paralyze a wide receiver or as a towering manchild in an NBA uniform climbs over frightened kids to pummel a mis-identified problem fan. The next minute a lovely model is letting you in on Victoria’s Secret and Oprah is showering her audience with millions of dollars’ worth of consumer goodies....(full article)
Rather than burden the Federation
rank-and-file and sympathizers with a meanderingly obvious screed against
the war criminals currently occupying the White House, the Federation
instead has chosen to aim its polemical energy at an overlooked target:
insidious counter-revolutionary elements who APPEAR to be our allies, but
upon closer inspection, ultimately reinforce American empire as much --
while getting away with it. All Federation members and sympathizers, if
they have not done so, should loan or purchase Noam Chomsky's 1969
anti-Vietnam War classic, American Power and the New Mandarins. In
this work, Chomsky delineated two strains of anti-war thought: 1) radical
strains that repudiated the war on principle for its imperialist
assumptions and original stated raison d'etre (all regardless of outcome
or level of success) and 2) the pragmatic-practical liberal-bourgeois
strains that escalated protest because the war became increasingly
unsuccessful, prolonged, expensive, or politically costly. With slight
modification, we can apply this model for analyzing the motivations of
those who purport to be against war to the present imperial excursion into
Iraq. It is imperative that we not be hoodwinked and fooled by the
unprincipled "anti-war" thought of organizations and characters like
MoveOn.org and former partisans of Howard Dean and John Kerry. Equally
important is the development of immunity to the nonsensical "Support Our
Troops" mantra emanating from many center-right, liberal, and
establishment left circles. Regardless of personal or familial ties, it is
impossible to "support" direct agents and executors of a
racist-imperialist war crime....(full communiqué)
Liberals and Bush’s Performatives
It seems that for most American liberals, much like for my colleague at the copy machine, Powell is the “only voice of moderation” in Bush’s cabinet; without him all wheels will come off and all hell will break loose; Powell held the last line of sanity; now that he’s gone, things are really gonna get f*#ked up; and so, sane people must get together and pray that he sticks around and not disappear completely, since God knows what else these guys have coming down the pipes! As ridiculous as it may appear, this is actually a perfect full-proof mindset for somebody who is ultimately comfortable with the way things are. Only a person from a luxurious position can be so relaxed, politically speaking, as to muster the insight necessary to discern the differences between two or three leaves on a tree in the jungle that’s engulfing us, and forever avoid seeing the forest. For to see and to acknowledge the forest is to have to do something, and that is painfully clear to the liberal mind; that forever lazy and guilt-ridden mind whose every move is filled with indecisiveness, obfuscation and contradictions, and brimming with a desire for stasis....(full article)
If you aren't familiar with "Covenant Marriage," you should be by Valentines Day. In an event resembling the mass marriage ceremonies presided over by the Unification Church's Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and his wife will convert their thirty-year marriage to covenant marriage on February 14 -- Valentines Day -- and they hope to be joined for a mass covenant marriage ceremony by 1,000 other Arkansas couples at the Alltel Arena in North Little Rock. In mid-November, Governor Huckabee, accompanied by Dennis Rainey of Little Rock, Arkansas-based FamilyLife, a division of Campus Crusade for Christ, spent two days barnstorming about the state seeking converts. The governor said that while he thought the cost of the soiree would be covered by donations, he pointed out that he didn't mind using taxpayer funds to promote the project: "We believe it's an important enough event to use this time and resources for it because, quite frankly, we're spending an enormous amount of money dealing with the consequences of marriages that don't work out."....(full article)
As an Israeli citizen and former tank gunner
in the Israeli army, I feel the need to explain why I, along with many
other Jews, support divestment from Israel....(full article)
License to Kill
This week we mark International Day of Eliminating Violence Against Women, and I’d like to say a word about the culture of violence that is growing around us, in Israel, in the United States, and everywhere that people and nations that are big and powerful think they can solve problems by raising a knife or gun....(full article)
On Election Day 2004, the Republican Party
achieved a major victory, gaining seats in both houses of Congress, and
re-electing their president to serve four more years and to appoint up to
three new members to an already Republican Supreme Court. In the exit
polls, Bush supporters overwhelmingly agreed that there was one major
reason that Bush should still be president despite a quagmire in Iraq, a
never ending ‘war on terror,’ and an economy in shambles, this reason was
of course ‘moral values.’ Bush’s ‘moral values’ are based on two issues:
he is pro-life, and he supports a constitutional amendment to ban
homosexual marriages. Many lower class Americans, especially Catholic
Hispanics, voted directly against their economic interests because of
these ‘values’ that are championed by the religious right. The Christian
Right, after putting Bush back into office after the most expensive
campaign in history, will demand results. Bush can’t allow Roe v. Wade to
stand, when he controls all three branches of government, without losing
the support of the religious right. Similarly, they will demand more than
a symbolic attempt to ban homosexual marriage....(full
article)
To the Viktor Go the Spoils I was so heartened to read this quote about the presidential election from Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), as reported by Associated Press writer Natasha Lisova: “It is now apparent that a concerted and forceful program of election-day fraud and abuse was enacted with either the leadership or cooperation of governmental authorities.” Ha -- at last! Plainly spoken words from a U.S. Senator -- a Republican, no less -- about the highly suspicious goings-on concerning the election. And upon what evidence does Lugar base his charge? Well, for starters, how about the exit polls that showed the challenger heading the incumbent? And, according to Lisova, election overseers “said there were extensive indications of vote fraud, including people apparently voting multiple times and voters being forced to turn over absentee ballots to state employers.” Unfortunately, Lugar wasn’t complaining about, nor was Lisova reporting on, the U.S. presidential election. They both were alluding instead to the voting concluded this past week to determine the president of Ukraine, and the good senator made his comments while in Kiev as George Bush’s “envoy.” It seems the U.S.-favored candidate who garnered large leads in the exit polls, Viktor Yuschenko, was allegedly bested in the actual balloting by Ukraine’s Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovych, a pol who both favors, and is favored by, Russia....(full article)
Since the election my liberal inbox has been
filled with screeds of hand-wringing articles dissecting the ascendancy of
George W Bush. They all talk of winning back the heartland, reinvigorating
true democracy, fighting the red-blue war of culture, ideology, politics
and psychology. But for all the column inches steeped in despair there
were very few action plans and even less insight. The reason is simple.
Democrats and Republicans are feeding at the same trough. Drive through
the liberal enclaves of any privileged blue state or through the
conservative interior of a red state and you see the same big houses – or
aspirations of big houses and the same super-sized vehicles. . . .That’s
why the streets aren’t overflowing with protest. That’s why you’re not
massing outside the corporate owned television stations demanding they
retract their lies and rescind their self- censorship. That’s why all the
columns about fraudulent electoral practices are no more than hot air.
Because actually no one wants the system to end, because despite the
increasing numbers of poor and working poor, the vast and growing gap
between the haves and have-nots, the majority of you are just too damn
comfortable....(full
article)
The Footprint of an Out-of-Control
Behemoth Leaving Kim Petersen on the video-taped murder of an unarmed and incapacitated Iraqi resistance fighter, the mainstream media's spin and lack of indignation over the killing, and a critique of filmmaker Erwin Morris' deceptive editorial in the NY Times about the incident....(full article)
In
Ramadi today 6 civilians were killed in clashes between the resistance and
military. The military sealed the city, closing all the roads while
announcing over loudspeakers for residents in the city to hand over
“terrorists.” A man, woman and child died when the public bus they were
riding in approached a US checkpoint there when they were riddled with
bullets from anxious soldiers. A military spokesman said the bus was shot
because it didn’t stop when they asked it to. The city remains sealed by
US forces as fierce clashes sporadically erupt across the area while the
military decides how to handle yet another resistance controlled....(full
article)
Face the Music: Time to Oppose Our
Troops’ Actions
At what point will the left have to face the
music and admit that in order to fully oppose the Iraq war, we have to
also oppose our troops’ actions?
Abu Talat calls me
frantic. The deafening roar of hundreds of people in a confined area
yelling, “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) reverberate behind his panicked
voice. “I am being held at gunpoint by American soldiers inside Abu Hanifa
mosque Dahr,” he yells, “Everyone is praying to God because the Americans
are raiding our mosque during Friday prayer!” He makes short calls,
updating me on the atrocity. After a few sentences of information he hangs
up because he is trapped inside the mosque and trying to let me know what
is happening. Being Friday, the day of prayer and holiday, this was
supposed to be an off day for us....(full
article)
Flight Attendants, the Working Day and
Labor Solidarity A nationwide strike of 46,000 flight attendants has been authorized by the board of the Association of Flight Attendants. They are resisting airline employers making workers labor for longer hours at lower wages, and threatening to get rid of their pensions. A strike vote will be taken at four airlines -- UAL Corp.'s United, US Airways Group Inc., ATA Holdings Inc.'s ATA Airlines and Hawaiian Holdings Inc.'s Hawaiian Airlines -- with the votes set to be counted by the end of December....(full article)
“How
can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?”
asked the Daily Mirror of England in large type on its front page two days
after the American presidential election. What the Brits may not realize
is that many of those who voted for Bush actually pride themselves on
their ignorance. They associate being any kind of intellectual with
elitist East and West Coasters, the dissolute 1960s, "old Europe", and
other nasties on their love-to-hate list; for many of them as well,
whether consciously or unconsciously, it is a source of satisfaction that
they have a president who's no smarter than they are. "Moral values", we
are told, is the thing that was of primary concern to most of those who
voted for Bush. The daily horror brought by Bush to the people of Iraq
does not indicate less-than-noble moral values in the minds of these
Americans. Bush is a religious man; religious people are moral people;
ergo, Bush is a moral man. Discarding a clump of embryonic tissue cells,
as unconscious as a rock, is much more "morally" upsetting to these good
folk than sending a cruise missile screaming into a crowded Iraqi
apartment building. Two people of the same sex who love each other and
wish to get married is a greater crime in their, and god's, eyes, than the
sadistic torture of Iraqi prisoners....(full
article)
Empire of the Senseless:
Review of Bill Blum's Freeing The World to Death Bill Blum, one of the great American historians of the post WWII period, surely one of the boldest and most interesting, has his work cut out for him. From 1946 until now, this moment, and in the foreseeable future, the U.S. Empire's record of invasions, interventions and general malicious meddling in the governments, societies and "freedoms" of foreign peoples is virtually unparalleled in the history of meddlesome Empires. Never have so many been made so miserable so often by so few. And it's all on the public record, or enough of it to fill tomes denser by orders of magnitude than the two previous volumes, Killing Hope and Rogue State, both sizeable books Bill Blum has already written (he also penned a fascinating autobiography, West Bloc Dissident, regarding the pursuit of intellectual liberty in the totalitarian mindscape of the "free world")....But what about Bill Blum, author of the essays collected in Freeing the World to Death? Well, he's an historian, he's supposed to know stuff. Does that excuse us from not knowing? Or allow us to deliberately tell ourselves childish lies, such as we're “liberating” the people of Iraq by slaughtering 100,000 of them, not to mention the 100,000 we slaughtered in Persian Gulf I and the several hundred thousand, perhaps a million, we killed after that, literally starved, with sanctions....(full article)
I’m often asked to suggest books for radical reading purposes. “I wanna know what’s really going on,” it typically goes, “but where do I start?” My standard recommendation for your run-of-the-mill, garden variety, weaned-on-Fox American begins with a list of two: “A People’s History of the United States,” by Howard Zinn and Killing Hope, by William Blum. Zinn, for many, is no surprise. Blum, however, is less renowned but no less notorious...or essential. He may not have been name dropped in a Matt-and-Ben flick, but his work is required reading for anyone who craves context and documented data on the realities of U.S. foreign policy. Blum’s latest book, Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire (Common Courage Press), reads like a primer to his work and offers this election year nugget on the back cover: “If I were president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United states in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize—very publicly and very sincerely—to all the widows and orphans, the impoverished ad tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. Then I would announce to every corner of the world that America’s global military interventions have come to an end. I would then inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the union but-oddly enough-a foreign country. Then I would reduce the military budget by at least 90% and use the savings to pay reparations to the victims and repair the damage from the many American bombings, invasions, and sanctions. There would be more than enough money. One year’s military budget in the United States is equal to more than $20,000 per hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born. That’s one year. That’s what I’d do on my first three days in the White House. On the fourth day, I’d be assassinated.”....(full article)
The Straight Scoop News Bureau, run by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, is light on facts and long on myths about marijuana....(full article)
Beginning on November 30, 2004 George W Bush will be in a country that has endorsed the World Criminal Court. Despite certain protestations to the contrary, Canada is legally obliged to arrest George W Bush for war crimes. Going all the way back to Nuremberg, the precedent for the WCC, the number one crime -- the crime that got the Nazis hanged -- is to launch “aggressive” war. All other crimes, such as torture at Abu Ghraib, murder of wounded prisoners, targeting of hospitals during war, denying basic medicines -- stem from the primary crime against humanity, the crime against international peace. It is of little consequence how many of these crimes can be proved to involve Bush's direction. What matters is he launched illegal aggressive war. If Canada does not arrest him, it means Canada is in breach of their international obligations as a signatory in the Hague....(full article)
What are you afraid
of? What makes you anxious? Losing your health, your hair, your teeth,
your looks? If you have children, perhaps you fear for them: for their
health, the risk that they'll get wrapped up in drugs or crime, or that
they'll miss out on a good education. If you're a parent, as I am, your
biggest fear may well be that you'll lose your children. If you're not a
parent, perhaps you desperately wish that you were. Or perhaps you'd
prefer to remain childless, but fear becoming a parent accidentally. Are
you in love, looking for love or falling out of love? Do you fear being
alone in your old age, perhaps even dying alone? And what about feelings
of inadequacy? About not having a slim, well-toned body, or not being
clever enough, or not having the 'right' clothes, gadgets, education,
luxurious home or several holiday destinations through the year. Fear,
anxiety, loneliness, insecurity, suffering. Why should any of this matter
to political activists anyway?
On Election Day the Democrats beat Ralph Nader and Peter Miguel Camejo. But beating Nader-Camejo very likely contributed to failing to beat Bush-Cheney. When Ralph Nader met with John Kerry the mishandling of Nader began. At the meeting Ralph Nader offered Kerry a strategy for how the two campaigns could work together to beat Bush-Cheney and advance populist-progressive issues. Kerry refused and made a not-so-veiled threat against our campaign. It was evident at the meeting that Senator Kerry saw the possibility of winning and rather than making him confident it was making him cautious. This insecure approach made fear of making a mistake more important that seizing political opportunity....(full article)
Dear Mr. McAuliffe: I am writing to request your immediate resignation as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee....(full letter)
Since the reelection of President George W.
Bush in one of the most widely contested elections in U.S. history,
fishery and river restoration activists have been regrouping and deciding
how best to move forward. The Bush administration distinguished itself for
the damage its policies caused to salmon, steelhead and other fisheries
during the past four years. Anglers and conservationists can expect to see
similar challenges face us in the next four years....(full
article) November 18-21
Social Security isn’t broken, but Washington is full of reformers looking to fix it. Many, especially those who favor privatization, claim that the retirement of baby boomers and budget problems will cause the Social Security Trust Fund to run out of money within anywhere from the next decade to the next 40 years. Ideologically driven claims rather than facts, however, lie at the heart of the pro-privatization arguments....(full article)
Henry A. Giroux, a leading figure in the fields of critical pedagogy and cultural studies, recently came to McMaster University in Canada from Penn State University, where he taught for more than a decade. He is the author of more than 30 books and 250 journal articles. Sina Rahmani talked with Giroux about neoliberalism, the war on terror, the role and obligations of academics, literacy and education, culture, and dissent....(full interview)
Make no mistake about it, this year’s elections were rigged against fair elections -- we saw it unfolding before our very eyes. Before any ballots were cast or counted, thousands upon thousands of voters were disenfranchised throughout our nation. But the true culprits were not shadowy political operatives stuffing ballot boxes or rigging voting machines. Instead our archaic electoral rules and structures themselves disenfranchised eligible voters, albeit too often with the aid of unscrupulous partisans. These partisan operatives, though, are merely faceless constants in our flawed electoral machinery. The true culprit in the 2004 elections was our electoral system itself....(full article)
We had our daily car bomb today when a
suicide bomber drove his car into a US patrol as it passed near the
Yarmouk police station. Several Iraqis were killed, with no report yet on
US casualties. I felt the rumble even though I was on a street far away
from the blast-at least 5 miles distant. Walking and driving on the
streets Baghdad I find myself in a sea of chaos. Traffic is mayhem for
many reasons. The current fuel crisis being the lead cause. Lines at
petrol stations stretch for miles at some of the stations. A common scene
at these lines is that of people pushing their cars because they are
already out of gas or to save what precious little may be left in their
tank....
Why do they hate us? Because “we” are,
among other things, war criminals. If you are Arab and/or Muslim today,
chances you have been watching, hearing about, discussing, and feeling
deep rage over some terrible film footage. It’s been the story of the day
on Al-Jazeera, played and discussed and denounced over and over again.
The white
imperial Marines walk into a mosque in ravaged Fallujah, where the bodies
of dead and injured resistance fighters lay prone on the floor. We hear
one Marine speak to another, talking about one of the wounded: “He’s
fucking faking that he’s dead.” Response: “yeah, he’s breathing.” The
American release video goes black but we are permitted to hear a rifle
shot. “He’s dead now.”....
Kevin Sites is a freelance journalist on assignment with NBC News in Iraq, and he is currently acting as the imbedded journalist covering the fighting in Fallujah. His video report, which was released this week and shows a U.S. Marine killing a wounded and unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque, has started a global wildfire. Not surprisingly, those who are sympathetic to George W. Bush's war in Iraq have chosen to sidestep the issue at hand, and instead are screaming for Sites' head on a sacrificial platter. Unfortunately, deflecting the attention onto Sites does not erase what his camera recorded: a war crime, by any interpretation of the established laws of war. Sites did what the mainstream American media won't do, and simply recorded the uncensored story at hand (as competent journalists do). Judging by their reaction, Bush sympathizers don't appreciate "no spin" that has no spin....(full article)
Journalists are
increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed interim
government in Iraq. Media have been stopped particularly from covering
recent horrific events in Fallujah....(full
article)
A Voluntary Tic in Media Coverage of Iraq When misleading buzzwords become part of the media landscape, they slant news coverage and skew public perceptions. That’s the story with the phrase “Iraqi forces” -- now in routine use by US media outlets, including the country’s most influential newspapers. The New York Times and the Washington Post have been leading the way in news stories that apply the indigenous “Iraqi forces” label to Iraqi fighters who are pro-US-occupation ... but not to Iraqi fighters who are anti-US-occupation. Some recent examples:....(full article)
Margaret Hassan has been murdered. That is the most probable conclusion from a video given to Al Jazeera yesterday. For one who met her and got to know her, even if just a little, it is hard to write and read that sentence. But Margaret Hassan -- Umm Margaret -- in Baghdad has been murdered. Who killed her? (full article)
One of the biggest mistakes made by the Democratic Party during the recent election is that, once again, it “misunderestimated” George W. Bush. Rather than focusing on the big picture -- the growing power of the conservative movement in the United States -- much of the liberal rhetoric during the campaign focused on Bush's incompetence, his character flaws and the failings of his administration. These themes found expression in books with titles such as The Lies of George W. Bush, the I Hate Bush Reader and the Bush Hater's Handbook. In Fahrenheit: 9/11, Michael Moore dwelt on Bush's rich-kid background, his frequent vacations, his Saudi connections and the frozen, deer-in-the-headlights way he continued reading My Pet Goat to schoolchildren after he first heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center towers. The implicit message was that Bush was a uniquely flawed individual and that literally “anybody but Bush” would be an improvement. The flaw in this argument is that it really isn't true. The problem with George W. Bush is that he isn't unique. He sits atop a political movement that has been building for 30 years. In 2002, the Republican Party won majority control of every branch of the federal government for the first time since 1932: both houses of Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, the Presidency - not to mention most state legislatures and governor's offices. The 2004 elections didn't just give Bush four more years. It also consolidated Republican majorities in every other branch of government....(full article)
I’m growing a little weary of post-election European commentary about the dangerous stupidity of the idiotic American masses. The reason for the commentary is of course the idiotic election (the first one actually) of the dangerous Bush, an action that was in fact based to no small extent on sheer mass stupidity. The overseas reaction is understandable and predictable. I’ve been saying for sometime that bringing back Dubya would significantly erode the welcome distinction that the rest of the world tends to make between the American people (“we like you”) and the American government and policy (“it’s just your government’s policies we don’t like”). Still, Kerry was hardly a champion of noble human Enlightenment and was thoroughly committed to the bloody racist imperial occupation of Iraq and had worked quite hard to distance himself from domestic peace and justice forces. Whatever mild efforts he would have made towards sanity and decency in foreign and domestic policy -- the left tactical voting argument on his behalf was always more about what he wouldn’t do (privatize Social Security, drill in Alaska, attack Syria and Iran and wherever) than what he would do -- would have been qualified by right wing domination in Congress, judiciary, the state legislatures, and the powerful daily media “noise machine.” Not to mention his basic allegiance to corporate Neoliberal capitalism. So, we’re all dangerous morons because we brought back Bush. But we would have been, what, benevolent hopeful geniuses if we’d gone 2 percentage points differently and maybe tipped the “Winner-Take-All” Electoral College to John “I am not a Redistribution Democrat” and “I Participated in the Crucifixion of Southeast Asia” and “I Have a Plan to More Effectively Subordinate Iraq” Kerry? (full article)
In a marked display of ignorance, the mainstream American press and analysts from both sides of the political spectrum have effectively painted a rosy picture of France this election season: making the country out to be pacifistically opposed to the U.S. war in Iraq. Undoubtedly, the French citizenry is overwhelmingly opposed to what Bush has done in Iraq, and simultaneously supported his defeat this election season. But have no illusions about the French government: from Napoleon to Chirac, this is a land of empire. Likewise, where there is empire, there is violence by definition. On the 50th anniversary of the infamous massacre of Algiers, the French have embroiled themselves in a re-birth of colonial war in the Ivory Coast (Cote D’Ivoire). This is the same narrative that has been re-told many times through imperial history: a native population being resentful of foreign occupation. Like the U.S. in Falluja, the French government is proving slow to learn that subjects of colonialism never desire their subjugation....(full article)
In a November 6 speech, Democratic Party powerbroker Bill Clinton blamed John Kerry’s defeat on liberal Democrats “for not engaging the Christian evangelical community in a serious discussion of what it would take to promote a real culture of life.” While Democrats debate how much further to distance the party from a pro-choice position, the Christian right has gone on an anti-abortion offensive. Right-wing crackpot Jerry Falwell launched the Faith and Values Coalition last week, as a “21st century version of the Moral Majority.”....(full article)
Remember Smedley Butler? He was perhaps the most decorated Major General in Marine Corps history. In the early part of this century, he fought and killed for the United States around the world. Butler was awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor. Then, when he returned to the United States he wrote a book titled War is a Racket which opens with the memorable lines: "War is a racket. It always has been." "I was a high class muscleman for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers," Butler said. "In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism." In a speech in 1933, Butler said the following: "I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested." Smedley Butler, meet John Perkins....(full article)
Many gays and lesbians woke up on the morning of November 3 feeling like they’d been stabbed in the gut. As pundits of all stripes rushed to submit their analysis of the latest Democratic Party crash and burn, the media frenzy began to resemble a morbid competition to see who could pour more salt on the wounds of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people. Without Ralph Nader to scapegoat for this election cycle’s thumping at the polls, it became clear that pushy gays and lesbians--who had the audacity to seek equal marriage rights--would be the new Naderites, publicly reviled by Democrats for their candidate’s loss....(full article)
I don't pretend to understand the appeal of reality shows, but it's beginning to feel as if we are uncomfortably near the exciting season finale of the surreal world in which we actually live, and it's not at all clear if the series is going to survive for another season. The plot leading up to the cliffhanger finale has been an ingenious web of surprises, mysteries and deceit cleverly tangled up so that there are so many twists and turns that the viewer is constantly tricked into misjudging what is happening and who is doing it. For instance, in a recent story line there is an emergency at the Polar Ice Caps which it seems are melting much faster than previously thought. What will happen to the polar bears? Will temperatures and seas rise? (full article)
Hour after hour the testimonies are the same: angry Ohioans telling of vicious Republican manipulation and de facto intimidation that disenfranchised tens of thousands and probably cost the Democrats the election. At an African-American church on Saturday and then at the Franklin County Courthouse Monday night, more than 700 people came to testify and witness to tales of the atrocity that was the November 2 election. Organized by local ad hoc groups, the hearings had a court reporter and a team of lawyers along with other appointed witnesses. At freepress.org we will be making the testimonies available as they're transcribed and organized, and we will present a fuller accounting of the hearings, along with a book that includes the transcripts. But one thing was instantly and abundantly clear: the Republican Party turned Ohio 2004 into an updated version of the Jim Crow South....(full article)
800 Civilians Feared Dead in Fallujah
Speaking on
condition of anonymity for fear of U.S. military reprisal, a high-ranking
official with the Red Cross in Baghdad told IPS that “at least 800
civilians” have been killed in Fallujah so far. His estimate is based on
reports from Red Crescent aid workers stationed around the embattled city,
from residents within the city and from refugees, he said.....(full
article)
Hung Over in the End Times As the elections proved for once and for all, Christian fanatics are plenty thick in the good ole U S of A these days and can no longer be written off as Dogpatch religionists. Historically, they have always been around and in about the same numbers too, just less visible. But currently they are hopped up about god giving them their own president and even their own political party. Of course in a country limited to two parties -- the Republican Party of Heavy Imperialism and Democratic Imperialism Lite -- this spells trouble for those of us who do not handle snakes or wash other people’s feet during church services. It is one thing for them to have it in for their enemies, and quite another to have their own president, cabinet, Supreme Court, and newly established Department of Fatherland Surveillance backing them up. Not since the days of Andrew Jackson’s populist hog and hominy presidency have these people seen one of their own farting at the Oval Room desk. And as usual, the fundies have blood in their eye, this time for liberal humanism, free thought, Trojan rubber products and the number 666....(full article)
Every major American conflict leaves distinct impressions. Many will remember this war as an epic battle that culminated with the toppling of Saddam’s statue. Others will never forget the chamber of horrors at Abu Ghraib or the thousands of amputated and disfigured American soldiers or the ones who simply didn’t make it home. Iraqis will spend decades mourning the tens of thousands of family members who have perished during the Anglo-American invasion -- or caring for the wounded and crippled survivors. The war will leave especially bitter memories for the people of Fallujah. For those who still give a damn about illicit war crimes, one scene in particular should never be forgotten or forgiven -- the sight of American soldiers sending fleeing Iraqi civilians back into Fallujah. As their city was being reduced to rubble by American air power, about 300 unarmed refugees were detained as they fled the carnage. After allowing the women and children through their lines, the Marines tested all adult males to determine if they had recently handled weapons or explosives. Even after testing negative, all the men were forced to return to the combat zone....(full article)
Everyone saw it coming, only the U.S. forces did not: humanitarian disaster in Fallujah, and stronger resistance against U.S. and allied occupying forces all around Iraq. The real face of the “success” of the U.S. military assault in Fallujah is now beginning to present itself. Thousands of families remain trapped inside Fallujah with no food, clean water or medical assistance. No one can say how many of the 1,200 “rebels” U.S. forces claim to have killed inside Fallujah are civilians, or whether the death toll is higher. The Iraqi Red Crescent Society, which is supported by the Red Cross and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has called the situation in Fallujah a “big disaster.” The Iraqi Red Crescent has several teams of relief workers and doctors, and truckloads of food waiting for the authorization from the U.S.-backed interim government and the U.S. military, but they have not been allowed in....(full article)
“The people have spoken,” Bush gloated on November 4 to an ecstatic White House press corps. “The voters of America set the direction of our nation for the next four years...They've given me political capital -- and I'm gonna spend it.” Four days later, after shifting the blame for what he was about to do onto the people -- after announcing he had the "will of the people at his back," Bush celebrated by grabbing a giant firecracker, ramming it into the mouth of Fallujah, and firing it up. The explosion was heard around the world. Now, standing there amidst the flames, impervious to the shrieks of the fallen, reveling in his new, ill-gotten four-year "erection," Bush arrogantly invokes the name of God as he pushes the terrified people of Iraq out of their homes, their cities -- pushes them out of their lives and off the face of the Earth. In his pathologically unbalanced mind-set, Bush believes he is above the law of cause and effect -- he can do no wrong -- his gut feelings supersede all logic and reason and humanity. Bush's genocidal jihad against Islam goes beyond arrogance and ignorance. It is evil, dirty, deceptive and slithery. It is satanic warfare. Now that Bush has dumped the blame on the people, it will be interesting to see if God and History -- whom Bush has managed to tangle into one forbidding, powerful entity -- will escape being held to account....(full article)
The horrendous humanitarian disaster of Fallujah drags on as the US military continues to refuse the entry of an Iraqi Red Crescent (IRC) convoy of relief supplies. The Red Crescent has appealed to the UN to intervene, but no such luck, nor does the military relent....(full article)
Norman Solomon on media coverage of the US assault on Fallujah: The conflict in Iraq has become a holy war. In both directions....(full article)
One telling piece of evidence was entered
into the record at the Saturday, November 13 public hearing on election
irregularities and voter suppression held by nonpartisan voter rights
organizations. Cliff Arnebeck, a Common Cause attorney, introduced into
the record the Franklin County Board of Elections spreadsheet detailing
the allocation of e-voting computer machines for the 2004 election. The
Board of Elections’ own document records that, while voters waited in
lines ranging from 2-7 hours at polling places, 68 electronic voting
machines remained in storage and were never used on Election Day. The
Board of Elections document details that there are 2886 “Total Machines”
in Franklin County. Twenty of them are “In Vans for Breakdowns.” The
County record acknowledges 2886 were available on Election Day, November 2
and that 2798 of their machines were “placed by close of polls.” The
difference between the machines “available” and those “placed” is 68. The
nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition provided legal advisors and
observed 58 polling places in primarily African American and poor
neighborhoods in Franklin County. An analysis of the Franklin County Board
of Elections’ allocation of machines reveals a consistent pattern of
providing fewer machines to the Democratic city of Columbus, with its
Democratic mayor and uniformly Democratic city council, despite increased
voter registration in the city. The result was an obvious disparity in
machine allocations compared to the primarily Republican white affluent
suburbs....
In letters to the editor, on radio talk shows, and in corner bars, the conservative religious wing of America is ecstatic over the election, praising God and Bush in the same breath. Bush is the savior who will redeem the nation from the immorality of liberals, the Hollywood Left, and other pagans. In their world of divine absolute truth, even moderate and some conservative theologians will go to Hell for the sins of preaching tolerance for those who have other views of God and mankind, something not even Bush himself ever publicly stated....(full article)
In October the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), approved the VeriChip,™ an inert, encapsulated, microchip the size of a grain of rice, implanted by a syringe under the skin in the flesh of the upper arm. To be used for medical identification purposes the information contained in the chip is accessed through a special reader, not unlike a barcode scanner. Applied Digital Solutions, the company making the chips say it will save lives and limit injuries from errors in medical treatment. However the company has much larger plans. In a recent New York Times interview they expressed hope that such medical uses would accelerate acceptance of the chip as a security measure. It’s easy to see where they’re coming from. Or going to. Before finding the perfect medical vehicle to introduce their technology, Applied Digital developed a transdermal tracking implant called a Digital Angel. The company said the chip could be used to wirelessly monitor a person's key body functions -- such as temperature and pulse -- and transmit that data along with the accurate location of the person, to a web-enabled ground station or monitoring facility. The product was discontinued because of low consumer acceptance. But by stepping back a little, redefining their product applications or at least the public’s perception of them and gaining FDA approval, the company is now on the path to success....(full article)
Despite the apparent resolution of the
presidential race, the U.S. economy still faces many problems. One is slow
job growth. This, and not abortion and gay marriage, is the social issue
of the day, determining for the majority in blue and red states who does
get by and who falls by the wayside....
Post-Mortem on Post-Election Post-Mortems
Post-mortems seem to be very popular these days. Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell and several other authors have made the forensic study of corpses and bones the grim focus of best-selling crime novels. "CSI" has spawned a host of high-tech, high-magnification TV cop shows in which dissections are lovingly photographed and explicated. Now the election results have gotten the pundits working overtime carving up the remains of the Kerry campaign. But the first thing to get straight is, what died here? If we're fortunate, what died is the last illusion people had about the nature of this system and how to resist or change it. The corpses available for dissection -- the Democratic Party, the 'democratic republic,' and the labor-liberal alliance -- are rotten and stinking zombies with the flesh falling off the bone. . . . People professed shock and outrage that, after proclaiming repeatedly that every vote counts and that every vote would be counted, Kerry meekly and swiftly conceded the election before all the votes were counted. What we need to understand is that Kerry had played his role, fulfilled his function and was prepared to fold his tents and slink off. Kerry was there to restrict the political debate, to establish the parameters of allowable dissent around a position that upheld all the assumptions Bush had made, and to serve as a safety valve acceptable to the ruling elite if by some chance the war, repression, and job losses had so soured the electorate on Bush that a changing of the guard proved necessary....(full article)
On election day the driver bringing my children from Half Way Tree to Mona asked me if I’d voted. “I’m for Bush,” he volunteered. “I think we need a strong leader.” This man drove a purple SUV, and had confessed that, between jobs, he stayed home watching TV. So he probably knew more or less what the Bush administration and Fox News wanted him to know. But that imperial “we” put me to thinking about just whose interests the Bush administration serves. Not all of the people driving the shiny new SUVs that have clogged Kingston traffic would identify themselves as Bush supporters. But Bush and the “regime of oil” are certainly protecting their right to imitate the American dream. In truth I’ve been looking for the exit since Reagan was elected in 1980. In the past few years, what John Le Carre has called the “madness” of American media and politics has reached such a shrill pitch that I’ve tuned out almost completely, turning instead to Spanish-language media and internet sources. But I was born in Oklahoma and reared mostly in Texas. It is impossible for me to run away from the evidence of just how closely the mood of many Americans has come to match the dictionary definition of fascism. “A totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism.”....(full article)
In 2000, with incidental help from Nader voters, the Democrats lost an election they should have won. This year, the party proved they could do it all by themselves. Or, if they won as some are suggesting, they caved again. While the Republicans gave their constituents hope and principle (the wrong principles but clear nonetheless) "Anybody But Bush" didn't work because it was the politics of fear coupled with the unappetizing option of the "least worst," as Ralph Nader puts it. The Democrats' strategy can best be summed up by a saying of Catherine Aird's, "If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." Meanwhile, there is much good that can be learned from Nader's example, regardless of whether you liked his strategy, regardless of whether he runs again. One lesson can be applied to many projects in life, not just politics....(full article)
Are we doomed to suffer at the hands of two political parties with an ever-decreasing difference between them? Three aspects of this question intrigue me. One key conundrum is the issue of pragmatism versus principle. Do we go for what we think will be acceptable to others, or should bolder paths be taken? Second, where we stand on that choice depends on our understanding of how gradual or rapid change can be in American politics. To address this, I review some insights about how systems behave over time. But there are limits: making fixed predictions based on the nature of systems is notorious for leading people down a path of false certainty. Lastly, I argue that our ultimate choices about the bold or pragmatic paths cannot be made solely on the basis of predictions of success; we must act in the face of uncertainty....(full article)
The Democrats, obviously still mourning John Kerry’s embarrassing loss to George W. Bush just two weeks prior, have drawn up a new game-plan in hopes that it will help them challenge their purported rivals in elections to come. Well, it isn’t really a new plan, just a fresh spin on an old failing strategy. The Democrats still believe, even after Kerry’s willful loss, that the only way to beat the neocons is to outflank them to the right. Take on their backward “values” and surpass their fanaticism. The saga began to unfold following Democratic Senate minority leader Tom Daschle’s horrific defeat to Republican John Thume in the South Dakotan Senate race on November 2. After Daschle’s loss, Democratic National Committee chair, Terry McAuliffe, was on the phone rallying support behind one of his favorite Senators -- Nevada’s own, Harry Reid....(full article)
America's traditionalists in religion are disturbed by the social effects of economic growth, although they do not understand the connection with economics and hold to superstitious notions of people giving themselves over to evil. Short of a new Dark Ages taking hold in America (an idea novelist Margaret Atwood toyed with in The Handmaid's Tale), these social changes are not reversible, but that fact has little impact on the intense, driving needs of those who base their lives on narrow interpretations of ancient texts they can't even read. There is considerable evidence that fundamentalists are people who suffer from greater-than-average levels of defects like anxiety and paranoia. You only have to consider all the screaming, spewing revivalist sermons about damnation and the twisted nightmares of the Book of Revelations and parts of the Old Testament to understand the role of fear in fundamentalism. Of course, superstition itself is just fear's way of explaining the unknown. Not all Americans are fundamentalists, not even a majority, but there are enough of them (something like 40% claim to be "re-born") to form a powerful swing group in American politics. While America was founded under the leadership of non-Christian Deists and Skeptics (the true source for the best part of America's written, although often-abused, freedoms), fundamentalism has long provided a howling background chorus....(full article)
Norman Solomon is a valuable voice within the progressive sphere. His thoughtful comments on the corporate media and global justice issues are enlightening and compelling. However, Solomon’s recent offering features a take on progressivism that differs from how some other progressives view matters. Solomon laments the “horrific racket” of “right-wing trumpets” but his depiction of the right-wing cacophony is quite exclusive. Solomon furcates the enemy into different camps. He writes that the Democratic Party “is not our main enemy.” [italics added] This “main enemy is the right-wing power of the Republican Party.” It is not the Republican Party that is singled out but the “right-wing power” of the GOP. Presumably the Democratic Party is bereft of “right wing power.” Solomon warns, “[A]nachronistic fury at the Democratic Party is not going to get us very far.” [italics added] Why is this fury anachronistic? It seems this fury is very palpable now. Otherwise why did the Democrats come out on the wrong side of a rigged election? The Democrats basically told progressive voters to take a flying leap off a high bridge. While unreasoning anger is wasteful, anger itself might be cathartic. Why shouldn’t progressives be furious at the Democrats as well? (full article)
For those who oppose Israeli occupation, it is clear, then, that Sharon's disengagement is just a plan for maintaining the occupation with more international legitimacy. However, there is one presupposition shared in all discussions of this plan -- that in the process, Sharon also intends to dismantle the settlements of the Gaza strip, and return the land they are built on to the Palestinians. I should say that had I believed this might happen, I would have supported the plan. The Gaza settlements, together with their land reserves, security zones, Israeli-only roads, and the military array protecting them, occupy almost a third of the strip's land, which is one of the most densely populated areas of the world. Had this land been returned to its owners, it would be a step forward. We should never forget that the Palestinian struggle is not only for their liberation, but for regaining their lands in the occupied territories -- lands that Israel has been appropriating since 67. As long as the Palestinians manage to hold on to their land, under even the worst occupation, they will eventually also gain their liberation. Without land, what is at stake is not just their liberation, but their survival. But what basis is there to believe that Sharon indeed plans to dismantle settlements at some point? (full article)
President Yasir Arafat's coffin had barely touched the ground of his temporary tomb in Ramallah when United States President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair jointly made yet another statement on Middle East Peace. Setting aside the fact that the timing of the statement | |
