The Wages of Left Capitulation
Iwas stunned to see Medea Benjamin complaining to the Nader/Gonzalez campaign because the campaign had used the word “shameful” in referring to “progressive” Democrats who had supported the pro-war,...
View ArticleBush vs. Carter: Let History Judge
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week admonished former president Jimmy Carter for meeting with representatives of Hamas, the Palestinian organization that currently maintains a strong presence...
View ArticleThe New Walls of Baghdad
The new “surge” strategy in Iraq, led by General David Petreaus, has been heavily marketed as an example of the U.S. military’s application of the “lessons of history” from previous counterinsurgencies...
View ArticleCAFTA’s Bloodtrails
On Wednesday, April 23, U.S. and Guatemalan labor groups filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor, changing the workers’ rights provisions of CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement)...
View ArticleThe Politics of Green Scare
In May 2005, FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism John Lewis told a Senate panel that ecoterrorism is “one of today’s most serious domestic terrorism threats.” Then the FBI’s James Jarboe...
View ArticleA Polemic Devoid of Politics
Last week Michael Moore published an ardent declaration of support for Barack Obama. In case you missed it, you can read it here. I was astonished at the political vacuity of this declaration–even...
View ArticleOn Queen’s Boulevard, the Night Sean Bell’s Killers Got Off
Friday dusk in Queens, the first march after the verdict in the police killing of Sean Bell started among the cherry blossoms. In front of the cool stone courthouse, where that morning Judge Arthur...
View ArticleThe Fruiting Fig Tree
In 1967, a caprice of fate found me assimilated and married into an Arab family living in east Jerusalem within two weeks of my arrival. Forty years later, I am reliving the war with a view of the...
View ArticleOn "Withdrawing Responsibly" from Iraq
Sixty percent of Americans want the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, according to a March 12th Gallup poll. And sixty-four percent, according a recent CBS poll, believe that...
View ArticleJeremiah Wright Delivers the Knockout Punch
Reverend Jeremiah Wright appeared on PBS Bill Moyers Journal on Friday night and delivered a knockout punch to the bully-boys in the corporate media. Wright showed that he is neither a fanatic nor an...
View ArticleSneak Privatization of Mexico’s Oil Halted
Mexico City. “The Adelitas have arrived/To defend our oil/Whoever wants to give it to the foreigners/ Will get the shit kicked out of him!” yodeled the brigades of women pouring onto the esplanade of...
View ArticleMental Barriers in Palestine
It is dry, it is hot. Black string bikinis descend the small steps meeting black flapping swimming trunks. They look naked thanks to the black mud. Both bodies entirely black, only the feet remain...
View ArticleThe Torture Election
As the presidential horse race grows more frenzied and absurd — Flag pins! Bowling! Obliteration!– it is important to keep in mind what the election is really about: torture. Specifically, the use of...
View ArticleInside American Royalty’s Security Bubble
Washington, DC The First Family Security Bubble was nearly pried open for a moment last Friday; but in the end Disneyland remained blessedly undisturbed. On a particularly warm spring evening, Laura...
View ArticleThe Military Option
War with Syria? Peace with Syria? A big military operation against Hamas in the Gaza strip? A cease-fire with Hamas? Our media discuss these questions dispassionately, as if they were equivalent...
View ArticleWhy General Musharraf Must Go
When I watched General Musharraf a few days ago on TV, he looked like the captain of a sinking ship, the wind of defeat in his hair. Those who hold power and shape the destiny of others should never be...
View ArticleChina Olympics, Tibet Crackdown, Coke Profits
Responding to a question about Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of the Olympic Torch Relay at the Coca-Cola shareholders meeting last week, Mr. Isdell, CEO of Coca-Cola, defended the sponsorship by referring to...
View ArticleThe Iraq War Morphs Into the Iran War
It is 1939 all over again. The world waits helplessly for the next act of naked aggression by rogue states. Only this time the rogue states are not the Third Reich and Fascist Italy. They are the...
View ArticleTowing Icebergs to San Pedro
Not satisfied that the entire contents of the Colorado River sloshes inside the bloated bellies of the seven basin states, this monster is now searching for water beyond their horizons. They call it...
View ArticleWill the Fed Broaden Its Focus?
The Federal Reserve will almost certainly cut the target federal funds rate a quarter point to two percent on Wednesday. Fed watchers will be looking at the policy statement for clues as to whether the...
View ArticleInvasion of the Pumpheads
Is America at the mercy of an invasion of the pumpheads? The bizarre behavior of Bill Clinton during this campaign season, which has seen this once smooth-talking and politically uber-sophisticated...
View ArticleBad Jazz in New Orleans
New Orleans. Mexican President Felipe Calderon was not having a good day. His plan to arrive in New Orleans for the NAFTA Summit April 21-22 with a freshly minted law privatizing Mexico’s oil industry...
View ArticleDid the Supreme Court Just Elect John McCain?
The US Supreme Court has just dealt a serious blow to voters’ rights that could help put John McCain in the White House by eliminating tens of thousands of voters who generally vote Democratic. By 6-3...
View ArticleThe Day I Lost My Innocence
When I was nineteen I was stationed in a remote Laotian village on the Mekong River. I was an Irish kid from the Bronx, over twelve thousand miles from home. It had been a twenty-two hour plane ride to...
View ArticleStorming Heaven
A storm swept the world in 1968. It arose in Vietnam, and then blew across Asia, crossing the sea and the mountains to Europe and beyond. The signs and portents had been there for some years, but the...
View ArticleMedical R&D That Works in the Developing World
Can the world settle on a medical research and development (R&D) system that develops medicines and other products to meet priority health needs and makes those products available on an affordable...
View ArticlePop Goes the Race-Neutral Campaign!
Barack Obama’s strategy to win the White House was to run a “race-neutral” campaign in a society that is anything but neutral on race. The very premise — that race neutrality is possible in a nation...
View ArticleElection Season Piffle
This is what it has come to. Hillary Clinton seems poised to damage Barack Obama so badly in the Democratic primary that he will end up flopping around like a suffocating trout in the general election...
View ArticleThe Bush Administration’s Shroud of Secrecy
More than any other Administration in recent history, this Administration has a penchant for secrecy. To an unprecedented degree, it has invoked executive privilege to thwart congressional oversight...
View ArticleIraq After Basra
The trumpeted success of the Bush administration’s surge was built on flimsy foundations. They were, principally, the employing of the Sunni resistance to fight al-Qaeda, effectively bribing a large...
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