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October 2004 Articles
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DV Articles
November 2003
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The Lancet, a respected British medical journal, reports that the US and coalition forces (but mainly the US Air Force) has killed 100,000 Iraqi civilians since the fall of Saddam on April 9, 2003. Previous estimates for civilian deaths since the beginning of the war ranged up to 16,000, with the number of Iraqi troops killed during the war itself put at about 6,000. The troubling thing about these results is that they suggest that the US may soon catch up with Saddam Hussein in the number of civilians killed. How many deaths to blame on Saddam is controversial. He did after all start both the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. But he also started suing for peace in the Iran-Iraq war after only a couple of years, and it was Khomeini who dragged the war out until 1988. But if we exclude deaths of soldiers, it is often alleged that Saddam killed 300,000 civilians. This allegation seems increasingly suspect. So far only 5,000 or so persons have been found in mass graves. But if Roberts and Burnham are right, the US has already killed a third as many Iraqi civilians in 18 months as Saddam killed in 24 years....(full article)
Looked at realistically Osama bin Laden's intervention in our presidential election was undoubtedly an act of immediate organizational weakness, not strength. Had he had been capable of orchestrating the bringing down of another American tower or its equivalent, he certainly would have done so, but it was no less ingenious for that. His last major intervention, his self-scripted action-adventure film in real time, The Humiliation of America, cost his organization hundreds of thousands of planning dollars and 19 suicidal believers (plus the price of airplane tickets, box-cutters, and mace). Still, those 19 followers and the almost 3,000 dead from the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and United Flight 93, which never made it to Washington thanks to the heroic action of its passengers, was clearly a cheap enough price to pay in his eyes for the notoriety he instantly achieved....(full article)
It has been a bad few weeks for Bush with discoveries startling enough to kill, or at least stun, a normal candidate. But there is nothing normal about Bush. He just keeps plunging ahead, grunting and gasping, like one of the undead. . . . Now, suddenly, just days before the election, we have Osama's Jesus-like face again appearing on every front page in the world. Who benefits from Osama's re-appearance? (full article)
Osama Bin Laden was destined to be a major factor in this election from the moment the first plane struck the World Trade Center. The memories of that assault are deeply etched in the collective American psyche. . . . This is how The Independent (UK) reported Osama bin Laden's intervention in the American elections: “With an aplomb verging on impertinence, the al-Qaida leader has delivered his own election message to the American people, just four days before they choose their next president.” By morning, OBL’s speech was stealing the headlines in every major American paper. Most Americans can’t name the Prime Minister of Canada or the president of Mexico. But they recognize the Al Qaida leader by his initials. JFK, FDR, JFK, LBJ, GWB and OBL are probably the only five people who can readily be identified in a major headline with only three bold letters....(full article)
Jim Lobe on the Osama bin Laden's video re-appearance, and the new The Lancet study which estimates 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the US invasion in 2003....(full article)
The important thing for us all respecting the recently released video by OBL is not whether or not it'll make voters lean toward Bush or Kerry. What it's saying to Muslims is irrelevant. And neither analysis regarding 9/11 speculations to date, nor what visual cues might be uncovered should garner our attention. Ditto for the state of OBL's health, confirmation or the lack of it concerning his modus operandi, and/or who was right or wrong stateside about his whereabouts. The only thing that's crucial is that we take his advice to not place much significance on whether or not Bush or Kerry becomes his Official Nemesis (ON), and get down to the business of ensuring the safety of his people....(full article)
Osama bin Laden's recent video address to American voters on the eve of the presidential elections will likely have less impact on Bush's chances of re-(s)election than Ashlee Simpson's disastrous appearance on Saturday Night Live. If anything, the latter sends more chills down Republican spines since Ashlee (little sister to Bush supporter Jessica Simpson) seems to be following a career path almost identical to little George's short-lived and disaster prone presidency. In what appears to be a prophetic twist of fate, the parallels between the speech defective former governor of Texas and the vocally challenged Texas teen are as apparent as the telltale bulge on Bush's back during the debates....(full article)
During the current election campaign, there is much discussion of the U.S. “war on terror.” While this discussion focuses almost entirely upon the Middle East, Iraq and Al-Qaeda, there is almost no mention of Washington’s current war in Colombia, a war in which the United States is actually supporting military forces that are terrorizing the population. Indeed, the U.S. Congress, over the objection of numerous human rights organizations, recently deepened the U.S. role in Colombia by voting to double the U.S. troop level there from 400 to 800. This troop involvement is in addition to the more than $3.5 billion the United States has already spent on the Colombian military since 2000, making Colombia the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the world....(full article)
If “independent” commissions (and “opposition" presidential candidates) can’t call Bush a liar without unraveling “the social and political fabric,” then the lion’s share of the president’s rhetoric and conduct would appear to be off the table of serious criticism. Has Bush been granted the Divine Right of Presidential Bad Faith, Necessitated by the Requirement to Preserve Social Hierarchy? (full article)
The re-election of President George W. Bush will not depend on the quagmire in Iraq, the state of the economy, Florida re-counts, suppressed votes in the battleground states, the lack of a paper trail from electronic voting machines, or a decision by the United States Supreme Court. The president will win if Team Bush has successfully convinced voters that their guy is more capable of fighting the war against terror and keeping Americans safer than Senator John Kerry....(full article)
Do you recall the “new” economy hype of last decade? Its cheerleaders claimed that the American business cycle was over. With the luxury of hindsight, we see the foolishness of that claim. On that note, consider the U.S. airline industry today. Its revenues are down. Expenses are up, led by rising oil prices. So domestic carriers are slashing their costs by any means necessary. This process brings into clearer view the social conflict between airline employers and employees....(full article)
“We think lawsuit abuse is a serious problem in this country," proclaimed Dick Cheney while debating John Edwards in early October. That "runaway lawsuits" theme is repeated at almost every Bush/Cheney campaign stop. Knowing the record of his own company, I can't help wondering whether Cheney is like an alcoholic seeking help, for during his five-year reign as CEO, Halliburton and its subsidiaries filed more than 150 separate court actions (documented by Halliburton Watch). Those lawsuits pursued injunctions, evictions, and attempted to collect alleged debts from other corporations and individuals, sometimes for as little as $1,500. But Halliburton is just part of a larger pattern. A recent study by Public Citizen indicates that the 7 million U.S. corporations file four times as many lawsuits as the 281 million individual Americans, so corporations are 160 times as likely to sue as an average person....(full article)
Our decision on election-day 2004 will say as much about who we are as what we want to become, in short time transforming our destiny to the society that will exist into the future. We are each others’ gate keepers, and through the monumental decision we must make the future course of humanity will take. The referendum of the next few days is as much one regarding us as a society as it is on the presidency of George W. Bush. Do we approve of what has transpired, of what has been committed and of what has and continues to be done in our name? Do we condone all that has been lost, our reputation, our humanity, our nation? Have the last four years been an anomaly, a freak period of time not accepted or sought by the American people? Do the policies of the corporate administration have resonance and complicity acquiescence among us, or are they to be discarded and erased from our collective conscious? In our answers to these questions America will thus come to be defined....(full article)
The Associated Press (AP) will be the sole
source of raw vote totals for the major news broadcasters on Election
Night. However, AP spokesmen Jack Stokes and John Jones refused to explain
to this journalist how the AP will receive that information. They refused
to confirm or deny that the AP will receive direct feed from voting
machines and central vote tabulating computers across the country. But,
circumstantial evidence suggests that is exactly what will happen. And
what can be downloaded can also be uploaded. Computer experts say that
signals can travel both to and from computerized voting machines through
wireless technology, modems, and even simple electricity. Computer
scientists have long warned that computer voting is an invitation to vote
fraud and system failure. An examination of Diebold election software by
several computer scientists, including Dr. Avi Rubin and his staff, proved
that secret backdoors can be built into computer programs that allow votes
to be easily manipulated without detection....(full
article)
Kerry and the Sopranos: Why New Jersey is
in Play
Location means as much in politics as it
does in real estate. So it was no surprise that the John Kerry campaign,
during the Democratic National convention in Boston, chose to house the
New Jersey Democratic delegation at the posh Parker House Hotel. (Compare
that to the Montana delegation: Grizzly State Democrats bunked down in
shared dorm rooms at Northeastern University). Kerry’s choice wasn’t
accidental; he owes Joisey big time. How big? Fuggedaboutit. Kerry has
raised over $4 million dollars in New Jersey, more than almost any state
in the nation, particularly adjusting for size. Kerry is now regretting
taking cash and assistance from the corrupt New Jersey political ATM
machine. Going into the last days of the campaign, the presidential
contest in New Jersey is a virtual dead-heat, a shocker considering that
New Jersey was one of Gore’s best states in 2000, with a 16% margin of
victory. Voters in New Jersey are hesitant to cast a vote for the Kerry-McGreevey
corruption ticket that is denying voters their right to vote for the next
Governor of New Jersey....(full article)
Born to be Wild (About Video Games?) On October 28, 2004, the New York Times decided it was fit to print an article called “Weaned on Video Games” by Michel Marriott. In the piece—essentially a press release for the video game industry—we learned of a report last fall by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy research organization, which “found that half of all 4- to 6-year-old children have played video games—on hand-held devices, computers or consoles—and one in four played several times a week. Of children 3 or younger, 14 percent have played video games.” “Companies have found that there was an untapped market with the really young kid,” said Vicky Rideout, a vice president of the foundation....(full article)
The Anybody But Bush (ABB) movement has a
new recruiter. Rapper Eminem has released a new video “Mosh” that urges
America’s disaffected youth to do their civic duty to remove Bush by
engaging in the revolutionary act of voting. Directed by Ian Inaba of the
Guerrilla News
Network website, the anti-Bush video has all the accoutrements of
rebel chic and revolutionary images that are appropriated and safely
channeled into the government-approved outlet of obediently voting for the
State-sanctioned candidates in a rigged game. Eminem wants you to fall in
line and play their game on their terms. This sort of
inside-the-ballot-box thinking is as daring and revolutionary as a Britney
Spears Pepsi commercial. I’m sure it will complement MTV’s superficial
“choose or lose” campaign quite nicely....
George Bush may be getting the same kind of legal and musical advice as he gets from his military and environmental strategists. Amidst a torrent of bad news, yet another Bush fiasco has erupted with his attempt to use the rock standard "Still the One" as his theme song without bothering to ask its author for permission....(full article)
When the Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly was recently slapped with a sexual harassment law suit by one of his producers, were you: a) pleased that the bullying right wing television talk-show host might finally be getting his; b) surprised by reports of the breadth of O'Reilly's sexual fantasies; c) trying to figure out whether it would sink his career; d) wondering how the master of the so-called no-spin zone would wiggle his way out of the mess; e) concerned that O'Reilly's wife and two children might be drawn into the controversy; and/or, f) a little bit of all of the above? (full article)
“I’m Labor and I Vote”: American Workers
Need a Kerry Victory
Imagine Gore Running for Re-election with
Bush's Record
Imagine there was no electoral college and Al Gore became president after winning the popular vote in 2000. Now, imagine President Gore running for re-election with George W. Bush's record. How would you vote? (full article)
David McReynolds, democratic socialist and Green Party candidate for NY Senator, weighs in on the election: My mentor, the late A. J. Muste, used to say “the truth is always concrete.” I don't know whether the phrase was his own, or borrowed from Marx, Trotsky, or Gandhi. But it made sense and has stuck with me. When people ask me “who will you vote for President?” my answer is, “Which state do you live in?” Because of the electoral college I can safely vote for Ralph Nader here in New York State (though if David Cobb were on the ballot, I would have voted for him), knowing that Kerry will safely take New York State. If I lived in New Jersey, another safe state, I would certainly vote for Walt Brown, since I am a member of the Socialist Party and he is our candidate. But if I were in Ohio -- or any swing state -– I would vote for Kerry. How can a simple question have three different answers? And how in the world could I even consider voting for Nader “when the fate of the world hinges on defeating Bush?” (One close friend sent me an email saying he wouldn't even consider voting for me in the NY Senate race, so deep was his hostility to Nader). Others will ask how I could consider Kerry “when he is not opposed to the war in Iraq?”....(full article)
Peter Camejo is the vice presidential running mate on Ralph Nader’s independent presidential ticket. Camejo is a veteran of many struggles during almost half a century of political activism--from the civil rights movement in the U.S. South, to the union struggle, from the environmental movement to the fight for immigrant rights. . . . With less than two weeks remaining in the campaign, Camejo talked to Socialist Worker’s Alan Maaas about Election 2004, and the importance of the Nader challenge....(full article)
The Kerry campaign, in co-ordination with shadowy 527 groups funded by corporate backers and disgraced Senator Bob Torricelli, is using liberal progressives, including Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky in their literature attacking Nader in the closing days of the campaign....(full article)
Soon the tallies will be rolling in, and those that cast a vote for John Kerry in hopes of altering the US foreign policy paradigm, will have wasted their energy. What the mainstream media and others have failed to disclose this election season is that one of Senator Kerry’s key foreign policy advisors, Richard Holbrooke, happened to play a significant role in perhaps the largest US backed genocide of the twentieth-century. Holbrooke is considered a likely tap for Secretary of State if Kerry defeats President Bush....(full article)
While neither a Bush nor Kerry administration would challenge the "special relationship" between the US and Israel, the outcome of this election will likely make a real difference in the amount of death and destruction visited on both sides, but especially on Palestinians....(full article)
Ralph Nader won’t receive more than 1 percent of the vote nationwide on Election Day, but he’s already the winner in a spectacular game of “chicken.” After the vast majority of former allies jumped off his electoral vehicle, Nader kept flooring the accelerator -- while scorning them as “scared liberals” who “lost their nerve.”....(full article)
The corporate media has many voters believing this a contest between Bush and Kerry. But there is a third candidate in this race, a man who does not bow to special interests - domestic or foreign. A man who is not reluctant to take controversial stands against the Iraq war or to speak up for the Palestinians. That man is Ralph Nader. All Americans should give some serious consideration to Nader -- if only to deflate the power of the media barons and vandalize their political machines. But Arab-Americans and other minorities must be the first to line up behind Nader....(full article)
Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jim Hightower, and Ralph Nader's former running mate Winona LaDuke haven't convinced you that voting for Nader is too great a risk this election, maybe nothing will. But the stakes are high enough to try. As Nader supporters continually point out, Kerry is a compromised, centrist Democrat, ambivalent at best on a host of key questions including the Iraqi war. And yes, Nader's positions are better, and it may feel personally gratifying to vote for them. But this election isn't about abstract stands. It's about Bush's threat to democracy. Not just Bush, but a larger Republican machine that purges African Americans from the Florida voting rolls, throws away voter registrations in Nevada, jams New Hampshire Democratic phone banks with hired telemarketers, shouts down Palm Beach vote counters, and shuts Congressional Democrats out of the legislative drafting process entirely, replacing their voices with those of industry lobbyists. That doesn't count waging preemptive wars and lying about their justification, passing over a hundred billion dollars a year of regressive tax cuts, smashing unions, plundering the environment, and branding everyone who disagrees with you an ally of terrorism....(full article)
I was saddened to read your open letter urging people to vote for John Kerry in 2004. Saddened, not because of the impact on my vote but because it signals more of the same surrender of some liberal thinkers....(full article)
If the polls are
anywhere near the mark, George Bush has an even chance of polluting the
White House for four more years. Given his record, the only reason Dubya
remains a viable candidate is John Kerry. Until a few months ago, the
“Anybody But Bush” movement was gathering enough momentum to guarantee
that any randomly chosen Democrat could land Dubya on the unemployment
line. It now appears that any old Republican can lick Kerry....(full
article)
Chomsky, Zinn, Nader, & The Quadrennial
Farce
In a recent Democracy Now! interview progressive Norman Solomon declared his support for Nader's right to be on the ballot but criticized his appeal to disaffected conservatives on the basis that it constitutes a courting of racists and xenophobes, a charge that he declined to make against Kerry, who merely supports rabidly racist fanatics mass murdering the children of Palestine. At the same time Solomon criticized Nader for helping Bush by siphoning votes from Kerry. Apparently, it is fine for Nader to be on the ballot as long as he doesn't seek votes from either the right or the left. The currently fashionable crackpot realism beneath all this is but the latest version of the quadrennial farce called electing a president. I must say that this year's version is beyond the absurdist norm, what with so many progressives pronouncing Nader a strategic moron, a charge that is, of course, untrue. But even if it were the case, it would not be nearly as serious as the wholesale moral surrender summed up in the vacuous slogan "anybody but Bush."....(full article)
In the opinion of many, including myself, President Bush is the worst and most reckless president in recent history. To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, he has time and again responded to complex problems by imposing simple solutions that turned out to be wrong. He assumes that macho persistence is better than “flip-flop” indecisiveness, no matter how much damage is produced by staying the course. As a result, just about all of his policies have borne harmful, even disastrous consequences. Even worse, as Bush himself boasts, his administrative style depends on “gut decisions” confirmed by prayer. Our nation thus supposedly enjoys genuine “faith-based” executive authority perhaps for the first time in its history. Of course others play a role, for example Vice President Cheney and campaign chairman Karl Rove, but input is minimized from experts whose “reality-based” knowledge compromises their willingness to go along with decisive steps when these seem necessary. Unfortunately, Bush’s arch-inspirational leadership is no way to run a modern nation, and its misapplication has been all too obvious in just about every decision he has made additional to his colossal errors linked with the Iraq invasion....(full article)
I’ve been sitting around trying to feel
guilty about my decision not to vote. Somehow I’m not succeeding. I’ve
been through the usual arguments—parried as much by friends as
antagonists—and they’re just not holding water. “Which is more
apathetic,” I reply to one standard tune, “to think one has done one’s
duty as a citizen by voting every four years then going away, or
maintaining pressure for justice and peace--marching, petitioning,
boycotting, and financially supporting progressive causes?” Some
say I am disenfranchising myself, obviating a blood-earned right. And I
answer, “There is systemic disenfranchisement which I cannot ignore and
can only excuse at my peril.” If I complain that we have been “electing”
virtual dictators with 25% of the popular vote, that some 75% of eligible
voters either opposed or did not choose to vote for the current incumbent
and his 2000 opponent, I’m apt to be greeted by apoplectic stares. My
arguments fall on TV-waxed ears that no longer hear anything beyond the
periphery of the easy comeback or shot-put rejoinder. Time for some
“studied” responses. Here goes....(full
article)
Our Greatest Threat: The Death of
Intelligence in Public Discourse To flip flop has also been one of my most prized character traits, a natural result of examining issues from individual, rather than simplified grouped up processes. However, for the first time in my life, I have made up my mind unequivocally about something. On November 2, George Bush has to go. He is bad for the mental and physical health of Americans, American soldiers and indeed much of the world. When he came to power four years ago, I consoled myself with the thought that a little strife is what the world needs every now and then - a cyclical flow of events to clear out the phlegm in our system. We have accomplished that. There is no reason to go through another four years of the same and vomit out our lungs....(full article)
On January 20, 2005 the new American President, swearing to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," will be a man committed to a vision of the United States as a quasi-imperial nation, its hundreds of military bases stretched all around the globe. And he will be a man who actually supports increasing America's military budget beyond its current $1 billion+ dollars per day. He will be a man committed to the "new world order" of the World Trade Organization, GATT, NAFTA, vicious "free trade" rules and "globalization." . . . . The next President's name will either be George Bush or John Kerry and he will not change any of those things in any fundamental way. I offer up this little exercise because I believe it is time we cease looking at our present political situation through the prism of one man (or woman's) potential impact and more through the possibilities that exist currently on the street. That is, our reliance upon one person whether that be someone we do not support (like Bush or Kerry), or someone we may support (like Nader or Cobb), is part of our long-term problem. In the Green Party's case, we remain too dependent upon our shining stars and when they flake out or disappoint us, like is said of Peter Camejo, Medea Benjamin or Matt Gonzalez, (wonderful people all) we get depressed, lose our fighting spirit and essentially surrender....(full article)
Dear Ralph,
Some said if the Boston Red Sox were to win the World Series that John Kerry would win the election on their coattails. So I waited to see how the series went before writing this, but I can’t wait till after the election to write something to affect your vote in it. Of course, if I haven’t yet convinced you not to vote for Bush, this last little notice probably won’t do it, but here goes....(full article)
In the late 1960s I
used to sit in Lafayette Park across from the White House, have spring
spring picnics on the benches there with hippie girlfriends, reading
Rimbaud, while waiting for the Robert Rauschenberg exhibit to open at the
Corcoran Museum down the street. Usually there would be protesters across
Pennsylvania Avenue, sometimes chained to the White House gate, a Buddhist
monk or an anti-war group or mothers against whatever. Those were freer
times. I know they were freer because I was there, I felt it and can
remember it, as do millions of other Americans my age. So when we now look
at the White House with its steel wire, concrete barricades, police dogs
and snipers posted on rooftops we cannot help but ask ourselves: What the
hell has happened to my country? Who imposed this national lockdown?
Admittedly, we
were just dumb artsy kids in those Lafayette Park days, youthful dreamers
who couldn’t imagine ever being thirty years old (much less fifty eight!)
And in an age when you could smoke a joint in the White House restrooms
during a tour, we certainly never imagined a time when special enclosures
for public dissenters would be given the authoritarian state term "Free
Speech Zones." I never thought I would hear our government brand the
liberalism of Jefferson as terrorism, never imagined an election could be
successfully rigged in this country and never thought I’d see the Supreme
Court back a junta. I never thought I would see three percent of our
citizens pulling hard time in a vast complex of prisons. I never thought I
would see 911.
But most
frighteningly of all has been watching Americans accept all this in such
Orwellian fashion. Which is what one has to call it because our national
behavior is way beyond anything that could be called ordinary denial. How
in the hell did those far right nutjobs pull this off?
A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan -- possibly in violation of US law -- to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals. Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list." It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida. An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day." Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot....(full article)
Settler's Bust
Much has been written in support of and
against Sharon's planned disengagement from the Gaza Strip, to include the
dismantling of the settlements in the Gaza Strip, isolated settlements in
the northern part of the West Bank, and the redeployment of the Israeli
army within the Gaza Strip, yet one crucially important aspect has been
overlooked by most commentators: the precedent of dismantling settlements
and its potentially transforming and cathartic affect on Israeli
society....(full article)
On the Way to Civil War Everybody in Israel is talking about the Next War. The most popular TV channel is running a whole series about it. Not another war with the Arabs. Not the nuclear threat from Iran. Not the ongoing bloody confrontation with the Palestinians. The talk is about the coming civil war. Only a few months ago, that would have sounded preposterous. Now, suddenly, is has become a possibility, and a very real one. Not another blown-up media sensation. Not yet another of Sharon's political manipulations. Not just a new blackmail attempt by the settlers. But the real thing on the ground....(full article)
While Israel's military, purportedly on its way to get out of the Gaza Strip, is getting deeper and deeper into it, exercising its long terrorist tradition of forcing the civilian population to collaborate in massive killing and the destruction of homes and infrastructure, Sharon's top advisor Dov Weisglass made it to Ha'aretz's front page (Oct. 6, 2004): "The significance of [Sharon's] disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. … The disengagement is actually formaldehyde, it supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians. … What I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did."....(full article)
Evelyn Pringle takes an in-depth look at the corporate cronyism and Bush family connections behind the privatization and looting of Iraq. A must read....(full article)
Between kings and paupers lies the public. Pretty prose extolling the virtues of Individuality may massage the moral senses of handsome millionaires even as it mocks the lot of voiceless victims, but above all its impact is most pronounced – and most important - among the large middle layer of the broader American masses. In a period of affluence and widespread wealth, the rhetoric of Individuality finds many receptive ears; wages and living standards rise, social mobility eases class tensions, new products are introduced and new markets opened up. On this rail of economic upswing, the ideological train of Individuality enjoys a smooth ride. There is no need to ask too many questions about long-term consequences, eye too closely the story of the Self-Made Man, worry about those left behind, or philosophize about the social desirability of certain products, advertising, consumption, and so on. Life is good, and backdrop, unnecessary. But what happens when the Self-Made Man is unmade? What happens when the woman married to the unmade Self-Made Man must work long hours so the family’s income may merely match what the father alone once earned? What happens when real wages stagnate, when work hours increase, when benefits dwindle, for a major part of the working class and even a growing portion of the ‘middle class’? What happens when not only low-end jobs but skilled labor is sacrificed at the altar of Capital’s freshly minted deities of automation and outsourcing; when social safety nets evaporate, when income inequality grows? What happens – in a word – now? (full article)
There has not been a more hateful and ludicrous article in defense of Israel than "The new anti-Semitism" by Clifford May (syndicated by the Scripps-Howard News Service on October 7, 2004). Mr. May reveals his vitriolic biases in blaming the violence in the Middle East on the victims, the Palestinians. . . . May labels the historic and legitimate Palestinian opposition to European Jewish settlers occupying/colonizing their land and expelling thousands of them from their own homes in 1948, and the continuing Palestinian struggle against Israeli oppression in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, as "anti-Semitic". The reality is that Israel has been cleansing all of Palestine of its indigenous population, which is the real genocide in this region. But for die-hard Zionists, Israel can never do any wrong and any criticism or negative characterization of its belligerence or oppression is immediately called "anti-Semitic". Thus forever banishing further discussion of Israel's inhuman acts against impoverished and beleaguered Palestinians. For nothing can beat the stigma of being labeled "anti-Semitic", or the ostracism that might follow for following the jackboot of the Nazis! This tactic is being used increasingly by desperate Zionist, pro-Israeli lobbies in the US because polls indicate that an increasing number of Americans are seeing through the Israeli smokescreen that turns reality upside down and claims all its state terrorism against beleaguered and impoverished Palestinians to be part of America's war against "global terrorism"....(full article)
Last week the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations celebrates World Food Day. While global capitalism puts people’s food security at risk, agricultural diversity is threatened by greater corporate concentration of food production and trade. Yet in spite of this, farmers from around the world are challenging this domination and are finding alternatives....(full article)
A reading of an op-ed column by Catholic Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, of Denver, that appeared in the October 22 New York Times entitled (sic) “Faith and Patriotism,” as well as two previous columns and a speech of his from which it was generated, provokes this rebuttal: After writing some things I agree with, Chaput dropped this bomb: “Exiling religion from civic debate separates government from morality and citizens from their consciences. That road leads to politics without character, now a national epidemic.” I agree that we’re experiencing a contagion of political depravity, but why do so many people link decency to religious faith, failing to observe the sophisticated efficacy of principled skepticism or the life-enhancing possibilities of iconoclasm, apostasy and dissent? (full article)
The dangers inherent in commercializing and politicizing the practices of religion in an attempt to impose religious ideology on a democratic political system seem to be more chillingly apparent now than they were on December 18, 2000, when then-President-elect George W. Bush told an interviewer after meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." As my wife and I were talking this morning, somehow we landed upon "the most memorable sermon I've ever heard as a topic of conversation....(full article)
For months now we've been bombarded with government warnings about possible terrorist attacks to disrupt the November elections. All manner of precautions and safeguards have been instituted by federal and state authorities. The Library of Congress has prepared a report entitled: "Postponement and Rescheduling of Elections to Federal Office. But hardly a thought is expressed about the question of "Why would terrorists want to disrupt the American elections?" George W. would answer that it's because terrorists hate and envy democracy. (Thank you George, now take your pill.) The Department of Homeland Security has raised the analogy with Spain, where last March terrorists bombed several trains, killing many people, just days before a national election. But that was to influence the vote, to turn the Spanish public away from the government which was a strong supporter of the US war in Iraq, and the bombings did indeed result in the opposition party, which was very much against the war, taking power. But in the United States there's no such opposition party with even a remote chance of winning the election. The Democratic candidate expresses 100 percent support of the war. So who would benefit from a terrorist attack on the elections, or the threat of same, the fear factor? Bush's lead in the polls, we've been told repeatedly, comes mainly from people who think he's better with national security issues....(full article)
Appraising the puerile competition between
candidate Kerry and the Bush crew, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd
discusses the senator’s Ohio hunting trip and the resultant fate of four
geese (“Cooking
His Own Goose,” 24 Oct. 2004). “Just as W. needed to shock and awe to
prove he was no wimp,” writes Dowd, “Mr. Kerry needed to shoot and eat.”
Consequently, “Kerry made an animal sacrifice to the political gods in a
cornfield in eastern Ohio last week.” An apt description. Dowd’s critique
loses momentum, however, by pausing to distinguish John Kerry’s goose
hunting from the vice president’s duck hunting. Dowd writes, "When Mr.
Kerry goes, only the birds are in danger. When Mr. Cheney and his pal
Antonin Scalia go duck hunting together, the Constitution is in danger."
Kerry is a threat to birds and Constitution alike. Kerry and the
Democrats, much like Cheney and the Republicans, have treated the
Constitution with appalling indifference. Has Dowd forgotten Kerry's vote
for the USA-PATRIOT Act? What of the alacrity with which Kerry accepted
Bush's decision to announce a state of armed conflict -- plainly the
prelude to curtailments of due process -- without first seeking a
declaration from Congress? (full article)
You Can't Blame Nader for This Let's hedge this with all the usual qualifiers. Kerry could pull it out. The spread's within the margin of error. Respondents to polls are lying out of fear of John Ashcroft. Pollsters aren't reaching Kerrycrats with cell phones. But whatever way you cut it, after three debates in which polls assessed him as the victor, most polls say Kerry is lagging. As of now (October 20), the spread mostly ranges from an eight-point Bush lead to a dead heat. Worse, from Kerry's point of view, some post debate numbers show him dropping among low-income workers and urban voters, once the lifeblood of the Democratic Party. Margins in crucial states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida are razor-thin. Why? Has a candidate or a party ever been more pleasantly caressed by the winds of history in an election year than John Kerry and the Democrats? A majority of Americans don't think Bush has done a particularly good job, and they've thought this for months, though more of them like Bush than like Kerry. . . . So history has dealt Kerry all the high cards, save the one that bears his own face (against the scenic background of a billionaire wife and six houses). This card still lies on Bush's side of the table....(full article)
Many of the individuals who gave a blanket
endorsement to Nader in the 2000 election have signed a
petition
urging "support for Kerry/Edwards in all swing states, even while we
strongly disagree with Kerry's policies on Iraq and other issues." Many
warned at the time that some sort of "strategic voting" would be needed in
2000. (See my piece "A
New Way To Vote -- As A Duet") Clearly, in states which Bush or Kerry
have basically stated they will lose -- so-called "non-swing states" --
voting for whoever you want is a no-brainer. Most of the signers seem to
want Nader to be president but prefer Kerry to Bush. There is a possible
solution to this....(full article)
The “Morally Treasonable” Bush
Administration In a blatant campaign of exploiting 9/11, and a subversive campaign to undermine the nation’s civil liberties, George W. Bush expects to win a second term. Jingoism is encouraged; dissent is not tolerated. As Texas governor, Bush established “protest zones” far removed from where he spoke. He continues that practice as President. Anyone with a message not in agreement with the administration’s beliefs is isolated, some as much as a half-mile away, during presidential and vice-presidential public appearances. However, according to a ruling by the federal district court in Philadelphia, all persons, no matter what their personal or political views, must have equal access under the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and the right of assembly. That part of the Constitution has often been overlooked by the Republican administration and by local police....(full article)
The woman is a recent widow. She is also a dependable and reliable worker who labors in a modern hospital lab. It brims with costly technology. Over the years, she has been trained by her employer to use this technology. It is, officially, supposed to improve work. This is not the case for the woman. In that respect, she is hardly alone among American workers. For them, the line that technology brings liberty at work rings hollow. Just ask the many who toil for long hours and low wages in hospitals, call centers and retail trade. Do they control the technology at work? Or does it control them? Where is the political orientation to this workplace trend of more technology and lousy job conditions? (full article)
From helping craft Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America," to advising Republicans to take the gloves off in going after President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky affair, to frequent memos on how to politically use 9/11, to reams of advice for Republicans on how to talk about the war on terrorism, the environment and other hot-button issues, to being a consultant to NBC's The West Wing, to being named by Time magazine as one of "50 of America's most promising leaders aged 40 and under," Frank Luntz has been massaging the GOP's messages, occasionally putting a kinder, gentler spin on GOP core issues, and taking the pulse of the nation's voters for more than a decade. Regardless of the outcome of November's election, Frank Luntz will be giving advice to the Republican Party and its candidates for a long time to come....(full article)
The election is too close to call. Last time I looked (yesterday), the fellow who runs www.electoral-vote.com had Bush with 254 electoral votes and Kerry with 253 and listed Florida, yes Florida, as an absolute tie. The count changes every day. Still, my sense, and I could most certainly be wrong, is that Kerry will sqeak in... in spite of himself and his campaign. I've been surprised at the large number of Kerry-Edwards signs I've been seeing on farms throughout rural Illinois and Iowa. And the buzz I've been picking up outside of the big blue metro is that "it's time for a change" in the top office because Iraq is a disaster -- actually worse off and more of a "danger" because of a sloppy invasion that is costing young American lives for dubious reasons -- and because the economy is a mess in ways that can't simply be blamed on 9/11 and the terrorists. . . . There's a widespread sense among women voters that Bush is just too stubborn....so stubborn he can't bring himself to admit maybe just one tiny little mistake beyond making some poor appointments. And perhaps there's something else afoot....(full article)
Once upon a time, media ownership was a matter of right and wrong. Because the public airwaves were a precious commodity vulnerable to abuse, the Federal Communications Commission was born to protect them, and the public, through licensing and regulation. Gradually, however, the line between the guardians and foes of free expression has blurred, as both the FCC and the media business have earned unsavory reputations for exploiting their powers. Today, the information industries jam our airwaves and our synapses with hypnotic melodrama, political scandal and televised war. Behind the scenes of this media wonderland, commerce and government divert public scrutiny by confusing us as to who exactly has taken our attention spans hostage. The FCC, with their "decency standard," is loathed by everyone from shock jocks to provocative feminists as the curmudgeonly thought police. Yet advocates of non-commercial and independent media also vilify the major conglomerates as ruthless purveyors of bad taste and commercial dross. While settling for the lesser of two evils seems to be a recurring theme in politics lately, the public must choose its enemies wisely. Total deregulation, far from killing censorship, will likely tighten the grip of profit-driven media, allowing commercialism to do an even more thorough job of stifling creativity and civic spirit than the FCC has....(full article)
James Bamford's latest book, A Pretext for War, sifts through the information and events that led to 9-11 and lowered the threshold to the already planned invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In his easy-reading narrative Bamford weaves the information, draws the reader a sketchy profile of the protagonists and locations, and thereby lays forth a literary rendition that answers the five Ws....(full article)
Hello, Boobus Americanus. It's been almost two years since we last spoke. You've gotten yourself into all sorts of mischief since then. War, environmental meltdown, economic distress. You're a mess. All because you follow THE MAN, even though THE MAN, in HIS current incarnation, is a coterie of fanatics, Chicken Hawks, religious zealots, liars, dual-loyalists and outright traitors. The first order of business really should be that $400 Billion of YOUR tax money HE and his Congressional YESMEN are spending on a military that exists not to defend your home, but attack HIS enemies. In this case, all those nukes, at least 5,000 stored away complete with missiles to deliver them, might serve you well. For a couple of billion dollars, keep 'em oiled and shiny and ready to launch and I guarantee you no one -- except those pesky terrorists -- would bother to attack you. If you pulled your $400 Billion military out of all the places in the world it shouldn't be present and stopped giving away military "gift packages" to countries like Israel and Columbia, you might even find that even the terrorists wouldn't bother you. Then all you'd need is a coast guard and the organized militias they talk about in the Constitution....(full article)
My friend Bernie says anyone who believes that George W. Bush's war on terror isn't a miserable, howling failure is surely a member of the media, a perp over at the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), or has had "the lobotomy." Bernie says if Bush manages to screw up another election, the second thing he's going to do is hit us with a full-blown draft. "The second thing?" I asked. "Okay -- since Bush always screws up everything he touches-- I'll bite. What's the first thing?" "Iran!" Bernie snorted. "Don't you pay attention? The articles have already been written. The graphics are loaded. The media is just waiting for Bush to give 'em the signal so they can write the headlines and fill in the date and time of the attack. Then," he grinned, "Hi-ho, hi-ho -- it's off to war we go..." Bernie could be on to something. Anybody even remotely familiar with the totally mad ravings of the Machiavellian Michael Ledeen for the past two decades, or the sheer inhumanity lurking behind the chilly smile frozen on the warmongering face of Bill Kristol, editor of Rupert Murdoch's neoconservative Weekly Standard, knows that Iraq was only the beginning of a struggle with the "terror masters" of evil -- a war that Ledeen cheerfully announces will "go on forever."....(full article)
“Do you feel as I do -- a fantastic, dream-like quality? … Something ominous … a sense of sickness -- as though all the world and everybody in it, and you and I, were sick in our nerves and in our brains and in our hearts? Society is deranged. … It is dominated by moral and emotional morons. … I want sabotage and opposition … sabotage and opposition … sabotage and opposition, against militarism in all of its forms.” -- Dorothy Thompson, 1939 Funny, isn’t it, that a woman who said such things should vote Republican all her life? Well, damn it, she did. There was one cantankerous exception, in 1948, when “the disaster of the Peace,” as Dorothy Thompson regarded the outcome of World War II, led her to cast her vote for Norman Thomas, the Socialist candidate. It was Thompson’s way of protesting the lack of “serious ideas” in American politics, and it marked the end of her eminence as a writer and pundit – “the best reporter this generation has seen in any country,” as her colleague John Gunther remarked, “and that is not saying nearly enough.” What could say enough? (full article)
What can one buy with 1.2 billion dollars? For starters, you might be able to afford a four-year lease on the White House. If you can spare a few extra billion, you have the luxury of running a slate of candidates for the available slots in Congress. America is a free country with very expensive elections. Constructing a political machine for a single presidential race requires the investment of substantial resources by certain interested parties. The Financial Times just reported that “the presidential and congressional elections will cost $3.9bn, up 30 per cent from the $3bn spent on elections four years ago.” The fact that certain influentials are willing to cough up an extra $900 million to support this year’s candidates indicates full satisfaction with their last purchase. What motivates individual citizens to voluntarily part with so much money? (full article)
It has been said that people pretty much get the government they deserve. There is more than a little justice in the observation. Pat Buchanan, long my choice as symbol for all that is wrong with America, has given a last-minute endorsement to George Bush's re-election. One is tempted to class his words, qualified as they are, with the grovelings of John McCain at Bush rallies. After spending a couple of years successfully peddling columns attacking Bush for repeating the bloody stupidity of Vietnam, Pat has come to the conclusion that Bush isn't so bad after all. He says that while Bush is wrong on the war, he is right on just about everything else. I suppose Pat's list of things that are right with Bush includes Jehovah's receiving a seat on the National Security Council, some of the Patriot Act's finer points on human rights, sending individuals secretly to places like Syria or Egypt to be tortured, insulting and alienating friends and allies, squandering a hundred billion dollars without managing so much as a patch-up of Iraq's smashed infrastructure, and laughing off world environmental threats far more deadly than anything dreamed of by terrorists. Pat perfectly represents America's noisy, pointless "culture of complaint," something which mimics the effects of a bad gene pool, endowing America with ridiculous trash like Crossfire or Rush Limbaugh or whole networks like CNN or, indeed, the grotesque practices of its national elections....(full article)
I won $4.00 betting on Muhammad Ali when he fought the pre-grill George Foreman for all the marbles in the wee hours of a 1974 Zaire morning. This was a time when most white kids would regularly root for Ali to lose...so I took advantage of such nonsense and put my money on The Greatest. Today, as we approach the 30th anniversary of what became known as the “Rumble in the Jungle,” far more is known about the boxers (and a certain promoter named Don King who got his start in Zaire) than the venue. The Congo gained independence from Belgium in June 1960. Within three months, the CIA helped overthrow the African nation’s first Prime Minister, the charismatic and legally elected socialist, Patrice Lumumba....(full article)
While this country has become a good deal more skeptical about the mythic allures of Miss America, the news media and the nation as a whole are still boxed in by the Mr. America extravaganza. During thousands of public appearances, presidential candidates pose, preen and posture, trying to measure up to our images of what and who the man in the Oval Office should be. And the media evaluations often seem scarcely more sophisticated or discerning than the retrograde judges who assign points according to arbitrary standards of physical proportions and womanly poise....(full article)
Despite John Kerry's cozy relationship with
big green organizations like the Sierra Club and the League of
Conservation Voters, the Senator should not be mistaken as a friend of the
environment....(full article)
The Year of Surrendering Quietly Every four years, liberals unhitch the cart and put it in front of the horse, arguing that the only way to a better tomorrow is to vote for the Democratic nominee. But unless the nominee and Congress are pushed forward by social currents too strong for them to ignore or defy, nothing will alter the default path chosen by the country’s supreme commanders and their respective parties. In the American Empire of today, that path is never towards the good. Our task is not to dither in distraction over the lesser of two evil prospects, which will only turn out to be a detour along the same highway....(full article)
The man who occupies the White House next January will be among the richest 1 percent of Americans, the pampered child of a wealthy family. He’ll have lifelong connections to the political and corporate world. He’ll be a graduate of exclusive Yale University, and proud member of the even more exclusive Skull and Bones, a bizarre secret society at Yale. Though he talks about bipartisanship, he’s a veteran fixture of a two-party system that upholds the political status quo. We don’t know whether George W. Bush or John Kerry will win on November 2--or if, for that matter, the election will be too close to call again and won’t be decided until weeks later. But we know all this about the next occupant of the White House because these things are true of both Bush and Kerry. Jeffrey St. Clair is coeditor with Alexander Cockburn of the muckraking newsletter CounterPunch, and the author of numerous books, including the essay collection Dime’s Worth of Difference with Cockburn, and Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me. His recent articles for the CounterPunch Web site have revealed the sordid history of both major candidates. Here, St. Clair talks to Socialist Worker’s Elizabeth Schulte about the election between Skull and Bones....(full article)
On October 28, Left Business Observer editor Doug Henwood will air an interview with left-wing author and activist Tariq Ali on New York’s WBAI radio. In a previous interview with Henwood back in August, Ali excoriated those on the U.S. left who have not joined the “Anybody But Bush” camp. “This is an argument you can have from the luxury of your sitting room or kitchen in the United States, but this particular regime has taken the lives of at least 37,000 civilians in Iraq,” Ali said. “For them, it’s not an abstract question.”....(full article)
Given the current escalation of Israeli depredations in Gaza and the daily US bombings of Falluja, it is interesting to examine Amnesty International’s (AI) statements on the situation. AI is widely viewed as an authority on human rights issues, and thus it is of interest to analyze its output on these recent events. Careful scrutiny of AI’s record reveals that, its typical response to the daily obscene deeds by either Israeli or US armies is a few barely audible ruminations with an occasional lame rebuke. The impotence of these responses raises many questions....(full article)
A look across the Latin American satrapies of empire may be timely, as oil peaks and its price pushes relentlessly upwards. The global plutocrat elite are pinched between growing popular determination to achieve decent living standards and their own diminishing ability to access and control energy and water resources. Something has to give....(full article)
It may not be as sexy as the recent hullabaloo created by "compassionate conservative" Republican Party spokespersons "protecting" the honor of Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of vice president Dick Cheney, and it may not have the tumultuous effect as the revelation -- in the last days of the 2000 presidential campaign -- of President Bush's previously undisclosed DUI arrest in Maine, but it's good to see a serious political issue, the privatization of Social Security, get its day in the sun....(full article)
An in-depth essay excerpted from William Thornton's forthcoming book, New World Empire: Islamism, Terrorism and the Making of Neoglobalism: Whatever else one may think of him, G. W. Bush must be credited with extraordinary sales skills. Like a real estate agent who manages to sell inaccessible lots in a swamp, G. W. has managed to keep his ratings up while selling America a quagmire. Even as his administration ignored the real perils of Saudi Wahhabism (or actively camouflaged them, as Michael Moore would have it), it miscast Saddam as the mother of global terrorism. The decision to invade Iraq was put beyond debate by Saddam’s mythic stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Thomas Powers dubs this “the least ambiguous case of misreading of secret intelligence information in American history.” “Misreading” is too generous a word for it, given the pressure the White House applied to the intelligence community to extract desired results. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of October 1, 2002 more than met those desires, and a week later Congress voted for war. The question is how much the administration’s slant on Iraq was inspired by ideological prepossessions as opposed to economic calculation....(full article)
UNICEF estimates
that some indications showed improvement in Iraqi child mortality between
1999 and 2002 - the death rate dropped to 125 in 2002 (from 130 in 1999).
However, this trend has reversed under the occupation and child
mortality is actually worsening as compared to 2002 levels. UNICEF's Roger
Wright added: “Since the war more children in Iraq are malnourished, fewer
children are protected from immunizable diseases and there has been an
increase in the incidence of diarrhoeal disease.”....
Where's Richard Nixon when you need him?
Taking a leaf from his record on sustainable energy, John Kerry now wants
to make the war in Iraq sustainable. Just for today, let's put aside all
our objections to the carnage and look at it from Kerry's point of view.
Some progressives cling to the hope that a vote for Kerry is a vote for
peace. Such wishful thinking could lead many to breathe a mistaken sigh of
relief in the event of a Kerry victory. We need an accurate picture of
what Kerry's game plan means so that protests continue to grow. On October
13, 2004 The Wall Street Journal provided a sobering antidote to
progressive hopes, by pegging Kerry right. It stated on the front page
that, "On Iraq and the war on terror, George Bush and John Kerry differ
mainly on tactics, assessments, and tone, while sharing the same broad
goals." But even within Kerry's own framework, the numbers don't add
up....(full article)
Bush Backers Steadfast on Saddam, WMD
Three out of four
self-described supporters of President George W. Bush still believe
pre-war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or active programs to
produce them, and that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein gave "substantial
support" to al-Qaeda terrorists, according to a survey released Thursday.
Moreover, as many or more Bush supporters hold those beliefs today than
they did several months ago, before the publication of a series of
well-publicized official government reports that debunked both
notions....
To be radical, in the oldest sense of the word, is to go to the root. One strength of truly progressive analysis is that it places what appear to be isolated events in a larger context. It seeks to make connections between seemingly disparate political issues by revealing underlying ideological frameworks. And so it has been a central task, in the post 9-11 era, for activists to demonstrate how the war against terror and the drive for corporate globalization are one and the same--how peace and global justice movements share vital common ground. That these two issues are connected, in a fundamental way, is an article of faith on the political left, reinforced by the fact that many participants in globalization protests have also mobilized against the Bush administration's militarism. All such articles of faith deserve a bit of critical skepticism, so I would like to offer a constructive challenge. Many of the arguments wedding the war in Iraq with a strategy for neoliberal expansion are not readily convincing. They risk reading causality into tangential relationships. And, in their drive to connect, they overlook important disjunctures between the Bush administration's foreign policy and the policy preferred by many business elites. Activists have good reason to look again at the neoconservative hawks now in power and to consider whether they have outdone the corporate globalists of earlier years or whether they have betrayed them....(full article)
On
the eve of the third anniversary of 9/11, the U.S. House of
Representatives--by an overwhelming, bipartisan majority of 406-16--passed a
resolution linking Iraq to the al-Qaida attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon. This comes despite conclusions reached by the bipartisan
9/11 Commission, a recent CIA report, and the consensus of independent
strategic analysis familiar with the region that no such links ever existed. The resolution contains
appropriate and predictable language paying tribute to the rescue workers
and victims' families. It also notes actions taken by the U.S. government in
response to the attacks, such as the creation of the Department of Homeland
Security, improvements in intelligence procedures, enhanced coordination
between government agencies, and hardening cockpit doors on commercial
aircraft. Actions by American allies were noted as well, such as their
arrest of key al-Qaida operatives in Europe and elsewhere. However, the resolution
also contains language designed, despite the lack of any credible evidence,
to associate the former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein with the 9/11
attacks....(full article)
“This is a Time Bomb” The possible emergence of a deadly new strain of influenza is a public health catastrophe waiting to happen, but the world’s most powerful governments, including the U.S., have no response planned--and profit-hungry health care corporations are doing nothing to head off the threat. That’s the case made by Mike Davis, a leading left-wing voice and author of numerous books, including Ecology of Fear and City of Quartz. Davis’ recent article, “The Monster at the Door,” outlines the threat of a global pandemic from avian, or bird, flu if a strain of the virus develops that can be passed not only from animals to humans, but between humans. The article appeared shortly before a new factor emerged--the British government’s announcement that it was shutting down a factory run by Chiron Corp. that produces flu vaccine, including about half of the annual U.S. supply. Here, Davis talks to Socialist Worker’s Alan Maass about the new flu threat....(full article)
If we want to do something about the powerful institutions and individuals that shape our lives, we need to educate ourselves about their culture of criminality -- and the public efforts to bring them to justice. One good place to start is the Encyclopedia of White Collar and Corporate Crime (Sage Publishers, 2004)....(full article)
It's been taken away in a very black limo,
the Bambino Thing, the ghost that wouldn't give the Sox an even break
since 1918. Just like I predicted in my recent "Botox
Bosox" article. The mean-spirited Yanks have finally had their
comeuppance in the most dramatic fashion imaginable. Four in a row! The
last two at home. With The Ace of the opposition bleeding at the ankle,
and his sidekick, Pedro, deafened by mantras of Daddy DooWop....I'm glad
New York will stop being the Center of the Universe for a New York Minute,
and that that operatic fireman with the Dumbo ears won't be able to make a
return appearance. I can't take Manhattan, 'cause it's been taken along
with a lot of other places....(full article) Green Leaders Denounce Nade | |
