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Today's
Stories
March 25, 2004
Saul Landau
Is Venezuela Next?
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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March
25, 2004
Rebuffing the IMF
Brazil's
Begins to Throw Off Austerity Plans
By ROGER BURBACH
The cabinet ministers of Luis Inacio "Lula"
da Silva's government who have kept the Brazilian economy in
a neo-liberal economic straight-jacket are coming under sustained
attack from the more popular sectors of the governing Workers
Party. Even Lula himself has given signs he is moving away from
the budgetary and financial prescriptions imposed by the International
Monetary Fund that he has adhered to during his first fifteen
months in office.
Interestingly the start of the discord had nothing to do with
economic policy. In mid- February Lula's chief of staff and closest
political adviser, Jose Dirceu, became embroiled in a political
scandal. Waldomiro Diniz, a close friend of Dirceu's who serves
as his aide on congressional affairs, was caught on video camera
accepting payoffs from the head of one of the country's major
bingo parlor operators. The funds were allegedly used to back
the political campaigns of candidates of the Workers Party.
Diniz was quickly fired and the opposition
in Congress began calling for a full-scale investigation and
the removal of Jose Dirceu from office. As Emir Sader of the
Public Policy Laboratory of the State University of Rio de Janiero
noted: "The reactionaries are making their move. They are
trying to bring down Dirceu and gut Lula's government."
Dirceu however, is not an easy target, having served for years
as a talented political strategist at the head of the Workers
Party before becoming Lula's most powerful aide in the government.
His first line of defense to prevent Congress from opening an
independent investigation was to point out that the video camera
taping occurred before the 2002 election and that the bingo scandal
had only taken place in Rio de Janeiro, not in other parts of
Brazil, therefore not allowing for federal prosecution. Then
in early March to smash the opposition, Dirceu began to mobilize
the Workers Party behind him by openly criticizing the finance
minister and the economic policy team.
The case Dirceu presented against them
was fairly straight forward. During 2003 the economy had grown
at less than 1%, and unemployment in Brazils largest industrial
center, Sao Paulo, stood at around 19%. This economic lethargy
was due to Brazil's high interest rates (10% in real terms, among
the highest in the world) and the following of IMF guidelines
demanding a budgetary surplus of 4.25 % so that Brazil could
make payments on its international debt. Even large sectors of
the Brazilian business community were deeply upset with this
no growth policy.
Dirceu's attacks initially focused on
the Minister of Finance, Antonio Palocci, a technocrat aligned
with the head of the Central Bank, Henrique Meirelles, who formerly
worked as the worldwide president of the US Fleet Boston Financial
Group. The Central Bank is autonomous, but the Finance Minister
is influential in its decision-making. In early March Palocci
indicated that when the bank next met, interest rates would be
held steady. Dirceu criticized this stance, mobilizing most of
the leadership of the Workers Party along with its membership
behind him. The bulk of the party had been simpering and complaining
for months about Lula's economic policies that appeared to mimic
those of his predecessors and produced little of the "New
Brazil" that Lula had promised during his election campaign.
A handful of Senators and representatives from the Workers Party
had even been forced out when they refused to support budgetary
legislation that reduced the retirement income of public employee
pensioners.
While Lula has thus far remained above
the domestic fray among his ministers, he threw down the gauntlet
against the IMF and other international institutions when he
met with Argentine President Nestor Kirchner in Rio de Janeiro
on March 16. The presidents of South America's two largest economies
jointly released "The Declaration of Cooperation On Cooperation
for Economic Growth with Equality." It demanded that the
international financial institutions act "sensibly"
and that they end the deep contradictions between the economic
demands they place on the developing countries and the countries'
real needs for sustainable development. The two presidents stated
"this financial architecture requires mechanisms to avoid
causing the crises that have afflicted Latin America." As
a step in this direction Lula and Kirchner asserted that investments
in productive infrastructure projects should not be included
as part of regular government expenditures. Brazil and Argentina
called on the other full and associate members of the Mercosur
trade bloc--Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru and Chile-to sign
on to the declaration. The presidents also issued "The Act
of Copacabana," a wide ranging document that called for
the formation of a "Community of South American Nations."
Emir Sader of the Public Policy Laboratory,
who has been severely critical of Lula's economic policies, declared
that "in the foreign policy arena Lula is making a profound
difference. He is staking out a new agenda in Latin America and
the global South in general." Prior to the Iraqi war, Lula
was one of the most outspoken opponents of the impending US invasion.
Then, he helped forge the bloc of 22 nations that stopped the
World Trade Organization in its tracks at Cancun in August 2003.
Next at the close of the year he lead the charge that forced
the Bush administration to back off from its plans to impose
the corporate-dominated Free Trade Area of the Americas on the
entire Western Hemisphere by 2005.
Right-wingers in Washington, like the
State Department's top aide for Inter-American Affairs, Roger
Noriega, are becoming obsessed with Brazil as they fear the emergence
of another "evil axis." Lula has provided political
and economic support to Hugo Chavez, the charismatic president
of Venezuela who is at odds with his country's economic elites
as well as Washington. In December, Brazil extended a billion
dollar loan to Venezuela to enable it to purchase Brazilian goods
it urgently needed. Conservatives in the Bush administration
fear an emergent alliance of Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, and now
Argentina as Nestor Kirchner works with Lula to challenge the
political and trade policies of the United States.
Inside Brazil, political tensions have
risen notably in recent days. The reactionary sectors are continuing
to try to destabilize the government with the bingo scandal.
After Lula's joint declaration with Kirchner some financial market
analysts are asserting that even higher interest rates may be
needed to offset any future increases in government expenditures.
At the same time, progressive dissidents in and outside of the
Workers party are making it clear they are bent on stepping up
the pressure on Lula. The largest social organization in Brazil,
the Landless Workers Movement, at a meeting on March 18 announced
that it was ending its self-declared truce on land invasions.
They are drawing up plans for invasions of particular regions
in the country in April and May.
Land reform has been stymied in particular by two other conservative
ministers, Roberto Rodrigues the agricultural minister who served
as the head of an agricultural business association representing
domestic and multinational commodity giants, and the Minister
of Development, Luiz Fernando Furlan, a former director of the
global food processing corporation Sadia. Due in part to their
influence, the process of agrarian reform has moved at a snails
face, while large agribusiness exporters have witnessed a boom
in their revenues.
It is doubtful if Lula will fire his
conservative ministers in the short term or make any immediate
dramatic shifts in his domestic policy. But many believe he may
be preparing the groundwork to square his economic programs with
his foreign policy initiatives. Francisco Meneses, an agricultural
analyst who sits on the National Council of Food Security that
advises Lula on issues related to hunger and agriculture states:
"It is understandable that Lula has not implemented fundamental
economic changes thus far, given the clout of the international
financial organizations and the power of domestic economic elites.
But we may see some significant shake ups take place as the political
and social caldron heats up in Brazil."
Roger Burbach
has just returned from a trip to Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
His most recent book is "The
Pinochet Affair," published last year. In May, 2004
Zed Books will release a new book he wrote with Jim Tarbell,
"Imperial
Overstretch: George W. Bush and the Hubris of Empire."
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
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