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March 23, 2002
Saeed Vaseghi
The US and Iran's Quest
for Democracy
Brian
J. Foley
Does
Pedophilia Scandal Spell an Opportunity for Catholics?
Sheperd Bliss
American Soul and Empire
James
Packard Winkler
Occupation
and Terror:
Politics from a Gun Barrel
M. Shahid Alam
A New International Division
of Labor
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
March
19, 2002
Tariq
Ali
Nuke
Iraq?
Phyllis
Pollack
Roger
Daltrey's LA Surprise
Amir Ahmadi
War-Mongering
Academics:
The New Tartuffe
Ben White
Bomber
Blair
Fran Shor
Child-Murderers
and Madmen
March
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Crazy
is Cool
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
What's Playing At My House
Armen
Khanbabyan
The
Pentagon in the Caucasus:
Georgia Is Only the Beginning
Gabriel
Ash
Abdullah
v. Osama
Bernard
Weiner
Middle
East for Dummies
Alexander
Cockburn
Tipping
in America
March
17, 2002
David
Vest
The
Politics of Packaging
Tariq
Ali
The
Left's New Empire Loyalists
March
16, 2002
Chris
Floyd
Ashcroft's
Secret Snatches
March 15, 2002
Doron Rosenblum
Israel's Settler Warlords
Alex Lynch
Rhetorical
Attacks On Iraq
Norman Madarasz
Neo-Con Propaganda
and the National Review
Paul-Marie
de La Gorce
Making
Enemies
March
14, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
RIP
Danny Pearl
Francis
Boyle
Bush
Nuke Plan Violates International Law, Again
Wayne
Saunders
Memo
to Paul McCartney:
There Are Two Kinds
of Freedom, Sir
H.P. Albarelli
Anthrax
Cover-up?
March
13, 2002
Amira
Hass
Are
the Occupied Protecting the Occupier?
CounterPunch
Wire
National
Review Editors Suggest Nuking Mecca
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Personal
Responsibility
for Corporate Elites?
Robert
Fisk
Arabs
Don't Want US
to Strike Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
When
Billy Graham Wanted
to Kill One Million People
March
12, 2002
Kay Lee
Dangerous
Changes in
California's Prisons
John Patrick
Leary
The
Return of Otto Reich
Wole Akande
US
is Being Discredited
in the Eyes of Africa
March
11, 2002
Hani Shukrallah
This
is the Way the World Ends
Tommy
Ates
Bush's
New Nuke Policy:
Target Allies and Enemies
Lidia Andrusenko
The Great
Chicken War:
Bush v. Putin
Dave Marsh
10
CDs Playing On My Desk
John Chuckman
Footprints
in the Dust
Norman
Madarasz
Max
Steel in a Time of Chaos
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
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Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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March 24 - March
30, 2002
Castro at Monterrey
A Better World is Possible
By Fidel Castro
[Editor's Note: On March 22, the United
States delegates to the International Conference on Financing
for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, following instructions
from the Bush White House, left their seats at the beginning
of this speech by Fidel Castro. Had they stayed, this is what
they would have heard.]
Not everyone here will share my thoughts. Still,
I will respectfully say what I think.
The existing world economic order constitutes
a system of plundering and exploitation like no other in history.
Thus, the peoples believe less and less in statements and promises.
The prestige of the international financial
institutions rates less than zero.
The world economy is today a huge casino.
Recent analyses indicate that for every dollar that goes into
trade, over one hundred end up in speculative operations completely
disconnected from the real economy.
As a result of this economic order, over
75 percent of the world population lives in underdevelopment,
and extreme poverty has already reached 1.2 billion people in
the Third World. So, far from narrowing the gap is widening.
The revenue of the richest nations that
in 1960 was 37 times larger than that of the poorest is now 74
times larger. The situation has reached such extremes that the
assets of the three wealthiest persons in the world amount to
the GDP of the 48 poorest countries combined.
The number of people actually starving
was 826 million in the year 2001. There are at the moment 854
million illiterate adults while 325 million children do not attend
school. There are 2 billion people who have no access to low
cost medications and 2.4 billion lack the basic sanitation conditions.
No less than 1 1 million children under the age of 5 perish every
year from preventable causes while half a million go blind for
lack of vitamin A.
The life span of the population in the
developed world is 30 years higher than that of people living
in Sub-Saharan Africa. A true genocide!
The poor countries should not be blamed
for this tragedy. They neither conquered nor plundered entire
continents for centuries; they did not establish colonialism,
or re-established slavery, and, modern imperialism is not of
their making. Actually, they have been its victims. Therefore,
the main responsibility for financing their development lies
with those states that, for obvious historical reasons, enjoy
today the benefits of those atrocities.
The rich world should condone their foreign
debt and grant them fresh soft credits to finance their development.
The traditional offers of assistance, always scant and often
ridiculous, are either inadequate or unfulfilled.
For a true and sustainable economic and
social development to take place much more is required than is
usually admitted. Measures as those suggested by the late James
Tobin to curtail the irrepressible flow of currency speculation
--albeit it was not his idea to foster development-- would perhaps
be the only ones capable of generating enough funds, which in
the hands of the UN agencies and not of awful institutions like
the IMF, could supply direct development assistance with a democratic
participation of all countries and without the need to sacrifice
the independence and sovereignty of the peoples.
The Consensus draft, which the masters
of the world are imposing on this conference, intends that we
accept humiliating, conditioned and interfering alms.
Everything created since Bretton Woods
until today should be reconsidered. A farsighted vision was then
missing, thus, the privileges and interests of the most powerful
prevailed. In the face of the deep present crisis, a still worse
future is offered where the economic, social and ecologic tragedy
of an increasingly ungovernable world would never be resolved
and where the number of the poor and the starving would grow
higher, as if a large part of humanity were doomed.
It is high time for statesmen and politicians
to calmly reflect on this. The belief that a social and economic
order that has proven to be unsustainable can be forcibly imposed
is really senseless.
As I have said before, the ever more
sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest
and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor
and the hungry but they cannot kill ignorance, illnesses, poverty
or hunger.
It should definitely be said: "Farewell
to arms." Something must be done to save Humanity! A better
world is possible!
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