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A Radical Newsletter in the Struggle for
Peace and Social Justice
Latest Articles: May 3, 2006
I am a child of the sexual revolution. I grew up in a family in Missouri so sexually repressed that when my father explained the “facts of life,” he told me the penis enters the vagina while we’re asleep. I tried to be sexual with women, but felt no chemistry. I didn’t just come out as gay, I exploded into a world of free love, marijuana, LSD, and radical politics. That experience saved my life, and in many ways still defines it. On January 21 this year, I went to a demonstration called by the Bay Area Coalition For Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR) to counter a large demonstration of Christians, called to oppose Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose, on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe decision. What I found was a group of perhaps 500 supporters of choice and more than 10,000 opponents, bussed in from all over the Bay Area, all carrying the same sign about abortion hurting women. I realized most of these anti-choice marchers also oppose gay rights. Their sheer numbers plus their controlled, disciplined message made me feel threatened and concerned for the future. Christian fundamentalists have since organized a youth rally at SBC Park called Battlecry. Their announced goal is to create a Christian theocratic government in the United States, and they have made San Francisco a major organizing target. These developments have made me think about my own history in San Francisco, about the need for gay men to support reproductive rights for women, and about the role of fundamentalist religions in the seemingly out-of-control state of the world.....(full article)
The arrest of two leading members of the principal pro-Israel lobby AIPAC for procuring confidential information from a leading Pentagon official and passing it to an Israeli spymaster seems to be an open and shut case of espionage. This is especially so when the Pentagon employee later confessed and agreed to testify against the accused AIPAC leaders. AIPAC, after reviewing the case, decided to fire the two accused spies and stopped paying their legal expenses. The Israeli agent, recipient of the confidential information fled to Israel, and has refused attempts by the prosecution to interview him. The information disclosed to the Israeli state touched on very sensitive material pertaining to US strategy toward Iran and Iraq and was a grave matter of state, considering that the AIPAC functionaries passed on the information during wartime. At first, the issue of AIPAC’s involvement in a spy ring on behalf of Israel split the major pro-Israel organizations, out of fear of possible repercussions, or anger that it might hurt their credibility on pushing Israel’s agenda. However the hard-line Israel Firsters soon went on the offensive, writing editorials, opinion pieces and pressing academic and professional groups to see the issue as a constitutional one of free speech. With time the liberal pro-Israelis jumped on the bandwagon pushing the issue as one of possible persecution of government whistleblowers, who act in the best interest of the government. There are many very solid reasons why the accused AIPAC leaders cannot be considered lobbyists, whistleblowers or investigative reporters seeking out “inside information.”.....(full article)
Capitalism is a system that has untoward repercussions for the masses of society. Capitalism may create wealth, but it also, by dint of its nature, creates gross inequalities that belie Adam Smith’s faith in an invisible hand. Editors James Lardner and David Smith have compiled a book of essays, Inequality Matters: The Growing Economic Divide in America and Its Poisonous Consequences, that elaborates on how inequality permeates society and affects the masses of people adversely. The book describes a link between some “elites” and the religious Right in an assault on middle and working classes. The result has been $2 trillion in tax cuts mainly benefiting ultra wealthy. The inequalities are woven into the American workplace where workers face an uphill battle to gain equality. Lardner writes, “In American workplaces today workers can be compelled to listen to presentations on the evils of unions but be forbidden to meet for the purpose of forming one.”....(full article)
From Manhattan to Hollywood, Hillary Clinton is pocketing enormous amounts of cash across the country for her reelection campaign. Yet, Hillary is facing what seems to be fierce opposition from within her own party, as well as from third parties here in New York. The main reason candidates have signed up to challenge Hillary is her position, er, non-position on the disgraceful "war on terror." Hillary, in a letter to constituents last November, expressed her belief that the war in Iraq shouldn't be "open-ended" but was clear that she would never "pull out of Iraq immediately." Translation: Hillary Clinton supports a continued occupation of Iraq. Her stance on Iran isn't much better; in fact, it may be worse. In the same letter, Clinton hoped contingents of U.S. soldiers would remain in the region with "quick-strike capabilities. . . . This will help us stabilize that new Iraqi government," she attested. "It will send a message to Iran that they do not have a free hand in Iraq despite their considerable influence and personal and religious connections there."....(full article)
With all the fervor over the recent release of United 93, our thoughts are forced, for good or ill, back to that painful day in 2001, when, as we are constantly reminded, "the world changed." Regardless of political viewpoint, most of us agree that the events of 9/11 are too important, too historic, too tragic, to ever forget. Many say it is too soon to be reminded of that day on the big screen, and some say it will never be the right time. Still others, however, say it is exactly the time to see these events replayed, because Americans are beginning to forget; our attention spans are those of gnats at best, so we need to be reminded what happened that day in the most painful, realistic, dramatic way. To what end, though? (full article)
Yesterday, Iran fired the first shot in a battle that will ultimately change the global economic system. Mehr News Agency announced that the long-anticipated Iran Oil Bourse (OIB) will open sometime next week on Kish Island competing head-on with the US dollar. Currently, all oil transactions are denominated exclusively in greenbacks (via the London and New York oil exchanges) giving the US a virtual monopoly on the oil trade and maintaining the dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency. This privilege has allowed the US to generate massive deficits as well as a national debt of $8.4 trillion without fear of economic collapse but, the “time’s they are a-changin’.” If Iran proceeds with its plan, the central banks around the world will convert some of their reserves into euros sending billions of dollars back to the America. This will result in either recession or depression.....(full article)
Neil Young has done it again. A week or so ago, he went into the studio with the same sense of urgency that the producers of the “Ohio” single recall to record a new antiwar work called /Living With War/. The CD should be in stores by May 15, 2006. As a favor to fans and other interested folks, Young's record company released it as streaming audition on his website April 28th. The first fuzzy bass tones came out of my speakers a little after 7 AM. Then came Neil singing "Won't need no?/Won't need no stinkin' war... after the garden is gone..." That ever-so-recognizable Silvertoney sound that Young makes with his electric guitar plays a melodic arpeggio in between the and behind the lyrics. Lyrics that appear at first to be as fuzzy in their meaning as the bass that is part of Young's signature electric sound, but turn out to be as clear as his ringing guitar licks.....(full article)
At the huge,
inspiring antiwar march in New York yesterday, I noticed many placards
with the massage, “Out of Iraq, Into Darfur.” They were held by members of
a group called “Volunteer for Change,” described as “a project of Working
Assets.” I wasn’t sure what to make of the slogan. Was it somehow
satirical, playing on “Out of the frying pan, into the fire” and warning
about a future Somalia-like intervention in Africa? Or was this really a
call to take US troops out of Iraq and deploy them instead in
“humanitarian” “peacekeeping” in western Sudan?
Nuestro Paranoia Gentle reader: ¡Hola! ¿Que tal? I’m afraid that’s all the Spanish I know, if you don’t count isolated words -- mañana, tequila, Evita and so on. About 20 years ago, I took two months of Spanish lessons during a research trip to Madrid, but the only phrases that stick in my head, for some reason, are “Where are the skin creams, please?” and “I’m a stewardess for British Airways.” Neither of them will get me very far in the current raging debate over Nuestro Himno, the new, “Spanglishized” version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and evidently the greatest threat to national security and American amour propre since French fries and the Axis of Evil. In case you missed it, Nuestro Himno is the brainchild of British-born producer Adam Kidron, the head of Urban Box Office, who recently pulled together a number of Latino pop stars -- Mexico’s Gloria Trevi, Puerto Rico’s Carlos Ponce, Cuban rapper Pitbull, etc. -- to record a Spanish version of the national anthem as “a statement of solidarity with the immigrant movement,” and to coincide with what were expected to be further massive protests for immigrants’ rights on Monday, May 1. By the time you read this, we’ll know if the nation has survived the indignity or not.....(full article)
Pity the poor government that isn't able to erect a fence along our southern border. Over the years, we have excelled in technology of all kinds, but we can't build a fence. Don't you think that if the government really wanted to stop illegal immigration they would put in a big order at Home Depot. Rather than fashion a fair immigration policy, they use the immigration issue like a shell game that they have fomented to distract the attention of Americans from bigger issues that benefit the ruling-class predators. This country will exploit immigrants and suppress citizen workers as long as there is profit to be made from it. This is not a new phenomenon. It began when slaves and indentured servants were whisked off from Africa and Europe to work the plantations of the South and the Caribbean. The criminal practice continued through the years to include foreign technology workers who have been given work permits to replace American engineers and programmers who owe huge student loans and who can't compete with workers from overseas, many of whom were educated under government programs and who owe nothing for their knowledge. It includes jobs that are exported and now services. The only jobs that seem safe are those that include contact with an actual person. And I'm sure many of those are being looked at as candidates for automation.....(full article)
Recently, U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents helped to arrest over a thousand undocumented immigrant laborers in more than two-dozen states. Some of them were deported. These immigrant laborers had produced wealth for IFCO Systems North America, a firm that makes and sells wooden crates and pallets. IFCO is part of the U.S. manufacturing sector with over 14 million workers. These employees produced $107 billion of wood products in 2004, according to Department of Commerce data. Undocumented immigrant workers who earn low (non-union) wages contributed to that output. Companies and the politicians they fund grasp that low wages create high profits. The lower the wages of immigrant workers without documents the more their bosses gain. Officially, the DHS crackdown was designed to make the U.S. public feel safer and securer from the threat posed by undocumented immigrant workers such as those on the IFCO payroll. For that reason, DHS chief Michael Chertoff called these laborers “criminal aliens.”.....(full article)
President Bush, the nation’s self-appointed
“Decider,” has nominated William Wehrum to serve as Assistant
Administrator for the office of air quality at the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). He’s been serving as legal counsel and interim
head of this office since 2001. During his tenure at the EPA, Mr. Wehrum
has consistently worked to weaken the nation’s air pollution laws and
regulations. And his actions have resulted in a revolt within the EPA and
serious criticism by the federal courts.....(full
article)
Paradigm Shift: Embracing the Power of Green There is something profoundly disturbing in observing George W. Bush the environmentalist. If we had not already observed Bush the peacemaker, Bush the compassionate and Bush the advocate for immigrant rights, we might be tempted to take it seriously. The president’s peacemaking turned out to be a magician’s poorly executed sleight-of-hand at the United Nations’ Security Counsel while a predetermined plan of attack was executed on schedule. His compassion translated into a prescription drug program shell game in which every choice was ultimately wrong. His compassion for the working class was another round of tax cuts for the elite and another “free trade” agreement with Central America (CAFTA). His compassionate words for migrant workers were delivered almost simultaneously as Homeland Security rounded up the undocumented in 26 states. Is this the best way to use our Homeland Security department, rounding up migrants from Mexico and Latin America? Just when we thought we had heard it all, the president proposes to save us from our addiction to oil through “clean coal” and nuclear technology.....(full article)
America’s wealthiest owe a significant debt
of gratitude to their patron saint, Charles G. Koch. Mr. Koch’s Herculean
efforts have virtually ensured that the United States’ plutocracy and its
complimentary corporatocracy will continue their reign in America’s highly
dysfunctional democracy. Blessed with a significant number of Americans
still rendered somnambulant by a mass media machine, Koch and his fellow
patricians are riding high. Mr. Koch has virtually endless resources at
his disposal to keep “his people” in power. Charles owns 40% of the shares
of the largest privately held company in the world. Koch Enterprises
generated revenues of $40 billion in 2004. Koch recently acquired
gargantuan lumber and paper producer Georgia Pacific, which significantly
expands his empire of oil, pipeline, fiber, and chemical enterprises. By
shunning public sale of Koch Enterprise stock, Charles Koch has maintained
a tight-fisted grip on his company while cloaking its finances behind a
veil of secrecy.....(full article)
In Support Of Mutiny Just this past week there was a flicker of information or rumor across the internet that a number of senior U.S. Military officers had threatened to resign if the Iran Operation comes on, as it now looks like it will. In addition, it was said that the DoD was treating the communication of the threat to resign as a "mutiny". (Against civilian authority was the Administration's spin.) If, in fact, such a thing did occur, it is indeed a mutiny in my opinion. One I have been expecting for quite some time. The Administration's planned attack on Iran following upon the Bush/Cheney disaster in Iraq is indeed likely to stimulate a mutiny among our armed forces. As a declared candidate for Congress here in Vermont and a former Army officer myself, with some legal training, I hereby formally state that I support the "mutineers" if they exist. And if they are so far only rumors, only ghosts, then I hope to God that real flesh and blood American soldiers will stand against war in Iran soon. It has come to that. I will support it.....(full article)
Faux News Service, Japan Bureau -- President Bush announced this morning that he will replace key members of his administration with some of the finalists (past and present) of American Idol, the popular FOX reality series. With his approval numbers at an all-time low, the President emphasized the need for a “major shakedown” (sic) of his cabinet. He said that he hoped these changes would reflect the “values and aspirations” of the American people. When pressed by reporters, he simply retorted, “I'm an aspirator.”.....(full breaking story)
While members of
Congress are feeling pressure from antiwar constituents --indeed, some
pro-war Democrats, such as Senator Joe Lieberman, are facing challenges
from within their own party -- most are paying little cost for their
embrace of, or at least failure to oppose, the war. If the antiwar
movement cannot mount more pressure soon, Congress could cave in to Bush's
drive to launch another, potentially far more disastrous war on Iran, just
as it did in the lead-up to the Iraq war. There is a way forward for
supporters of peace, one suggested by the mass mobilizations of
undocumented immigrants and their supporters across the United States.
Their ongoing demonstrations have reshaped debate regarding immigration
and boundary control, and have weakened the hand of many of the
politicians pushing the most draconian measures. Antiwar activists
can similarly change the parameters of debate, and pressure Congress to
push for an immediate withdrawal.....(full
article)
Nativo López on May 1: “You Get What
You’re Ready to Fight For” Nativo López is president of the Mexican American Political Association and a spokesperson for the Great American Boycott 2006 -- a national day of action for immigrant rights on May 1. Nativo talked about the huge protests against anti-immigrant legislation and plans for May 1 with Sarah Knopp, a Green Party candidate for state superintendent of schools in California and member of the International Socialist Organization.....(full interview)
We can no longer use the term loosely -- America’s war against migrants is real, and the nation’s rulers mean to sweep the nation’s barrios the way Katrina swept the Black wards of New Orleans. And like the military operations visited upon the Black population of that city in the wake of the winds and floods, the war against migrants is a race war -- one directed from the highest levels of power. The recent strikes by ICE against migrant workplaces in dozens of cities across 26 states served as a crystal clear declaration: no matter what immigration bill passes in Washington, “enforcement” is the order of the day. Whoever the government “legalizes”, it means to round up the rest in massive raids, ship them en masse to detention camps, then deport them, creating an atmosphere of mass repression and terror among brown people nationwide. Everyone with brown skin will be targeted. The only question still on the table is who will be directly subject to deportation.....(full article)
For the first time in six decades, International Workers Day will be celebrated on US soil with mass working-class demonstrations on May 1. May Day, celebrated the world over, commemorates the seismic upheaval inside the U.S. that launched the struggle for the eight-hour workday in 1886, a time when native-born workers had few rights and immigrants had still fewer, yet both united in a class-wide battle. The decision to organize a national day of protest for immigrant rights on May 1 this year is a conscious nod toward the traditions embodied by this working-class holiday, in which immigrants have played such a vital role historically.....(full article)
The search is finally over. Senator John Kerry is believed to have found his heroic voice. He apparently misplaced it back in the early '70s after standing up to the US war in Vietnam upon his saluted return from battle. Now many antiwar liberals believe Kerry is dissenting yet again.....(full article)
Notable writer William Blum hinted
acknowledgement of the power of an “Israeli lobby” in a 2004 article. In
his most recent Anti-Empire Report, Blum discusses again the entity that
doesn’t exist: the “Israel Lobby” or the permutations of that wording,
“Israeli Lobby” and “pro-Israel Lobby.” The paper entitled “The Israel
Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by professors John Mearsheimer Stephen Walt
has pushed the topic of the “Israel lobby” and its influence over US
foreign policy into a more prominent spotlight.....(full
article)
Why Leftists Mistrust Liberals
Some of my best friends are liberals.
Really. But I have found it is best not to rely on them
politically. Bashing the left to burnish credibility in mainstream circles
is a time-honored liberal move, a way of saying “I’m critical of the
excesses of the powerful, but not like those crazy lefties.” For example,
during a discussion of post-9/11 politics, I once heard then-New York
University professor (he has since moved to Columbia University) Todd
Gitlin position himself between the “hard right” (such as people
associated with the Bush administration) and the “hard left” (such as Noam
Chomsky and other radical critics), implying an equivalence in the
coherence or value of analysis of each side. The only conclusion I could
reach was that Gitlin -- who is both a prolific scholar and a former
president of Students for a Democratic Society -- either believed such a
claim about equivalence or said it for self-interested political purposes.
Neither interpretation is terribly flattering for Gitlin. Perhaps more
important than such cases are the ways in which liberals can undermine the
left even when claiming to be supportive in a common cause.....
. . . Despite overwhelming evidence that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, US troops, CIA agents, diplomat, and mercenaries have been attempting to show the Iraqis how we do things and make them do them our way. Although more and more of us regular citizens are getting fed up with this exercise, there has been no groundswell of opposition to this project in the halls of power. Not in Congress, not in the Pentagon, not in the establishment media, not in the courts, and definitely not in the Executive Branch. Why is this so? Simply put, it's because the powers that run this country believe that it is absolutely necessary for Washington to control that part of the world. Like that gentleman in Washington Square Park that day, the establishment in the United States does not question the fact of US hegemony. Nor does it question that hegemony's rightness or reasonableness. Furthermore, the powers that run this country are willing to spend whatever it takes in taxpayers' money and lives to maintain that dominance.....(full article)
Convincing our children that women can pursue their dreams, achieve success and be leaders is a daunting task in a world where women are routinely objectified and frequently ignored by the media and entertainment industries and where women are not yet full and equal voices in the political or corporate worlds. A recent study of media coverage in 76 countries by the Global Media Monitoring Project found that women are grossly underrepresented and frequently ignored as both subjects and sources of news. Only 10% of the stories surveyed were about women. The study also found that female journalists were routinely relegated to soft news stories and that when women do make the news, it is usually as celebrities or ordinary women, not as authority figures. Women are also twice as likely as men to be portrayed as victims.....(full article)
Should the US Congress reach agreement on an immigration bill, it is
unlikely to include one of the simpler issues in this complex debate:
granting asylum to battered women. This is far from a new issue. It first
drew national attention in 1995, when a Guatemalan woman named Rodi
Alvarado escaped from her brutal husband, who subjected her to extreme
domestic violence. He broke her jaw, kicked her when she was pregnant,
wielded a machete and threatened that if she tried to escape he would
leave her wheelchair bound for the rest of her life.....
It was May 2003.
President Bush had declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. The State
Department, which had been unenthusiastic about that war, was not inclined
to provoke another with Iran and indeed had been calling for diplomatic
engagement with the reform-minded Khatami regime. That regime for its part
asked the Swiss ambassador to Tehran to forward to the United States a
request for talks. These would address U.S. concerns about its nuclear
program, as well as the lifting of sanctions and normalization of
relations. Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage
were inclined to accept the offer. Vice President Cheney, soon to declare,
“We don’t negotiate with evil, we defeat it,” was not. Nor was
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and his Office of
Special Plans. Indeed, Cheney and his neoconservatives had the State
Department rebuke the Swiss intermediary as they began to ratchet up the
tension level between the countries to its present near-breaking point.
This is the extraordinary narrative provided in large part by a highly
reliable source, Powell’s former chief of staff, Colonel Lawrence
Wilkerson.....(full article)
Eight Months After Katrina:
“Don’t Come Back to New
Orleans On Monday, April 17, 2006, two bodies were found buried beneath what used to be a home in the Lower 9th Ward. Their discovery raised to 17 the number of Hurricane Katrina fatalities that have been discovered in New Orleans in the past month and a half. Katrina is now directly blamed for the deaths of 1,282 Louisiana residents. Eight months after Katrina, the state reports 987 people are still missing. Chief Steve Glynn, who oversees the New Orleans Fire Department search effort that found the latest two bodies told CNN: “You want to put it to rest at some point. You want to feel like it's over and it's just not yet.” Eight months after Katrina, there are still nearly 300,000 people who have not returned to New Orleans. While we can hope that our community is nearing the end of finding bodies, the struggle for justice for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people continues.....(full article)
A recent article by the incomparable Mickey Z in Dissident Voice (“15 Minutes of Radical Fame: America Meets Blum and Churchill,” 4/24/06) raised the question: “Can mainstream exposure to progressive ideas really make a difference?” The inquiry garnered responses from a fair sampling of free thinkers: Howard Zinn: “It’s only the accumulation of small differences that may occasionally reach a critical point and be identifiable as having been effective.” Joe Bageant: “Until Ward [Churchill] is on Oprah nobody will care.” William Blum: “Who’s to say what the long-term effect will be?” Michael Parenti: “Where in the major media are Churchill and Blum now? Back into oblivion.” Greg Elich: “For most viewers/listeners, the ideas are likely to come across as being from another planet.” Rosemarie Jackowski: “For meaningful change to occur it will take more than just exposure to a different set of facts.” The response that he did not get is: What’s your point? (full article)
Kentucky farmer and writer Wendell Berry once made an astute observation about the profound flaw underlying both communism and capitalism as systems of human organization: both force humans to be subservient to a colossal institution -- in the case of communism it is the state and in the case of capitalism it is the “free market” -- a market run by anonymous and unaccountable piles of money voraciously seeking to acquire still bigger piles of money, otherwise known as corporations. Economic analyst David Korten took this observation about the nature of capitalism a step further. He described how capitalism is eerily comparable to the disease oNew f cancer in that the economic players in a “free market” economy that is run capitalistically will forget that they are one unit of a larger network of units that comprise a systemic whole, all of which are ultimately dependent upon each other for survival. When this forgetfulness occurs in a cell in the human body, and the body’s various lines of defense against it are overridden, a tumor will develop as the cell seeks endless growth by dividing itself incessantly, eventually destroying major organs and killing the host through its selfish consumption of resources.....(full article)
In the past three years the Bush
administration has vigorously made comparisons between reconstruction in
Iraq and post-World War II Germany and Japan. Many of the administration’s
analogies have been forced, at best. A variety of historians, political
scientists, and even former government officials have suggested that the
comparisons are rather tenuous. But a new report by the Congressional
Research Service has essentially demolished the administration’s
analogies.....(full article)
The Anti-Empire Report William Blum on the Israel Lobby, a tale of two terrorists, the mind-numbing effects of anti-communism, Liberian president Charles Taylor and the Democrats, and more.....(full article)
The message is clear. Indeed, it's gigantic for all Iraqis and the entire world to see: a 100-acre compound -- ten times the size of the typical US embassy, the size of 80 football fields, six times larger than the UN, the size of Vatican City. The US Embassy Compound, in the middle of Baghdad -- the center for US domination of the Middle East and its resources. The compound towers above the Tigris River like a modern fortress. It will have its own sources of power and water, and will sit in the heart of Baghdad. If there is any thought that the U.S. is planning on leaving Iraq, the new embassy should make it clear “We're staying!”.....(full article)
If it
weren't so dangerously sad, the media gyrations to deflect attention from
the sordid mess defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has made in Iraq would
be amusing. But efforts to hide the truth are futile because Rumsfeld is
literally surrounded by "stars" -- retired general officers speaking
publicly about the fatal mistakes Rumsfeld made in his mad dash to "sweep
everything up" and dash blindly off to war.....(full
article)
America’s Gulag Often small things provide the most disturbing evidence for world-changing events, as when naturalists observe the quiet disappearance of some little known species. The CIA's firing of senior officer Mary O. McCarthy is a political event of just this nature.....(full article)
COPA, the Panamanian airline, is now flying the Brazilian company Embraer's E-190 commercial airliners on routes previously dominated by Boeing 737s. This detail highlights broader shifts in the economic balance of power in Latin America away from United States corporations. US businesses over-accustomed to hefty direct and indirect government subsidy and support are steadily going to have to make sharp adjustments. The Bush regime's desperation to force through "free trade" deals with Latin American countries is partly an attempt to soften, if not avoid, the blows to come. Embraer's sale of airliners to COPA indicates the incipient displacement of European and US aerospace industry in Latin America by Brazil. Last week President Lula decorated Brazil's first astronaut, who had successfully completed a mission with the Russian space program. Brazil is also developing its nuclear industry. Both Brazil and Venezuela are making significant widespread use of free software in preference to proprietary software like Microsoft's Windows operating system. Global trade links between Brazil and China, Venezuela and Iran combine with regional integration initiatives that are remaking Latin America's traditional networks of international relations.....(full article)
“Inexcusable” is what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently called the lack of federal funds to improve the state’s system of flood control. In late February on a trip to Washington, he had asked for $56 million for emergency repairs on 24 levee sites eroded by rising river waters in Central and Northern California. Following heavy rains in March and April, Schwarzenegger had declared a state of emergency in counties along the San Joaquin River in the central part of the state. People there scrambled to evacuate before a flood surge was forecast to arrive. They dodged the flood bullet as state funds slated for future upgrades to the levee system were diverted to emergency labor. Workers placed tarps and sand bags on levee sites, watching 24/7 for breaks. The governor’s recent news-conference rhetoric referenced the federal failure to protect people from the floods and storms of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.....(full article)
Just when it seemed
unlikely that domestic and international events would unfold to test an
already incompetent US government, along comes the acceleration of the
movement to destroy Iran. That effort has been well documented over the
past few years in scores of articles and position papers from the usual
suspects in the media, think tanks, and the Net. What’s missing in that
coverage, though, is an understanding of the consequences of such an
action, or “consequence management” in Pentagon parlance. More’s the pity
in this discussion, comes the knowledge that the majority of Americans who
are calling for military action -- from all strata of society -- do so as
if they were casually ordering a pizza from Dominoes. Just pick up the
cell phone and, while salivating, order the Iranian War Special. Sit back
and enjoy the pizza while watching the war coverage on television and
gruesome videos on the Net. Ooo ahhh, look at that Spectre Gunship at
work! Whoa! Look at those body parts flying around. Pass me another piece
of pizza!
Palestinian children are not made for war, any more than Israeli children are made for war. Yet while the politicians jockey for power, our Israeli mothers go on loyally sending their children to join the army and terrorize the neighbors, as if that were a normal thing to do, believing it their duty to the nation; and Palestinian mothers continue to live in fear when their kids sneak out to throw stones at the tanks those Israeli kids are driving, and sometimes they come back in a box. Miki, a former babysitter for my children, granddaughter of a good friend, a sweet, charming girl, was conscripted into the Israeli army at 18 with all the other kids, and became a sharpshooter instructor. Her trainees, still children themselves, go out and shoot Palestinian children in the streets of Nablus or Hebron. Who can make sense of this? And what of another friend’s only son, Haggai, the dreamer, the nature-lover, who will never sit under a tree again on a summer’s day, watching the clouds sail by in the sky? The Czar’s army (they call it the IDF here) got him, and ate him alive.....(full article)
The policy of hitnatkut, or unilateral disengagement, developed by Ariel Sharon needed a swift facelift following the withdrawal of settlers from Gaza last year. And Israel’s prime minister-designate, Ehud Olmert, has found it in the related concept of hitkansut, variously translated as “convergence,” “consolidation” and “ingathering”. After all, Olmert could hardly campaign convincingly for a West Bank disengagement when it was clear Jewish settlers and soldiers would continue occupying a significant proportion of Palestinian land at the withdrawal’s end. So convergence is usefully, and misleadingly, supplanting disengagement. Many critics of Israel assume convergence is simply jargon disguising the government’s intention illegally to annex swaths of West Bank territory. The grand land theft will be sold to the world as a painful withdrawal of Jewish settlers, even if the great majority (probably 80 per cent) are left in place and only the most remote settlements are dismantled. But events this week suggest that the principle of hitkansut will have a far wider application than just to the West Bank settlement blocs, with results even more sinister than many had anticipated. Olmert’s consolidation, it is becoming clear, will embrace Palestinians too....(full article)
Search the archives of any left-of-center website and you'll find no shortage of prose extolling the importance of "getting the message out there." If only the huddled masses could consume something more than a steady diet of corporate propaganda...so the story goes. For example, try to imagine Ralph Nader being included in the presidential debates. What a wake-up call that would be, right? Well, not so fast.....(full article)
The American Beverage Association (ABA) sells some of the most popular non-alcoholic beverages in the world. Carbonated soft drinks make up 73% of that total. Americans spend roughly $93 billion annually on refreshment beverages (about $357/person). The ABA believes that all beverages are part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle and helps this along by producing various sized beverages so as to incorporate different, that is larger, serving portions into diets. This is what the ABA says about itself. Let us stop here for a moment. $93 billion in refreshment beverages. $93 billion -- why? What has Americans hooked? Caffeine, yes, but the ABA sells 7-Up and Sprite, which contain no caffeine, if we believe the PR and product labeling (which the ABA is fighting to get rid of). But even more disturbing is the contention that soft drinks are part of a healthy diet. Which healthy diet? Whose -- Atkins'? Other than the ABA, who else makes the same claim? But it sounds good, so people believe it. After all, the ABA is an authority. In reality, this claim about soft drinks being part of a healthy diet is specious.....(full article)
“You
wouldn’t believe the terrible things that were done to me,” says Alexia
Parks’ niece in An American Gulag. But she continues: “I know now
it was for my own good.” Thus ends Parks’ account of her struggle to help
her niece after she was enrolled in several behavior modification schools.
The similarity to the end of 1984 is striking: a previously
headstrong individual returns from months of torture as merely a shell of
their former self, having learned to love their tormentors. The difference
is that Parks’ story is true. Usual definitions of torture include the use
of practices such as solitary confinement, non-medical application of
psychiatric drugs, unprovoked beatings, starvation, and verbal abuse as
means to change a person’s behavior. Many Americans are reluctant to
support the use of these techniques even on criminals, much less teenagers
with behavioral problems. Unfortunately, this is exactly what is being
done on a large-scale basis as “tough-love” programs have become a booming
industry. These programs come in several varieties, including boot camps,
“therapeutic” boarding schools or academies, and wilderness programs. At
the cost of several thousand dollars per month (up to $40,000/year), these
schools supposedly provide a climate where troubled teens can continue
their regular education while receiving treatments designed to improve
their behavior.....(full article)
Cracks in the Coalition of the Crackpots Silvio Berlusconi, one of George Bush's most strident supporters, has lost a watershed election, just like Spain's Bush-man José Maria Aznar did in 2004. New center-left Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi will likely pull Italy's troops out of Iraq and orient his economic policy more closely with Europe than with America. In France, Jacques Chirac, though not a formal member of GW's Iraqi invasion coalition, is still a conservative sympathizer. An energetic alliance of French high school and college students, resurgent labor unions and the politically savvy French middle class successfully shut down the country with a powerful mix of national strikes and street demonstrations. The French people literally rose up and forced President Chirac to withdraw proposed legislation that would have begun “Americanizing” France's work force by making young workers more globally “competitive” (read: exploitable and disposable). In Thailand, pro-business billionaire and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra could not muster enough voters to validate his snap elections, thus jeopardizing his political career and his plans for more trade pacts with the United States.....(full article)
Robert Dreyfuss’ article “Vice Squad,” about the Office of the Vice President in the American Prospect) is the best piece I’ve seen in awhile on the neoconservatives and their persistent influence in the Bush Administration. But it also places the neocons’ Middle East preoccupation in wider perspective.....(full article)
This week’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, which took nine innocent Israeli lives and one innocent Palestinian life, was the most predictable act by any novice observer of the ongoing conflict. A Palestinian in his late teens, early twenties, possibly the youngest suicide bomber ever, from a small, besieged village near the Palestinian city of Jenin in the northern part of the Palestinian Authority, entered a restaurant in Tel Aviv, Israel and used his body, strapped with explosives, as a weapon to kill as many patrons as possible. Horrifying indeed, but, no more or less horrifying than what this Palestinian probably faced since his birth, while living under Israeli military occupation every single day of his life. Suicide bombings feed modern media, whereas, a decades old military occupation feeds on the occupied.....(full article)
Noam Chomsky responded to the paper by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (M&W), judging their thesis “not very convincing.” I agree with Chomsky, but for different reasons. Chomsky disputes the inference from the evidence (of the Israel Lobby’s influence) to the conclusion (that the Lobby has the power to move U.S. foreign policy away from the U.S. national interest.) I contest the analytical framework of M&W, which includes the concept of “national interest,” and the separation between domestic politics and foreign policy. Chomsky’s critique, however, shows that he concedes too much of the conceptual framework of M&W. As a result, he is forced to reject too much of their specific claims. Paradoxically, getting rid of M&W’s conceptual baggage makes their actual claims more relevant.....(full article)
Science and medical experts say that unless the government forces the pharmaceutical industry to pay for the damage caused by mercury-laced vaccines, in the not too distant future, Americans will experience the worst welfare disaster in the history of this country. No doubt with that in mind, eight members of Congress are calling for a new investigation into the link between the autism epidemic and the mercury-based preservative thimerosal that children received in vaccines during the 1990s, and that some children received as late as 2003. After six years of hearings and testimony from medical experts, scientists, special education teachers, school nurses, and parents of autistic children, several lawmakers say they are convinced that a review of the vaccine database will show a causal link between autism and thimerosal.....(full article)
One by one, they’re coming to terms with the absurdity of this ruinous war of choice. As they make their way to the peace camp, roll out the red carpets. Let them stroll in with heads held high. Even if they only repent for what the war has done to “us”, embrace them as your brothers in the struggle. If they insist on wearing blinders, let them be. Avoiding the glare of Iraqi casualties is a sin we can deal with at a later time. If Francis Fukuyama and Bill Buckley have a change of mind that leads to a change of heart -- respect them for the courage to modify their convictions. It serves no purpose to tattoo time stamps on the arms of those who come tardy to the peace party. Let the peace camp be a wide open field that welcomes every American with ideological indifference. But be very wary of those in a hurry to exit Baghdad only to launch an invasion of Iran. When John Kerry shows up, bolt the gates, shut him out and shout him down. Those who want to make peace in Iraq to make war in Iran should find other quarters to market their agendas.....(full article)
Across the country opposition to the war in Iraq is fast setting in. The latest Bush job approval ratings are dismal, hovering around 35%, in large part due to peoples’ wariness about the disorder and uncertainty engulfing Iraq. Two weeks ago, 24 towns in Wisconsin passed antiwar resolutions. According to the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, that pushes the total number of cities nationwide that have passed similar referendums to 100. But as the sentiment against the war continues to mature, the most significant question still remains unanswered: What are all of us who want to bring our troops home now going to do to stop the war? (full article)
One of the nation’s leading pollsters, Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center, wrote a few weeks ago that among Americans “there is little potential support for the use of force against Iran.” This month the White House has continued to emphasize that it is committed to seeking a diplomatic solution. Yet the U.S. government is very likely to launch a military attack on Iran within the next year. How can that be? (full article)
New York’s drug laws ensure that the
privileged and connected receive leniency for the same offenses that send
thousands of Blacks and Latinos to prison. Julia Diaco, the rich and
connected so-called “Pot Princess” was sentenced on March 22 in Manhattan
Supreme Court to five years’ probation for drug dealing. Diaco was
18-years-old when she was arrested for multiple sales of drugs to
undercover narcotics officers from her dorm room at New York University.
Despite having a “strong” case against her and facing up to 25 years in
prison if convicted, she received probation upon completion of a drug
rehab and education program....
Sixteen days before
President Bush's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address in which he
said that the US learned from British intelligence that Iraq had attempted
to acquire uranium from Africa -- an explosive claim that helped pave the
way to war -- the State Department told the CIA that the intelligence the
uranium claims were based upon were forgeries, according to a newly
declassified State Department memo. The revelation of the warning from the
closely guarded State Department memo is the first piece of hard evidence
and the strongest to date that the Bush administration manipulated and
ignored intelligence information in their zeal to win public support for
invading Iraq.....(full article)
Warning: Tax Cuts for Rich Harm Nation's
Health Did you get a $1 million dollar cut in your taxes? Taxpayers with incomes above $10 million saved $1 million on average on their 2003 taxes, according to the latest available IRS data, thanks to tax changes under President Bush. Tax breaks will be bigger this year. It would take about 29 years for a full-time worker to make a million bucks at today's average hourly wage, which is falling behind inflation.....(full article)
The coming days will bring another step towards the new New Orleans. On April 22, voters in the city (Absentee and in-state satellite voting began last week) will choose between 22 mayoral candidates, as well as sheriff, city council, and other positions. If no candidate in a race receives more than 50%, there will be a run-off between the two highest vote-getters on May 20. Elections have always been a big deal here in the state that gave the nation Clinton campaign manager James Carville and Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile, but this election feels more weighted with significance. While local media has made a division between the “serious” candidates and less likely contenders such as Manny “Chevrolet” Bruno (“A troubled man for troubled times”), the truth is that in New Orleans politics, even the front runners are, if nothing else, uncensored. “Early on, the media sorted based on name recognition and financial backing,” says community organizer and mayoral candidate Greta Gladney. “But they haven’t presented the full picture. Yes, we have some crazy people who qualified. But there are also some important messages from candidates that aren’t receiving attention. And among the main contenders, you have some crazy people running too.”.....(full article)
Two academics from the Chicago University Political Science Department and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University shocked the tender sensibilities of the chattering classes when they published a damning study of how and to what extent “the Israel Lobby” influences U.S. foreign policy. The paper has been dissected and criticized, often hysterically, by both left and right, and by both the mainstream and radical media. The hysteria is in itself telling, and I hope to address it in a separate article. But first, I wish to examine the Mearsheimer and Walt (M&W) argument in its own right. My purpose is to offer an antidote to the paralysis that befalls significant portions of the U.S. left whenever the Israel Lobby is mentioned. To do so, I will criticize M&W’s paper, but also reconstruct its argument within a coherent leftist framework.....(full article)
Charismatic televangelist Pastor John Hagee thinks that the Rev. Pat Robertson's suggestion that Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was payback from God for withdrawing from Gaza was "insensitive and unnecessary." But he nevertheless appears to share Robertson's concern that Israel may be giving up too much land to the Palestinians. To prevent the Bush Administration from pressuring the Israelis into turning over even more land, Hagee, the pastor of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church, and the head of a multi-million dollar evangelical enterprise, recently brought together 400 Christian evangelical leaders -- representing as many as 30 million Christians -- for an invitation-only "Summit on Israel." The result was the launching of a new pro-Israeli lobbying group called Christians United for Israel....(full article)
In July 2005, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh traveled to Washington to discuss with Bush how India and the USA could patch up their differences and start the free-flow of nuclear material, fuels, technology and expertise once again. America had boycotted India's program since the latter started detonating its bombs. Bush then visited India in March to further the deal, but before he left the US, in a bizarre bargaining feint, he arbitrarily demoted India from the ranks of "leading countries with advanced nuclear technology" (the phrase used in the July 18, 2005 India-US Statement) to those who merely have a "developing nuclear energy program." In his speech to the Asia Society in Washington, Bush named India as a country that would have to hand over its spent nuclear fuel to a handful of "supplier nations" for reprocessing, forgoing in the bargain its right to reprocess the waste generated from its civilian nuclear program. But after flying half way around the world in a highly publicized PR adventure, the Indian negotiators knew very well that Bush just had to emerge with a deal, at any cost, so they easily got around all that eleventh hour bluster.....(full article)
Last week the Senate confirmed Randall
Tobias as the new administrator of the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID). Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also appointed
Mr. Tobias to serve as the Director of Foreign Assistance, a newly created
position that will oversee $19 billion in foreign aid. USAID has operated
independently from the State Department’s political and military concerns
for more than 40 years. But with the confirmation of Mr. Tobias, foreign
aid will almost certainly become victim to the whims of the Bush
administration.....(full article)
How Long Will MoveOn.org Fail to Oppose
Bombing Iran? MoveOn.org sent out an e-mail with the subject line “Don’t Nuke Iran” to three million people on April 12. “There is one place where all of us can agree: Americans don’t support a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran, and Congress must act to prevent the president from launching one before it’s too late,” the message said. And: “Please take a moment to add your name to our petition to stop a nuclear attack on Iran.” The petition’s two sentences only convey opposition to a “nuclear” attack on Iran: “Congress and President Bush must rule out attacking Iran with nuclear weapons. Even the threat of a nuclear attack eliminates some of the best options we have for diplomacy, and the consequences could be catastrophic.” In MoveOn’s mass e-mail letter, the only reference to a non-nuclear attack on Iran came in a solitary sentence without any followup: “Even a conventional attack would likely be a disaster.” “Likely” be a disaster? Is there any U.S. military attack on Iran that plausibly would not be a disaster? There’s no way around the conclusion that the signers of the letter (“Eli, Joan, Nita, Marika and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team”) chose to avoid committing themselves -- and avoid devoting MoveOn resources -- to categorical opposition to bombing Iran.....(full article)
Here we go again.
It’s easy to get confused about developments in Iran because the media
does everything in its power to obfuscate the facts and then spin the
details in way that advances American policy objectives. But, let’s be
clear, the Security Council did NOT order Iran to stop enriching
uranium. It may not even be in their power to do so since enrichment is
guaranteed under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). For the
Security Council to forbid Iran to continue with enrichment activities
would be tantamount to repealing the treaty itself. They didn’t do
that.....(full article)
Designated Fall Guy: Replacing Rummy When the weight of our government’s failure to respond to the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina dropped like a Daisy Cutter on America’s mainstream consciousness, a convergence of political operatives and media spokespersons demanded a fall guy. They received one post-haste in the person of wide-eyed FEMA Director Michael Brown, who was suddenly portrayed as an unqualified political appointee, a deer caught in the headlights, utterly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster. Of course, Michael Brown did not appoint himself. Months later it became apparent that White House operatives (perhaps preoccupied with other pressing concerns) miscalculated. They failed to purge video records portraying the beleaguered “Brownie” as a fully informed and engaged administrator desperately pressing the president for coordinated action. Michael Brown was not the reason for our government’s failure in the Gulf Coast region and Secretary of Defense Donald “Rummy” Rumsfeld is not the reason for the catastrophe in Iraq.....(full article)
One day, when he was in the third grade, Donald Rumsfeld brought a bomb to school. He put it on the teacher’s desk. “Is it real?” she asked. “Maybe,” he replied. “You mean you brought it to school, and you don’t know whether or not the thing is armed?” she asked. “It’s really hard to know something like that,” he said. “At least until all the facts are in.”.....(full story)
They’re lying to us.
Racist lawmakers on
the Republican ultra-Right now assure us -- after they were deeply stung
by the protests of millions, and after we won the hearts of 62% of the US
population -- that they want to drop the provisions in new immigration
laws that would make migrants felons. ?Y que?.....(full
article)
Hamas Being Forced to Collapse As many predicted, including myself, the newly elected Palestinian government led by Hamas has already started to show an impressive level of pragmatism, however, Israel and the U.S. seem to not be interested. As a matter of fact the U.S., in specific, is leading a global campaign to isolate the Palestinian government in such a haphazard way, that they are also causing a troubling level of despair among the average Palestinian citizen as well..... (full article)
One of the great privileges of power is the right to attack others for doing -- or allegedly doing (see below) -- exactly what you do without anybody who matters calling you on your hypocrisy. Think of the affluent white Americans who criticize the alleged personal irresponsibility, cultural inadequacy, and welfare dependency of the inner city poor. Never mind that these wealthy Americans engage in an ongoing orgy of conspicuous and ecologically toxic consumption. Forget that they typically invest in and/or receive generous salaries from corporations that receive massive public subsidies while cheating customers, subverting regulations, deepening inequality, slashing wages and benefits, abandoning communities, discriminating against women and minorities, and/or otherwise contributing to human misery at home and abroad. Such blatant hypocrisy generally proceeds without public notice or exposure.....(full article)
As business and environmental groups attempt to influence government environmental decisions, only one side consistently comes out on top. You don’t have to dig too deep into campaign contributions to see who hands over more money to candidates and both major political parties. Oil and gas companies hand over millions more dollars to special interest groups and presidential campaigns than do environmental organizations. And their investments pay off quite well. Rarely is there an environmental victory that comes out of Washington. On the contrary, big oil companies win time and time again. Certainly there are not many policy wonks that keep an eye on Washington who would deny that campaign contributions influence public policy. This may well be the ill fate of the environmental movement -- attempting to play ball with the big boys in Washington. Will they ever be on par with the likes of Enron or others who virtually write our environmental and energy legislation year after year? It has long been my belief that the Sierra Club and rest of the big environmental groups, along with the Democratic Party itself, that do the most harm to environmentalism. It’s not the Republicans. If anything, the Republicans have been the best mobilizers of environmentalists by rallying people against their policies, even though many of the same policies were present during Democratic administrations.....(full article)
Having recently revisited the international law governing the use of military force by reading Christine Gray's book, International Law and the Use of Force, I approached Henry Kissinger's April 9, 2006 op-ed in the Washington Post with eager interest. Unfortunately, as I waded through his Rules On Preventive Force, I found myself in the midst of a smoke and mirrors justification for "extending" international law to permit the type of illegal preventive war that should earn President George W. Bush impeachment and a subsequent trial by a War Crimes Tribunal. Like Mr. Bush in both editions of his National Security Strategy, Mr. Kissinger appears to intentionally confuse "preemption" with the actual type of illegal war that the Bush administration waged in Iraq and is contemplating against Iran. In fact, Mr. Kissinger devotes his first five paragraphs to preemption before actually turning to preventive war.....(full article)
This week I read an article by Robert Scheer that said Colin Powell now says he and his department’s top experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that Bush followed misleading advice from Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim. To that I say, not so fast Mr. Powell, the time to come clean has long passed. In fact, the window of truth-telling time for you ended when the first US soldier was killed in Iraq. This admission proves that Powell knew the truth and could have stopped the freight train long before it made it to Iraq.....(full article)
President Bush, several years after most Americans, has decided the nation can’t be dependent upon foreign energy sources. For much of his life, when he wasn’t stoned or wasted, and especially when he was running what came to be a series of failed corporations, Bush worshipped the power of oil, while denouncing global warming as junk science. But now, as an enlightened president who is prevented by his own incompetence and inability to deal with the insurgency and unable to drill for oil in Iraq, Bush has decided that alternative energy is necessary. He has a plan -- ethanol. It’s cheap, he says. It’s available from American corn crops, he claims. It’s primarily provided by Archer Daniels Midland, which has consistently been a large donor to political campaigns, primarily Republican. But, just in case ethanol isn’t as reliable as Bush believes it could be, there’s still the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Our oil-slicked President believes killing animals and disrupting the ecological balance in the ANWR to drill for oil beneath the frozen tundra is also part of the solution to the oil crisis. By 2025, according to government projections, and assuming a ten year development during which no oil is pumped, oil produced in ANWR will represent only about 1 to 2 percent of the Americans’ daily needs; if all the oil in ANWR were successfully mined, it would represent less than a one year supply. But, while Bush says we shouldn’t depend upon foreign energy, he really means we should depend upon foreign energy, not in the form of natural resources but in a human form.....(full article)
The French students and workers force the repeal of a law that would have provided employers complete control over the work lives of French youth. Immigrants and their supporters maintain a growing series of protests across the United States to oppose proposed legislation that would criminalize the existence of any US residents without the proper papers and those that assist them. On a smaller scale, students and other young people organize nationwide challenges to the concerted attempts by recruiters to entice them into the military and the empire's wars.....(full article)
God drove his big blue tractor across the sky, his long white beard trailing behind him like a cloud. He said, “It is good. But then, maybe those folks down at the Monsanto Corporation have a point. Maybe it is a little slow. Maybe them chimpanzees ought to get themselves a job.” Feeling a little old fashioned he said, “Maybe I ought to finally plant those seeds that zealous young fellow from Monsanto gave me.” God remembered how that young man had just laughed when He had cut an apple in two, revealing the perfect five-pointed star in the center. How he'd said, “Grandpa, forget that down home shit, these seeds I've got are guaranteed to increase your yield.”.....(full article)
Big Larry is not
blind. He has noticed that some working folks like himself seem to be
going tits up financially of late. Or is that just his paranoia? “Fug it.
Just mind your own business, work hard and everything will be OK.” As to
the politics behind the looting of the economy, he doesn’t have dog in
that fight and doesn’t want one. Like so many working class folks, he
blows it off with a single worn out line: “They’re all crooks.” Torture in
Iraq? “If it makes us safer, go for it! Have another beer.” The most
common citizens of the Empire -- and Larry sure as hell is common -- being
smothered in the commodities and comforts of its far flung corporate and
military domination, are always the last to care about the situation out
there in the resource colonies.....(full
article)
Bush Wrong 36 Ways
Conservative
pundits such as Ann Coulter lash out against Democrats and liberals in
general about such issues as affirmative action, racial preferences,
illegal immigration, and campus speech codes. All of these issues
necessitate finding an appropriate balance between freedom and regulation,
usually with different standards relevant to different circumstances.
Excesses are possible, and there is often room for criticism, even
ridicule. On the other hand, such pundits avoid taking into account
President Bush’s current foreign and domestic agenda, which is far more
deserving of critical scrutiny. For most of his supposedly conservative
policy decisions are not debatable, as if one might reasonably support or
reject them at one level or another. Time and again they have simply been
wrong and nothing but wrong. Here are 36 Reasons Why......(full
article)
Loser Nation America is a nation of losers. It's the best thing about us. We're the dregs, what the rest of the world barfed up and threw on our shores.....(full article)
The U.S. Congress has delayed discussion of
a new immigration bill for two weeks. Now is a useful time to put into a
broader context what the congressional debate on foreign workers has
covered and covered up, with help from the mainstream press.....(full
article)
Yes, Blame the Lobby:
A Response to Prof. Joseph Massad The appearance last month of a critical article on the “Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy” in the London Review of Books by Professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Steven Walt, Academic Dean of the Kennedy Center at Harvard University, two nationally known academic figures with impeccable credentials, propelled into the mainstream an issue that had long been confined to the margins, not only by the efforts of the lobby, itself, but by those on the Left who prefer to view US foreign policy as being determined by corporate elites who are largely unaffected by the agenda of what Noam Chomsky, the foremost proponent of this theory, has described as another “ethnic lobby.” That the authors squarely placed the blame for US policy in the Middle East and for the war in Iraq on the influence of the Israel Lobby elicited the predictable reactions from both camps. The attack dogs of the lobby, led by Alan Dershowitz and CAMERA, smeared the article -- an abbreviated version of a longer Harvard monograph -- as an updated version of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” based on sources from “Neo-Nazi” web sites and, of course, “anti-Semitic.” From the Left, Prof. Chomsky was not long in providing a subtle dismissal of the paper on ZNet and on Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! After a perfunctory sentence praising the two professors for having raised the issue, he writes, “we still have to ask how convincing their thesis is. Not very, in my opinion.” His comments, predictably, were picked up and quoted approvingly in the Jewish and mainstream press. What was surprising to this writer, however, was that the very first attack from the Left came from someone who had himself been victimized by the lobby, Prof. Joseph Massad, of Columbia University.....(full article)
Members of the Ibdaa Health Committee are on
tour in the US. They are educating Americans on the devastating health
conditions of Palestinians and health care workers in the West Bank, East
Jerusalem and Gaza. The facts on the ground are shocking, yet the
international community ignores Israel’s widespread violence and warfare
against the Palestinians. The violence against health care workers, the
health care system and the Palestinian infrastructure are equally
appalling.....
Who rips off the Third World through
resource theft and sweatshop employment, plus usurious lending, leaving
native populaces incapable of proper development, and bereft of the
ability to rise above chronic, devastating poverty? Capitalist
profiteers. Who, therefore, selfishly creates the underlying conditions
that drive vast numbers of migrants to come to the United States to try to
simply survive? Capitalist profiteers. Who then takes cruel advantage of
them once they’re here, seizing upon their desperate status to pay them
next to nothing? Capitalist profiteers. Who manipulates the immigrant
issue to make many Americans think their declining quality of life --
resulting chiefly from aggressive union busting and rightwing stonewalling
on direly needed federal minimum wage hikes, or an actual living wage --
is caused by “those Mexicans?” Capitalist profiteers. Who’s scared to
death that all their divisive demagoguery will be revealed, allowing a
multi-racial working class with an all-for-one, one-for-all outlook to
gain the necessary clout that only standing united can achieve, forcing
thieves in corporate/financial power to accede to economic justice or be
kicked into the trash bin of history? Capitalist profiteers. Sorry for
being repetitive. But we can’t permit any misidentification of our mutual
enemy.....(full article)
Ending Terrorism Against Women Begins at
Home:
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was
unanimously reauthorized by Congress late last year. Funding for the act's
various programs, however, is far from assured. For the fifth year in a
row, President Bush's budget request did not provide full funding for
existing VAWA programs and, because it was passed after the budget
proposal for 2007 had already been drafted, no funding was requested for
the new VAWA programs that were also approved by Congress. Of the $1
billion authorized by Congress, the President’s budget requested
only$546.2 million. “The reason that VAWA is so important is that it
provides resources and tools that communities need to not only address but
also end violence against women. VAWA 2005 expands upon current programs
and provides the first federal funding stream that supports sexual assault
programs,” explained Cheryl O’Donnell, Communications Director of the
National Network to End
Domestic Violence.....
The National
Geographic Society has dramatically
raised the curtain on the long lost “Gospel of Judas,” which depicts
Judas and his action of betrayal in a positive light. It was known to have
been composed by the 2nd century but a copy was only found in
Egypt three decades ago. Having admirably underwritten the long process of
reconstructing and translating the text, the Society has embarked on a
massive public relations campaign to sell its magazine coverage,
television special and two new books about the gospel. I just wish it
would do so with a little more scholarly dispassion and a little less
hype. The text is described on the Geographic’s website as “a lost gospel
that could challenge what is believed about the story of Judas and his
betrayal of Jesus.” The video preview,
to an ominous musical background, declares: “For centuries his name has
meant treachery and deceit. Now hidden for nearly 2,000 years an ancient
gospel emerges from the sands of Egypt. It tells a different story, one
that could challenge our deepest beliefs.” It obviously does conflict with
the canonical gospel accounts. But will it really challenge beliefs (of
Christians and others) about events supposed to have occurred circa the
year 30?
More Americans are in school than ever before. Better yet, more Americans from more diverse backgrounds are in school than ever before. Good news for the good guys. Here is why......(full article)
The malfeasance of President Bush is seeping into the public consciousness despite the nefarious propaganda campaign of his co-conspirators and the irresponsible subservience of the mainstream media. His crimes of violating international laws, the American constitution, American law and lying to the American people and Congress are now well documented. Lying to the American people and to Congress is a symptom of a very malignant cancer in the leadership of the American polity which can be traced back to the founding of the Republic. The cancer is paradoxical in a sense because the founding fathers and virtually every president since have resonantly trumpeted with pride the democratic nature of the American system of government despite the fact that these very same leaders didn’t respect the judgment of the American people when it came to important decisions and therefore had to “manufacture consent” to win their approval.....(full article)
The people of Iraq and Afghanistan are
suffering most acutely from the U.S. government’s militarism. But
working-class people here in the U.S. are bearing the costs as well. Over
the past few years, the Bush administration and Congress have cut billions
of dollars in social spending, hitting the poorest people in our society
the hardest. These cuts have done real and lasting damage to millions of
people’s lives. But to understand the structural role of the federal
budget in maintaining inequality in U.S. society, you have to step back
from the budget cuts and look at the overall budget itself. There is no
better way to understand the bipartisan consensus in Washington than to
compare the endless rhetoric of both parties about “putting education
first” with the actual amount they are willing to spend on it.....(full
article)
America’s “Noble” Cause:
Preserving its Right to Murder, Exploit,
“Why are we over there in Iraq?” “If that is true, why are so many Americans against the war?”
“I don’t know, but I think Cindy Sheehan and
all the other war protestors should be rounded up and shot.”
Every time I get a review copy of a new book
in the mail, I’m reminded that the only difference between a so-called
critic and your garden variety reader is this: the critic didn’t have to
pay for the damn book. So it was when Michael Parenti’s latest,
The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press, 2006), arrived last
month. From where I sit, Parenti is at the top of his game…still producing
fresh concepts and vivid prose, still challenging readers of all stripes.
But, since this is merely my opinion and the idea here is to share
Parenti’s opinion, I’m going to let his words do the talking.....(full
article)
Two Israeli journalists wrote that Colin
Powell understood and feared the power of the lobby. In an op-ed column
critical of his Harvard colleagues, ludicrously titled “There
Is No Israel ‘Lobby’” the well-known political consultant David
Gergen proclaimed, “Over the course of four tours in the White House, I
never once saw a decision in the Oval Office to tilt U.S. foreign policy
in favor of Israel at the expense of America's interest.” America’s
massive financial support of Israel’s territorial expansion in the West
Bank is very much contrary to its own interests, his two colleagues would
respond. Gergen’s blanket denial is one of the most preposterous
statements in the ongoing media reporting that impugn the motivations of
Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, two political scientists who recently
published the “Israel
Lobby.” Their essay described what the writers understand to be
the many deleterious effects of pro-Israel activists upon the formulation
of American foreign policy. In his critique of the essay, Gergen displays
a level of chutzpah which would astound even the most blindly loyal
devotee of the Israeli cause, when he excoriates Walt and Mearsheimer for
“impugn[ing] the unstinting service to America's national security by
public figures like Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk …”.....
Joe Scarborough, political hack and host of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, went on yet another odious rant on April 3. This time his scurrilous remarks were aimed at six-term Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The Congresswoman is accused of punching a Capitol Hill security officer in the chest (with cell phone in hand). After McKinney skirted a metal detector (members of Congress are not required to go through metal detectors) an officer, according to a witness, asked McKinney to stop several times. The officer claimed that he didn’t recognize the six-term Congresswoman (although each officer is given pictures of members of Congress); it seems that the confusion was due to McKinney’s new haircut. What would they have done to Dick Cheney in hunting gear? McKinney’s lawyers allege that a skirmish ensued after the officer “harassed” the Congresswoman and forcefully grabbed her by the arm. The Washington Post quoted McKinney, “Let me be clear: This whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me, a female black congresswoman.”.....(full article)
Dear Readers,
On NBC’s Meet the Press, March 26, Condoleezza Rice told Tim Russert: “Saddam was not related to the events of 9/11. But if you really believe that the only thing that happened on 9/11 was people flew airplanes into buildings, I think you have a very narrow view of what we faced on 9/11. We faced the, the outcome of an ideology of hatred throughout the Middle East that had to be dealt with. Saddam Hussein was a part of that old Middle East. The new Iraq will be a part of a new Middle East, and we will all be safer.” Russert might have asked whether the new, liberated Afghanistan and Iraq represent any improvement in the hatred department. In the former, to the administration’s embarrassment and the consternation of its Christian fundamentalist supporters, people face death for conversion to Christianity. In the latter, women are now obliged to follow a religious dress code or risk attack. These countries are in Bush-theory “free and democratic” now, apparently solely because their regimes have been changed by U.S. military force. They’re free by definition, much like the countries of the “Free World” labeled such during the Cold War.....(full article)
The immigration
issue has been cast as an insoluble problem pitting the philosophy of
“free trade” against the rights of the exploited. This representation is
fundamentally wrong. Free trade is not the root of the immigration
problem; it is the solution. We must initially acknowledge the essential
role of the rights of labor in trade agreements. Any nation that does not
provide workers with living wages, decent working conditions and basic
benefits is subsidizing corporate profits. It is no different than a
government providing direct funding to an industry or imposing tariffs on
targeted imports. It is therefore a violation of the essential principles
of free trade. What are the consequences of recognizing the rights of
labor in the free trade equation? CAFTA, NAFTA and virtually all
international trade agreements negotiated under the banner of free trade
are rendered invalid and subject to renegotiation. When trade agreements
are contingent on labor rights, there will be a reduction in the influx of
migrants across the border. More and more citizens of Mexico and Latin
America will opt to remain in their own nations when their respective
governments guarantee that their basic needs will be provided.....
“We are all illegal aliens.” It’s a bumper sticker many of us on the frontlines of the fight against the United States’ government’s assault on Central Americans plastered on our car bumpers down El Paso way. That was in the 1980s. You know, when Reagan was running amuck ordering his captains Ollie North, McFarland, Casper Weinberger, the whole lot of them, to send bombs, CIA-torture manuals and US agents in order to aid terrorist contras and other despotic sorts in killing hundreds of thousands of innocents in civil wars in Salvador and Guatemala and El Salvador. We worked with women and children who had witnessed fathers, uncles and husbands eviscerated by US-backed military monsters. Victims of torture, in Texas illegally. You know, what those brave Smith and Wesson-brandishing, chaise lounge Minutemen of today would call aliens....(full article)
You hear it everywhere. Even from Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, author of the vicious anti-migrant legislation that has polarized the US. “We are a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws,” he says. And like almost everyone else, he’s got it wrong. The original Europeans in what is now the US were not immigrants, but colonists. And the US is not a nation of immigrants -- it is a white colonial settler state, like South Africa under Apartheid, the former Rhodesia, Australia and Israel. Like those states the US has always operated on a sometimes hidden, sometimes overt system of Apartheid. Like those places, the US is a nation of colonists -- and race laws....(full article)
The following interview with William Blum was conducted in Washington, D.C. on March 31, 2006. Gary Corseri [Q] asked the questions of Blum [A]. Q. In his January 19, 2006 audio tape message to the world, Osama bin Laden stated: “If Bush carries on with his lies and oppression, it would be useful for you to read the book, Rogue State.” Then, he quoted the line in which you write that you would end US interference in the nations of the world as soon as you become president. Now, I’ve read Rogue State, and I know that your projected first four days in office would actually be even more interesting than that. How do you conceive the first four days of a Blum Administration? (full interview)
The conduct of our current crew of mass media charlatans has often been compared to the yellow journalism that ignited the Spanish/American war of 1898. But with the Iraq conflict we have a new combustible ingredient: yellow think tanks. When the pundits of the American Enterprise Institute speak, the New York Times listens and then proceeds to report their opinions as gospel truth. Every time the Brookings Institute sneezes, FOX catches a cold. If we were to depend on New York Times narratives, we would be left with the impression that think tanks come in two flavors -- liberal and conservative -- red and blue. That is an incredible exaggeration. Because, in the case of Iraq, think tanks only offer a single blended choice with the telltale yellow coloring of the war party.....(full article)
Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. Stop it now, stop it, just stop it. Please: Stop it now! For those who continue to suggest the Democrats can somehow save our wretched and forsaken land, I beseech thee: Wake up and smell the corruption. You are intelligent. You are kind. You care deeply about your fellow human beings. We know you have superb taste in columnists. You are also clearly on the correct side, because if there were ever anything in this heavily gray area-tinged world that is laid out in stark black-or-white, right-or-wrong terms, it’s Us the Good Guys and Gals vs. the neocon-driven Bush Bastards. But you have a curious -- and maddening -- blind spot that is a big-time time-waster, a non-starter, an energy sucker-upper, the Mother of All Dead-Ends: You still engage in the fantasy that if we work really hard, even harder then we all worked last time which was damn ass-busting hard, we can get the Democrats back in power, buy some breathing room and start the long uphill climb back to semi-respectability for America.....(full article)
My grandparents and great-grandparents paid the estate tax when they passed along the family business. Some decade soon, my own parents will. With hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars to gain, I should be cheering for the proposal coming before the Senate in May to do away with the estate tax, which applies only to multimillion dollar inheritances. Instead, I’m organizing wealthy members of Responsible Wealth to oppose repeal of the estate tax. As multi-millionaires, we have benefited handsomely from all that our country provides: public education, roads, clean water, legal protection, research funding and public safety, just for starters.....(full article)
The Air Force recently released new guidelines on religious expression. The guidelines come after several investigations that documented a lack of religious tolerance at the Air Force Academy. Consequently, last year the Air Force issued revised guidelines that struck a good balance between the right to free speech and religious toleration. But evangelical Christian organizations and members of Congress complained, prompting the Air Force to issue new guidelines that pander to the religious right. In 2005 the Air Force received numerous complaints of religious discrimination, coercion, and intolerance at the prestigious Air Force Academy, where an elite group of young cadets are trained to become officers. In response to the complaints an Air Force review board investigated the academy. The board’s report maintained that although there was “no overt religious discrimination” there had been instances of “insensitivity,” which was putting it mildly.....(full article)
Sir, No Sir, the untold story of the GI movement to end the war in Vietnam, is a documentary. It’s not a work of nostalgia. It’s an activist film, and it comes at a time when GI resistance to the current war is spreading throughout the United States. There are more than 100 films -- fiction and nonfiction -- about the war in Vietnam. Not one deals seriously with the most pivotal events of the time -- the anti-war actions of GIs within the military.....(full article)
Eleven days ago, the Senate was poised to pass legislation that would have initiated the final step toward a Fascist regime in the U.S. Then the legislative juggernaut crashed to a halt, confronted by what may well be the largest series of mass demonstrations ever in the United States. On Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee was poised to approve enforcement-only immigration legislation. The following Monday, after a month of protests across the country by people of immigrant-descent and, on Saturday, a million-person Marcha flooding the streets of downtown Los Angeles, all eight Democrats and four Republicans shifted gears and sent a guest-worker and citizenship proposal to the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was so irate that he sent his own enforcement-only bill to the floor, with the worst of the provisions of the draconian House proposal, HR 4437. To make sure the Senate got the message, tens of thousands of students across the nation walked out of class on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. What do these immigrants and their children see that long-time U.S. citizens have missed? What does this legislation portend for the U.S.? (full article)
While the hermetic circles around George Bush and Tony Blair are drowning in their platitudes (corners, tipping points, milestones, God, etc.) further out the sacrificial priesthood is getting cold feet. Bill Kristol blames Rumsfeld for botching it. William F. Buckley blames Iraqis for being too stupid to prosper under American tutelage. Francis Fukuyama describes his fellow travelers along with the Bush bandwagon as (gasp) “Leninists” who fail to understand that history cannot be rushed towards its inevitable end in U.S. style liberalism (but only nudged gently by “realistic Wilsonianism,” whatever that means.) Christopher Hitchens, apparently exhausted from his long engagement to liberate Kurdistan by any means necessary, is now calling for the U.S. to make peace with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. And Andrew Sullivan blames the Iraq quagmire on American narcissism (no kidding!) Hard not to feel a sense of glee amidst all this frantic backpedaling. After all, however cheap it is to say “we told you so,” we told you so. The danger, however, is to fall for the comfortable belief that the political struggle over the war was primarily a war of ideas; as if all the antiwar camp lacked was a clinching argument, one that now, with major neocons throwing in the towel (sort of,) we have finally found. Sadly, it was never really about ideas. Behind the apparent sparring of arguments, a ruthless political war was fought over the usual fault lines -- power and money. Forget the ideologues. Did the warmongers achieve their ends? In asking this, we should pay no attention to the blather about WMD, exporting democracy and the rest of the marketing brochures regularly churned out by the White House’s creative team. We should focus on the money. Three questions: Who among the powerful groups behind the Bush administration pushed for the war? What did they stand to gain? What did they gain? (full article)
Steven Spielberg’s film Munich is about Israeli agents who cloak-and-dagger around Europe murdering dark, hooked-nosed Palestinians thought to have conducted the 1972 Munich attack on Israeli Olympic athletes. Is Munich a morally complex film which shows us how and why Israel has to use terrorism to stop terrorism? If one’s source of history and international understanding and compassion is, somehow, taken from news media such as CNN and the BBC, then the film offers a deep experience on morality and politics. However, if one looks at Munich through Michael Neumann’s book, The Case Against Israel, the film becomes a transparent work in the tradition of American filmmaker D. W. Griffith.....(full article)
Coherent.
That's the one word review of Anthony Arnove's latest book, Iraq:
The Logic of Withdrawal. Incoherent. That's what
Washington's policy in Iraq seems to be. What makes Arnove's book so
important is that he dissects that policy and proves that the war in Iraq
is not an incoherent bumble that's gone awry. In fact, as Arnove makes
abundantly clear, it's US foreign policy as it's always been. This remains
the case even in the light of Condoleezza Rice's admission of thousands
of tactical errors. After all, Ms. Rice didn't admit that the war
itself was an error, only the manner in which it is fought. As the war
drags interminably on and people continue to die, the antiwar movement in
the US is still fumbling around questions of timetables and demands. One
element of the movement has hitched itself to the progressive wing of the
Democratic party -- a connection that has stifled that element's ability
to make the only reasonable demand an antiwar movement can make: Get out
of Iraq now and bring the occupying troops home. The rest of us in the
movement continue to make this demand, but seem to go unheard. Part of the
reason for this lies in the fact that our allies do have those connections
in the public mind to the Democrats, but the greater reason is our
inability to mobilize the broader mass of the US public -- a public that
opinion polls tell us is overwhelmingly opposed to the continuation of the
war.....(full article) April 3
President Bush’s 2007 budget that was
released last month includes significant cuts in housing assistance. The
new budget for the Housing Choice Voucher Program underfunds 70 percent of
the state and municipal housing agencies that oversee the program,
according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Although the Republican Congress has debated the cuts affecting the
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), it appears unlikely
that Mr. Bush’s cuts will be opposed. Ironically, Congress is also
considering yet another tax cut for the wealthy.....(full
article)
America’s Brutal Tactics Naturally enough, few details of what American troops do in Iraq and Afghanistan reach the nation's television screens, the main source of news for most Americans. American television takes the approach of the New York Times when it refers to professional soldiers as GIs, as though they were humble mechanics and bricklayers of America drafted into the titanic struggle against Hitler and Tojo. But if you are genuinely interested in discovering the truth, there are plenty of sources for first-hand information. And anyone taking a little time to search through some of these comes away with a sick feeling.....(full article)
Jeffrey St. Clair is the co-editor of CounterPunch and the author of numerous books, including most recently Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror (Common Courage Press 2006). He recently spoke with me about his latest book......(full article)
When Camus imagined his absurd hero, it is unlikely that the image of black folk served as his inspiration. Yet the Sisyphean nature of Black American struggle suggests that their collective plight might have prepared them well for coronation into the League of Absurd Heroes, taking their rightful place alongside the likes of Don Juan and the Rebel. (Sisyphus, you might recall from Greek myth, is the king of Corinth condemned to an eternity of pushing a large boulder up a hill, only to have it tumble back down each time it nears the top.) Having been inundated my entire life with such tired refrains as "Things ain't as bad as it was when I was comin' up" or "We've made a great deal of progress" or "We've come a long way," I began, at some point in my young life, to question the very rationale employed by those who spoke such sincere rhetoric. Very recently my suspicions were confirmed, as revealed by stories featured in my hometown daily paper, the Baltimore Sun, and in that most venerable of national newspapers, the New York Times.....(full article)
Be careful what you say, the children are listening. For the past year, children of immigrants have been hearing the worst things about their parents. Finally, across the country from Los Angeles, California, to Bastop, Texas, teenagers agreed all at once that it was time to talk back. “Another day, another walkout” said a recent headline. This time the news was from Tyler, Texas, where students marched from Tyler High to the Smith County Courthouse carrying Mexican flags. Across the country, similar stories played.....(full article)
I sat down to write this column on Sunday in a state of more than usual confusion and bewilderment. It’s always that way with “commentary” -- confusion and bewilderment, until the thing actually gets off the ground. It isn’t that I don’t have ideas -- it’s that I have too many. And the first rule of commentary, in a limited space, is that one must pick a single idea and focus on that. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. I’d already decided by Saturday night that I’d write this week about the unmitigated, unrelieved, unbelievable timidity and cowardice of the Democratic “leadership” in Congress. I even had my opening lines: “So, what’s with these so-called Democrats? Do they really have no program and no ideas? Or are they all just a version of Hillary Clinton, trying to play to ‘the center’ so as not to seem, you know, ‘liberal’ or ‘soft on terror.’ Are they that worried about their chances in the next election? I don’t think so, because there won’t be one if they don’t do something -- fast.”.....(full article)
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