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Today's Stories December 17, 2007 Tom Barry Planning the War on Immigrants Uri Avnery A Gaza Massada? Greg Moses Crossing the Line in Texas December 15 / 16, 2007 Peter Linebaugh A People's Penny for the Magna Carta Howard Zinn Bomb After Bomb Standard Schaefer The Greening of Big Tobacco Raymond J. Lawrence Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas Alan Farago Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine Saul Landau Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists Jenna Orkin Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up Ahmad Samih Khalidi Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct Robert Fantina Politics By Photo-Op Missy Comley Beattie Resistance Amid the Ruins Ramzy Baroud Of Mormons and Muslims James L. Secor A Vision for China's Future Elijah Wald Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten Website of the Weekend The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support   December 14, 2007 JoAnn Wypijewski The Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him John Ross Iraqi Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax Jacob Hornberger Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened? Allan Nairn "Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes Dave Zirin The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners Dave Lindorff The First Cut is the Deepest Misty MacDuffee Toxic Grizzlies Ben Terrall What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine? Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi Prerequisites for Peace Website of the Day Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"   December 13, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Shrinking the Dollar from the Inside-Out Mike Whitney Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding Ron Jacobs Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy Norman Solomon The USA's Human Rights Daze Peter Morici The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch Sandy Mayes Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia Franklin Lamb The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling? Jacob Hornberger Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It Nadim Rouhana An Interloper in My Own Land Dave Zirin On Pigskin and Petrol Website of the Day Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support! December 12, 2007 Allan Nairn US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian Phones Alan Farago How Sprawl Eats Its Young Ray McGovern Torture, Lies and Videotape Winslow T. Wheeler The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts Evan Jones The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell Doom for the US Farm Belt James Petras An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers Joel Hirschorn The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine Joshua Frank Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention Sherry Wolf Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul Dan Bacher Survey of a Fish Graveyard Website of the Day Men Eating Bugs   December 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn What's Really Happened During the Surge? Diana Johnstone The Next Kosovo War Paul Craig Roberts It's Waco All Over Again: Preventive Detention and the Constitution David Macaray Impasse in Hollywood Ralph Nader Gail Collins Versus the Underdogs Andy Worthington Guantánamo Britons to be Released: a Mixed Result Martha Rosenberg No Holiday for High Risk Sex Workers Steve Champion / Anthony Ross Words for Our Brother, Tookie Williams Kim Nicolini Tangled Up in Dylan Michael Dickinson Say Goodbye to Purgatory: Pope Rat Gets Indulgent Website of the Day A Charming (and Worthy) Pitch December 10, 2007 Uri Avnery How They Stole the Bomb From Us Debbie Nathan The Perils of Journalism and Child Porn JoAnn Wypijewski Is There a Left Here Left? If So, What Can It Do? Steve Kelly Cheap Chips, Counterfeit Wilderness Donna J. Volatile Welcome to the Revolution   December 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Coup Against Bush and Cheney Brenda Norrell Seize the Land, Chain the Peace Activists Saul Landau The Ruins of Empire R. F. Blader A Rape in Every Drink? Ray McGovern Spinning Iran's Centrifuges Allan Nairn Imposed Hunger in Gaza, the Army in Indonesia Linn Washington, Jr Spotlight on Death Row Paul Craig Roberts When Will Bush Come Clean?   December 7, 2007 Sean Penn Piano Wire Puppeteers Arthur Versluis Mining Water in the Desert M. G. Piety Racism and the American Psyche: Some Thoughts on Race and Intelligence Pam Martens Banksters Gone Wild Alan Farago Will the Free Market Kill Suburbia? Sprawl and the Credit Crisis Allan Nairn It Takes (Out) a Village Col. Dan Smith Bush, Iran and the Politics of Doomsday Alice Slater The Iran Opening Robert Weissman The Story of Stuff Website of the Day Something About Mitt   December 5, 2007 Mike Whitney Why the CFR Hates Putin Sharon Smith The Anti-War Enablers: Tom Hayden and the Dead End Democrats James Petras Venezuela in the Aftermath Ron Jacobs The Iran Charade Dave Zirin Kicking a Dead Man: the Sliming of Sean Taylor John V. Whitbeck Two States or One? Time to Choose Peter Zinn Covered in New Orleans Niranjan Ramakrishnan Impeach Pelosi Instead Alan Farago The Credit Bomb Detonates in Florida Heather Gray US Meddling in Australian Politics Website of the Day A Donner Summit Night Before Xmas   December 4, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Jackboot State Stubs Its Toe in Ann Arbor Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the Supreme Court Paul Craig Roberts The Lies at the End of the American Dream Ray McGovern No-Nuke Iran Winslow T. Wheeler Admiral Mullen and the Defense Budget: When White Elephants are Too Small Allan Nairn The Regime Still Stands in Burma, Where "the People Just Want Food" Russell Mokhiber The USA v. Al Arian Nikolas Kozloff As Chávez Falters: Raising the Stakes for the South American Left John V. Walsh Peace Movement Paralyzed Ghada Ageel Will Peace Cost Me My Home? Stephen Soldz The Facts be Damned!: Psychologists' President Defends Psychologist Involvement in Interrogations Website of the Day Hands Off the People of Iran     December 3, 2007 Tariq Ali Venezuela After the Referendum Bill Quigley New Orleans: Bulldozers for the Poor, Tax Credits for Developers Eric Walberg The Bible and Middle East History Uri Avnery After Annapolis Marjorie Cohn Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed Dave Lindorff Vengeance Isn't Sweet Stephen Fleischman Homeless in Paradise Martha Rosenberg Perp Walks for the Mink Clad on Chicago's Mag Mile Website of the Day So Just Lead!   December 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Emblems of the Bush Age: Adrift in a Sea of Booze Jeffrey St. Clair The Bear Minimum: the Grizzly and the Future of the Rocky Mountain West Mike Whitney "Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore": an Interview with Nir Rosen Shemon Salam A Visit From the FBI Roger Burbach The Battle in Bolivia Benjamin Dangl New Politics in Old Bolivia Brian M. Downing The Quiet on the Middle Eastern Front: How Much Credit Goes to the Surge? Greg Moses Night of the Living Redneck: a Texas Horror Story Sonja Karkar The "Never-Never" Peace Conference Saul Landau Ethics and Evil in South Boston Margaret Kimberley Black America Left Behind John Ross What are the Prospects for a New Mexican Revolution? Reza Fiyouzat Exit on the Left: When Che's Children Visited Iran Judith Scherr Berkeley Turns Right for the Holidays Lance Olsen Of Forests and Finance: Logging for the Wealthy Christopher Brauchli Mr. Bush and the Despots Robert Fantina Iraq as U.S. Colony Dan Bacher Fish Triage on Prospect Island Michael Donnelly Remembering How to be Human: John Trudell and the Music of Urgency Website of the Weekend Appalachian Voices   November 30, 2007 Peter Stone Brown The Re-Packaging of Bob Dylan Wajahat Ali The Volatile Mistress: an Interview with Javed Jabbar, Pakistan's Former Minister of Information Allan Nairn Cold-Blooded Celebrity: Thomas L. Friedman and the Bali Bombers Alan Farago The Sorrows of Suburbia: Politics, Sprawl and the Housing Crash John Ross The Death of Latin America's First Revolution Corporate Crime Reporter America's Corporate Crime Capitals Lucia Alvarez Diego Gonzalez Argentina's Political Future James Rothenberg The Iraqi Miracle Website of the Day Bio-Bling?   November 29, 2007 R. F. Blader The Most Dangerous Kind of Bribe Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran Stephen Soldz War on the Couch: Fear, Aggression and Empire Sheldon Richman Iraq 3.0 George Wuerthner Forest Fires, Lies and Chainsaws Felice Pace Did All Things Considered Self-Censor on Annapolis? Col. Dan Smith The Meaning of Annapolis Harvey Wasserman Terror Target Nukes Nikolas Kozloff Primetime Hate Debate: Lou Dobbs, Immigration and Campaign '08 Paul Krassner Huffington Post Bloggers Go On Strike! Dave Lindorff News Not Fit to Print: US Coup Planned for Venezuela? CP News Service The One State Declaration Website of the Day A Native View of Yellowstone Bison Slaughter November 28, 2007 James Petras CIA Destabilization Memo Surfaces on Venezuela Jeff Halper Annapolis: When the Roadmap is a One Way Street Pam Martens Crashing Citigroup Peter Morici Economy in Crisis: Avoiding a Recession Mohammed Khatib Separate and Unequal in Palestine Helen Redmond The Horror and the Hope: Health Care in America William S. Lind In the Fox's Lair: Quiet Before a New Iraq Storm? Ben Tripp We, the People: a Trope for All Seasons Liaquat Ali Khan Pakistan: First, Restore the Constitution and Reinstate the Judges Jeff Berg Holbrooke Says Bush Won't Attack Iran Website of the Day The Lies of Joe Klein   November 27, 2007 Joe DeRaymond On the Road to the Torture School Paul Craig Roberts Meet the Only Two Candidates Worse Than Bush and Cheney: Hillary and Rudy Marjorie Cohn Remembering Victor Rabinowitz Mike Whitney A Dollar the Size of a Postage Stamp Ron Jacobs The Myths of Military Progress Col. Dan Smith The Pentagon's "People System" Still Doesn't Work Ralph Nader Family Learning Karim Makdisi Annapolis and the Unholy Alliance: the View from Beirut Christopher Ketcham Memo to Hollywood Writers: Strike Until You Drop Ronan Bennett Martin Amis Does a Coulter Website of the Day Celebrating the Uncensored Media   November 26, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Heading for Annapolis Paul Craig Roberts The End of All That David Macaray Enter Mediator Sameer Dossani Pakistan's Wounded Dictator Roger Burbach The Final Battle in Bolivia Mark Scaramella Guns and Greed in the Emerald Empire Brian McKinlay Howard's End Rick Kuhn The Fall of a Racist Union Buster Binoy Kampmark Ruddslide and Dull Alec Monica Benderman What Do You Know of War? Brenda Norrell Return to Alcatraz Website of the Day Ghostworld by DJ Spooky   November 24 / 25, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson, MD Robert Fisk Darkness Falls on the Middle East Saul Landau Norman Mailer will Not R.I.P. Jeffrey St. Clair Justice Stephen Breyer, Cancer Bonds and the Origins of Neoliberal Environmentalism Rannie Amiri Beirut's Black Friday Christopher Brauchli Iraq Embassy as Gilded Palace Daniel Gross The Gap and Black Friday Mike Whitney "A Generalized Meltdown of Financial Institutions" Marjorie Cohn Iran and the 2008 Elections David Rosen Senior Sex: the Real Sexual Life of Aging Americans David Michael Green If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom .... Kenneth Rexroth When Euripides Played the Hindu Kush: Greeks and Buddhists in Afghanistan Muhammad Iqbal Trans. Shahid Alam Ghazal Website of the Day Aerial Footage of Delta Fish Kill November 23, 2007 Gary Leupp Killing the Buddha in Pakistan's Swat Valley Laura Carlsen Coming to Terms with Diversity in Bolivia: an Interview with Alvaro Garcia, Bolivia's VP David Macaray Keeping Labor Unions Out Andy Worthington Former Guantánamo Detainee Seeks Asylum in Sweden Clifton Ross Trashing Chavez: Keith Olberman's Toxic Rant Seth Sandronsky Battling Sodexho Dan Bacher Death in the Delta: Thousands of Fish Stranded by Bureau of Reclamation William A. Cook The Myth of Middle East Peace Website of the Day Waiting for the Guards: Stress Techniques as Torture, a Short Film   November 22, 2007 Alan Farago Who Lost America's Everglades? Greg Moses A Thanksgiving Basting Dave Lindorff Impeachment is Back on the Table Mike Ely Native Blood: the Myth pf Thanksgiving Omar Azfar Gore for President of Pakistan?   November 21, 2007 Vijay Prashad Our Dictator, Their Democracy Martha Rosenberg Undercover at a Turkey Slaughtering Plant Manuel Garcia, Jr. Epiphany on the Glacier John Ross The Last Days of Mexican Corn Brian McKenna Cancer Terrorists Unmasked Stephen Soldz Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo Monica Benderman Needing Peace Ben Terrall Slavery in the Fields: The Real Price of Sugar Website of the Day Mercy for Animals   November 20, 2007 Oren Ben-Dor Why Israel Has No "Right to Exist" as a Jewish State Wajahat Ali An Interview with Norman Finkelstein Alan Farago The Dark Arts and the Bush Dynasty Marjorie Cohn Musharraf Plays Bush for a Fool Ralph Nader Green is Gold? Andy Worthington Guantánamo Whistleblower Launches a New Attack on Rigged Tribunals Sara Olson When Going AWOL is the Only Escape Dave Lindorff Likelihood of Iran Attack Gains Credence Paul Krassner The First Amendment, a Dialogue Website of the Day Joanne Mariner on Torture November 19, 2007 Winslow T. Wheeler Why Congress Won't Reform China Hand The U.S. Game Plan in Pakistan Allan Nairn Sitting Around Talking, in Indonesia Uri Avnery How to Get Out? David Macaray The Chalice that Poisoned the Labor Movements Dave Lindorff Democrats in Future Shock: They Could Lose It All in 2008! Bill Quigley Twenty Thousand Protest at Ft. Benning; Eleven Face Federal Criminal Trials Ron Jacobs Sitting on the Group W Bench: War, Thanksgiving and Arlo Guthrie Sunsara Taylor Legalized Rights for Fertilized Eggs? Binoy Kampmark Why Steve Irwin--You're Dead! Heather Gray Another Look at W.E.B. DuBois Website of the Day The Meat Market     November 17 / 18, 2007 P. Sainath Neoliberalism's Price Tag: 150,000 Farm Suicides in India David Rosen The Scarlet Hypocrites: Republicans, Christians and the Politics of Adultery Mike Whitney Pentagon Cover Up: 15,000 or More US Deaths in Iraq War? George Wuerthner Saving the Big Wild Brenda Norrell The Case of Jim Main, Jr: In Montana, Indians are Guilty Until Proven Innocent George Ciccariello-Maher Of Submarines and Loose Screws Karim Makdisi Lebanon is Hanging by a Thread Marie Trigona Wal-Mart in Argentina Valerio Volpi The Catholic Church, Incorporated Fred Gardner The Straight-Ahead Runner Robert Fantina The White House Press Office Mike Ferner Thank God for the Senate Republicans! Missy Comley Beattie The Radical Majority Kenneth Couesbouc Circles of Power Patrick O'Hayer A Portrait of Mailer and a Young Poet Poets' Basement Davies, Buknatski and Ford   November 16, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair The Vices of Hillary Clinton: Secrecy, Intransigence and War Dave Zirin The Indictment of Barry Bonds: Busted by a Broken System Gary D. Barnett A Day in the Life of an Unwilling Federal Agent Alan Farago Sprawl, Mortgage Fraud and Political Corruption Dave Lindorff Two Brothers and Two Scandals Russell Mokhiber Pelosi and Me: "What Should be Done with Those Protesters?" Robert Ovetz Cargo Ships in Paradise: Shipping Lanes Threaten the Yosemite of the Sea Brenda Norrell "Today We Experienced America:" Arresting Indigenous People on the Border David Swanson Wolf Blitzer Loses Democratic Debate Peter Letheby Outside the Box on the Great Plains Website of the Day Why Activism Fails   November 15, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair Hillary Clinton in Arkansas Adolfo Gilly The Spirit of Revolt Peter Bohmer 10 Days That Shook Olympia Andy Worthington The Trials of Omar Khadr: Gitmo's Child Soldier Gray / Derks Obama's Pitch to South Carolina's Black Churches Affronts Gay Groups Liaquat Ali Khan Liberating Pakistan Dave Lindorff Where's the Party? Christopher Brauchli Tipping Point: the Politics of Gossip Anthony Papa Racism as Law: Crack Cocaine Sentences Martha Rosenberg Merck's Big Write Off Ben Terrall Thank You, Ehren Watada Website of the Day On the Colorado: Drought, Climate Change and Water Supplies November 14, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair The Making of Hillary Clinton James Petras Venezuela Between Ballots and Bullets Al Giordano Campaign 08: Don't Trust Anyone Over 50 Paul Craig Roberts The Lobby Andy Worthington Innocents and Foot Soldiers Stephen Lendman Torturing Palestinian Detainees Fatima Bhutto Aunt Benazir's False Promises: the Dismantling of Pakistani Democracy Martin Smith Norman Mailer and the "Good War" Jeff Leys Slip Sliding Away: House Votes on War Funding Website of the Day Why the Writers are Striking November 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Hillary's Big Problem and How Bill Can Fix It Jeffrey St. Clair Mailer and Us: the Writer as Fighter Robert Bryce The Pakistan Fuel Connection David Macaray The Teamsters and the Hollywood Strike Mike Whitney Bulletins from the Titanic Ralph Nader Pakistani Lawyers vs. American Lawyers Nikolas Kozloff Chavez Blasts the Spanish King Jordan Flaherty Education Versus Incarceration in Tallulah, Louisiana B. R. Gowani Dear Mrs. Bhutto Website of the Day Monty Python: "Fuck You, Very Much FCC"   November 12, 2007 Vicente Navarro Why Hillary's Health Care Plan Really Failed Ben Brown Letter from Ho Chi Minh City: a Tribute to My Vietnam Vet Father Omar K. A Pakistani Lawyer's Testimony: Life Under the Brutal Emergency Sadia Abbas The Roots of Pakistan's Political Crisis: Corrupt Elites and a Kleptocratic Military Farzana Versey Mailer's Miasma Richard W. Behan The Political Crimes of Complicity Paul Krassner Asshole of the Year: Congratulations Tim Russert! Cindy Sheehan Faith and War Peter Stone Brown The Return of Levon Helm Dave Lindorff Dennis, You are Not Alone Website of the Day Police Attack in Olympia   November 10 / 11, 2007 Alain Gresh Uncle Sam's New Backyard: How to Turn a Region into a Graveyard Mike Whitney For Whom the Closing Bell Tolls: the Last Dead Bull on Wall Street Ron Jacobs A View from the Pakistani Left: an Interview with Farooq Tariq Jeffrey St. Clair The First Dambuster: a Coyote Story Alan Farago Tangled Up in Blue: a Brief History of Florida Environmentalism Binoy Kampmark When Language Drowns: Torture in America Robert Fantina Legitimizing Torture Fred Gardner Psychological Torture in the Name of Family Values Ayesha Ijaz Khan The General in His Labyrinth Nicola Nasser NATO's Southward Drift Philip Rizk The Blame Game in Gaza Michael Dickinson Condom Nation: the Pope vs. Terry Higgins Joel S. Hirschhorn The Grand Delusion: a Conspiracy of Two Parties Paul Krassner Flunking Out of the Electoral College Wadner Pierre / Joe Emersberger The Ongoing War on Journalists in Haiti           Subscribe Online

December 17, 2007 Mbeki vs. Zuma South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers By PATRICK BOND Today's conference vote for leader of the African National Congress is make-or-break for the ruling party, though probably not for the society as a whole. More than 4000 voting delegates to the city of Polokwane must decide between two presidential candidates, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. Mbeki is the current president of the party and the country, but cannot legally seek reelection as head of state in 2009. Yet the ANC's own constitution makes its president the ruler of the government, and no one doubts the ANC will again score around two thirds of the vote in that poll. The question is whether Mbeki can retain ANC power, now coming from behind in an epic battle? Zuma is the disgraced ex-deputy president of the government, fired by Mbeki in mid-2005, although still the current deputy ANC leader. He was accused of corruption during negotiations for the government's $5 billion arms deal (his bribery take was allegedly $80 000 from the French firm Thale); his closest financial confidant, Schabir Shaik, is presently in jail for facilitating the deal. Zuma was later charged with raping a young (HIV+) woman - a family friend - and admitted to taking a shower afterwards as protection. His supporters burned effigies of the woman outside the court during her trial. Zuma declared it consensual sex, and was acquitted. Zuma's ethnic base (Zulu) is strongly mobilised but he also enjoys support across the country in part because of the lower-income majority's disgust at how little has changed since liberation in 1994. Both served the anti-apartheid cause for decades in exile, Zuma as a (relatively ineffectual) military commander and Mbeki as the leading diplomat. Zuma's peasant background gives him a much more sensitive ear to political rumblings than the elitist, alienating and often overly intellectual Mbeki, who trained at Sussex and the Lenin Institute in Moscow so is able to pepper his weekly newsletter with a quaint Marxology. In ANC branch nominations late last month, Zuma surprised Mbeki with his 60-40 margin, including endorsement from the ANC Women's League. He should win the party election convincingly, but Mbeki--an accomplished Machiavellian - cannot be counted out, and in any case that would not be the end of the story. After all, the socio-economic status quo is unacceptable by all accounts, save those of the top two ANC leaders. 'Nothing will change', Zuma promises international financiers who for years have panelbeat SA's pro-business economic policy. In reality, expressing a variety of policy/delivery grievances, grassroots activists have ratcheted up protest activity to unprecedented levels, with more than 20 000 separate demonstrations recorded by the police over a 24 month period in 2005-07, after about 6000 over 12 months in 2004-05. The rate increased further this year, thanks to the longest-ever public sector workers' strike. So as the ANC conference begins, independent progressives wonder: * can Mbeki pull out all the state's resources to win reelection to the party presidency (or if not, still retain maximum power ahead of the 2009 national elections)? * will the Mbeki-Zuma battle continue to degenerate into a full-fledged conflagration that splits the ruling party? * or will the ANC 'big tent' once again open some flaps on the left and draw in dissidents? * is there perhaps a genuine policy opening ahead for the centre-left (and even the left), as trade unionists and leading communists provide crucial backing for Zuma's campaign? * or would a president Zuma clamp down hard upon taking over state power in early 2009, given his and some supporters' traditions of militarism, nationalism, patriarchy, ethnicism and (passive) neoliberalism? * or as another option, are Zuma's many profound weaknesses to be welcomed by independent leftists, as the basis for a ridiculous, weak presidency? * what structural power shifts might this contest signify, given both the profound paranoia expressed by the neoliberal bloc and the ANC's paralysed socio-economic imagination? * is the corruption-ridden ruling party capable of being reformed, or is a new people's/worker's party inevitable? * or should most independent activity aimed at social change continue to eschew electoral politics? I don't know the answers to these questions. But two tragedies are unfolding: the independent left's inability to make a dent in popular consciousness, and the ANC's debate boiling down to a personality contest. It didn't have to be, for class struggle over economic policy should be on the front burner. As Business Day newspaper reporter Wilson Johwa put it a few weeks ago, 'Despite Mbeki's shortcomings, prudent economic management has been one of his key successes, hence market jitters that a Zuma presidency would take a radically different course.' That might have been grounds for optimism, but then Zuma was called in by both Merrill Lynch and Citibank to explain himself. Might we imagine Zuma addressing these bastards as follows? 'You international financiers have wreaked havoc on the South for more than three decades: * with your loans to dictators like the apartheid regime, * with your Third World Debt Crisis from the early 1980s which completely wiped out our 1960s-70s socio-economic progress, * with your Emerging Markets crises starting in Mexico in 1994 and continuing across the world, including destruction of post-apartheid SA's currency on four occasions, and now, * with your Subprime Mortgage gambles which suckered African-Americans and other low-income people into the US real estate bubble leaving them to now suffer wealth shrinkage more severe than at any other time in modern history - at the same time threatening the safety of the world financial system. 'Your two institutions had to fire your CEOs Stan O'Neal and Charles Prince for incompetence and write off more than $20 billion in bad investments. And you're telling me I must dance to your tune, to calm your goddamn jitters? Actually, you should calm OUR jitters!' Nah, it's simply inconceivable. On the one hand, a bourgeois organic intellectual like William Cline of the Peterson Institute for International Economics offered this quote recently: 'You've basically got capital market jitters about the United States.' On the other, Zuma would be crucified by the mainstream media and the markets if he made such an obvious point about Merrill and Citi. Zuma visited Houston late last month, hosted by spooky Stratfor, a CIA-related thinktank. As our Centre for Civil Society founder Adam Habib put it, 'Zuma should explain the US visit, which placed him on the platform of an institution that may violate the very principles of the ANC'. (In contrast, Habib, a prolific, well-respected scholar and leading political commentator - and by coincidence a Muslim filmed addressing an anti-war rally in 2003 at a US consular office here in Durban - was last year banned from entering the US by the proto-fascist Homeland Security gatekeepers, so it is important for you readers to sign his ACLU petition). What Stratfor and the others confirmed is that Zuma is an Mbeki mini-me on neoliberalism. But is conventional wisdom correct, that Mbeki's strength is economic stewardship? Specifically, as finance minister Trevor Manuel bragged this week, does SA enjoy 'a level of macroeconomic stability not seen in the economy in decades'? * Stability, ahem. The value of the Rand in fact crashed by more than a quarter in 1996, 1998, 2001, and 2006, the worst record of any major currency, which in turn reflects how vulnerable SA has become to whimsical international financial markets thanks to steady exchange control liberalisation starting in 1995. * SA has witnessed GDP 'growth' since 1999, but this does not take into account the depletion of non-renewable resources; if this factor plus pollution were considered, SA would have a net *negative* per person rate of national wealth accumulation, according to even the World Bank. * SA's economy has become much more oriented to profit-taking from financial markets than production of real products, in part because of 'sado-monetarism'. From March 1995 (when the finrand exchange control was relaxed), the after-inflation interest rate rose to a record high for a decade's experience in SA economic history, often reaching double digits. After a recent 3.5% spike, consumer and housing credit markets are badly strained by serious arrears and defaults. * The two most successful major sectors from 1994-2004 were communications (12.2% growth per year) and finance (7.6%) while labour-intensive sectors such as textiles, footwear and gold mining shrunk by 1-5% per year, and overall, manufacturing as a percentage of GDP also declined. * Government admits that overall employment growth was -0.2% per year from 1994-2004 - but -0.2% is a vast underestimate of the problem, given that the official definition of employment includes such work as 'begging' and 'hunting wild animals for food' and 'growing own food'. * The problem of excessive capital intensity in production - too many machines per worker - will probably get worse. SA's Industrial Development Corporation (a state agency) forecasts that the sector with the most investment in the period 2006-2010 will be iron and steel, with a massive 24% rise in fixed investment per year. But iron/steel is also one of the leading sectors for job-shedding, with employment expected to fall 1.3% per year, in spite of--or indeed because of - all the new investment. * Overall, the problem of 'capital strike'--the big business failure to invest - continues, as gross fixed capital formation hovered between 15-17% from 1994-2004, hardly enough to cover wear-and-tear on equipment. * Where did businesses invest if not in SA? Dating from the time of political and economic liberalisation, most of the largest Joburg Stock Exchange firms - Anglo American, DeBeers, Old Mutual, SA Breweries, Liberty Life, Gencor (now the core of BHP Billiton), Didata, Mondi and others - shifted their funding flows and even their primary share listings to overseas stock markets. * The outflow of profits and dividends due these firms is one of two crucial reasons SA's 'current account deficit' has soared to amongst the highest in the world--at 8.1% of GDP this quarter - and is hence a major danger in the event of currency instability, as was Thailand's (around 5%) in mid-1997. * The other cause of the current account deficit is the negative trade balance. Blame this on a vast inflow of imports after trade liberalisation, which export growth cannot keep up with. * Another reason for capital strike is SA's sustained overproduction problem in existing (highly-monopolised) industry. Manufacturing capacity utilisation fell substantially from the mid 80s% range during the 1970s, to the high 70s% range during the early 2000s. * So where did corporate profits go, if not into overaccumulated plant, equipment and factories? The answer is obvious: speculative real estate and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. There was a 50% increase in share prices during the first half of the 2000s. The property boom began in 1999 and by 2004 house prices had risen by 300%, in comparison to just 60% in the US market prior to the burst bubble, according to the International Monetary Fund. In sum, is this 'macroeconomic stability'? Or instead, a parasitical, slow-growth, high-poverty, unemployment-ridden, ever more unequal, capital-flight-prone, volatile, vulnerable, elite-oriented economic machine plowing over poor people, whose gains appear only as temporarily restored profitability for big capital and a conspicuous consumption binge for a credit-saturated petit-bourgeoisie? If so, isn't it convenient that the problems above are largely off the public agenda, and hence like the US, we're witnessing a contest between capitalist tweedledum and tweedledee? Patrick Bond directs the Centre for Civil Society, which on Thursday convenes an e-debate on the implications of Polokwane for the independent left--to join us see http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs     Your Ad Here

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