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Today's Stories November 17, 2006 Greg Grandin The Road from Serfdom: Milton Friedman and the Economics of Empire   November 16, 2006 Kathy Kelly Sources of Violence Col. Douglas MacGregor Was It Only Rumsfeld? Norman Solomon Operation Last Resort: the Media Offensive to Prolong the Iraq War Nikki Thanos From Oaxaca to Portland Cindy Sheehan Impeachment Proceedings Lena Khalaf Tuffaha Jimmy Carter and the "A" Word: Will the Democrats Listen to Carter on Palestine? Gloria La Riva Where is the Justice? Anti-Castro Terrorist Gets Only 4 Years Pat Williams How the Democrats Won the West Kerry Joyce From Rummy to Rahmmy: Bob Novak's New Source CP News Service Wal-Mart Charged with Selling Non-Organic Food as "Organic" David Letterman Top 10 Slogans for Wal-Mart Wine James Ridgeway Did Robert Gates' Planning Help Bring Black Hawk Down? Website of the Day A Conversation with West Point Grads Against the War   November 15, 2006 Jennifer Loewenstein Alice in Erez: the Gaza Crossing David Rosen Rev. Ted Haggard and the Eclipse of Evangelical Fury Ashley Smith A Socialist in the Senate? Landau / Hassen Talking Tough on Iraq Isn't Courageous Walden Bello Iraq After November 7: New Challenges for the AntiWar Movement Sibel Edmonds The Highjacking of a Nation Austin / Bernstein Why Bill Cosby is Wrong to Link Black Culture to Economic Decline Yitzhak Laor This Merchandise, Security James Rothenberg Unimpeachable: a Brief Argument Why Gail Dines "Borat": It's a Guy Thing Website of the Day Kakistocracy November 14, 2006 Werther Beltway Bromo-Seltzer: a Sneak Peak at the Baker Report Ray McGovern Benching Scowcroft John Walsh Korea, Vietnam and Iraq Syndrome: Alive, Well and Gaining Strength David MacMichael Gates to the Pentagon William S. Lind Lose a War, Lose an Election Sharon Smith Democrats, Born to Compromise Laura Carlsen Oaxaca Fights Back Ron Jacobs The Perishing Republic Peter Rost, MD Whistleblowers: Who Are They? Carol Norris Post-Campaign Ad Stress Disorder? Website of the Day A Map of the US Nuclear Arsenal     November 13, 2006 Kathleen and Bill Christison Screw the Palestinians, Full Steam Ahead Bill Quigley Robin Hood in Reverse: the Corporate Looting of the Gulf Coast Paul Craig Roberts The Democrats and Civil Liberties: Will They Turn a Blind Eye? Uri Avnery Call It What It Is: a Massacre! Joe DeRaymond The Strange Return of Daniel Ortega Norman Finkelstein Jimmy Carter's Roadmap Col. Dan Smith The Pentagon's Revolving Gates: Out with the Old, In with the Old Shepherd Bliss After the Party Dave Lindorff What Vote-Theft Conspiracy? Missy Beattie For Better / For Worse: Will Laura Stay the Course? Trenticosta / Fleming Vindication for the Angola 3   Weekend Edition November 11 / 12, 2006 John Walsh Rahm's Losers Barucha Calamity Peller Oaxaca at Any Cost Al Krebs Be Careful What You Wish For Niall Meehan Ireland's Freedom Struggle and the Foster School of Historical Falsification Conn Hallinan The Ills of War: Shafting the Vets Patrick Cockburn "We Worry About Staying Alive, Not the U.S. Elections" Gary Leupp Democrats Can Be NeoCons, Too P. Sainath India High and Low: the Anatomy of a Tiger Nikolas Kozloff The Return of Tom Lantos: Beware Venezuela, Here Come the Democratic Hawks Lawrence R. Velvel Throwing Rumsfeld Under the Bus Fred Gardner Marijuana, the Anti-Drug Ralph Nader Taking on the Boss: Claybrook vs. the Chamber Ben Terrall / John Miller East Timor: 15 Years After the Massacre Mike Whitney Cheney in a Box Joshua Frank Post-Electoral Deliriums Mukul Dube The Death Penalty Case of Mohd. Afzal Jason Hribal Jesse: Eulogy for a Working Dog Daniel Wolff The Unseen Springsteen Michael Donnelly Red Rock Blues: the Moab Folk Festival Lord Montague A Dissenting Note on the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 Poets' Basement Davies, Louise, Buknatski and Orloski   November 10, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Lame Duck Marjorie Cohn The War Crimes Case Against Rumsfeld Jorge Mariscal What Veterans See Gregory Elich The Trial of Saddam: Who Will Pass Judgment on the Judges? Joshua Frank Blue Dog Group: Bye-Bye Coke, Hello Pepsi Megan Boler The Joke is On Us: How "Borat" Lowers the Bar of Political Satire Ramzy Baroud The Treacherous Road to Oslo Begins Here Farzana Versey An Iraqi in India Roberto Rodriguez A Thumpin' or a Whippin'? Cartoon of the Day Splat!   November 9, 2006 Jennifer Loewenstein How Gaza Offends Us All Patrick Cockburn War of the Snipers Paul Craig Roberts Will Democrats Become Part of the Problem? Manuel Garcia, Jr. The Roots of Corruption Mike Whitney Bush's Chernobyl Economy Alan Maass The Repudiation of One-Party Rule Robert Jensen Blood on the Tracks: the Elections and the Coming Train Wreck Nicola Nasser Saddam's Trial in Context John Chuckman As I Lay Dying: Watching the US Elections from Canada Jamal Juma Between Resistance and Deception in Palestine Felice Pace Can the Klamath be Restored? Website of the Day The Robert Gates Files   November 8, 2006 Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey St. Clair Count Your Blessings: NeoCons and NeoLibs Take Big Hit as Voters Say No to Bush, War and Free Trade Lawrence E. Walsh Robert Gates and Iran/Contra: Lies, Cover Ups and Slanted Intelligence Bruce K. Gagnon What's Next for the Peace Movement?: Confront the Democrats, Now! Neve Gordon Anti-Semitism? Mr. Dershowitz, You Just Don't Like What I Say Dave Lindorff Election Post-Mortem: What's Next? Arthur Neslen Another Tragic Day in Palestine Joshua Frank An Election Hangover: Thank God It's Over James Goodman The Corporate Food System is Broken Charles Sullivan Voting in the Absence of Choice David Swanson Subpoena Envy: The Dems Have the Power, But Will They Use It? Missy Beattie The Electorate Speaks and Barney Barks! Dr. Susan Block American Voters Say, "Bush Sucks!" Website of the Day Stealing Olive Groves from Palestinians   November 7, 2006 Michael Neumann Cut and Run from Iraq: Sooner Rather Than Later Paul Wolf Saddam Must Die: A Pre-Ordained Verdict Nikolas Kozloff In Nicaragua, a Chavez Wave? Eliza Ernshire The Women of Beit Hanoun William S. Lind The Smile on Saddam's Face: He's Tan, Rested and Ready Mike Ferner Pick a Number: Greater Than 47,615 Felice Pace Pumping the Klamath Dry Chris Genovali The Problem with PBDEs: Why Canada's Proposed Ban Won't Protect People or Wildlife Gilad Atzmon Watching Borat Dick J. Reavis Going to Class War with the Proletariat We Got ... Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Lives (and Votes) Lost: the Ordeal of Larry Peterson Website of the Day Magic Sam: a Sure Cure for the Election Day Blues Question of the Day Is Bush Gay?   November 6, 2006 Alexander Cockburn The Message of Campaign 2006 Norman Solomon Saddam's Unindicted Co-Conspirator: Donald Rumsfeld Robert Fisk A Guilty Verdict on America, as Well Marjorie Cohn The Banana Election: From Hanging Chads to Hanging Saddam Paul Craig Roberts The Goose and the Gander: Is Bush Next? Nikolas Kozloff Election Eve Jitters: the Chavez Factor Newton Garver The Progress in Bolivia: Morales' Stunning Victory Over Big Oil Mike Whitney Bush's Carnival of Blood Jesse Hagopian From the Black Panthers to the Green Party: an Interview with Aaron Dixon Dr. Peter Rost, MD The Genocide Election: When a Life Saving Industry Cheats, People Die Website of the Day Robert Pollin vs. Rick Wolff: Is Pomo Marxism Marxism?   November 4 / 5, 2006 Dave Zirin Political Players: Where Athletes Give Their Money Patrick Cockburn When Does Incompetence Become a Crime? Sanho Tree War Timing and Opportunism Ralph Nader Failure Across All Fronts Lee Sustar The Obama Myth Dr. Shepherd Bliss Torture Memories Adam Elkus Babies and Banks: Celebrity Colonialism in Africa Seth Sandronsky Is Another Recession Looming? Fred Gardner 10 Years of Medical Pot in California: Dr. Mikuriya's Observations Joshua Sperber How the US Lost Latin America Evelyn Pringle Ohio Redux: Mr. Blackwell and the Henhouse Mitchel Cohen The Left and the Environment: Notes on the Ecological Dimension Missy Beattie The Medium is the Massage Michael Dickinson Watching the Guards: a Prison Diary John Holt The Silk Road to Ruin Dr. Susan Block The Beastly Bombing Poets' Basement LaMorticella, Engel, Orloski and Davies November 3, 2006 Laura Carlsen Day of the Dead in Oaxaca Stephan Said Honoring Bradley Will John Stauber "Victory in Iraq:" The PR Machine Behind Bush's Favorite Slogan Mike Whitney Baghdad is Surrounded Joshua Frank DNC Deja Vu Victoria Furio More Than Timetables Tammara~85,441 They Say He is Coming Home Stuart Croswaithe Beatings and Sugar Plums: New Labor's War on the Kurds Missy Beattie Bush Shock Website of the Day Howlin' Wolf November 2, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler The US Body Count in Iraq: an Analysis of Who is Dying and How Paul Craig Roberts Evil is as Evil Does Dave Lindorff Kerry Out: the Joke's Still on Us Uri Avnery The Lovable Man? Lieberman and the Decline of Israeli Democracy Jeff Birkenstein Smearing Harold Ford in Black Face John Ross Slave Labor in Private Prisons Zoltan Grossman Recharging the Anti-War Movement Eveyln Pringle The SEC's Probe of Halliburton: Is Cheney Being Fitted for a Striped Jumpsuit? Christopher Brauchli Drug Profits and PACs: Why Big Pharma Pushes the GOP   November 1, 2006 Alan Dershowitz v. Bruce Jackson On Torture Brian Tokar Running on Hype: the Real Scoop on Biofuels Fred Leonhardt Democrats, Sex Crimes and the Press: the Goldschmidt Affair Richard W. Behan Triumph of the Petropublicans: Bush's Other Civil War Brenda Norrell Indigenous Opposition to the Border Wall Charles Sullivan Spoils of Corruption: Who Will Stand Up When America Goes Wrong? Ron Jacobs Hell is Rising in Oaxaca: interview with a Oaxacan Rebel Mike Knapp Green Stench in Minnesota: the Commissioner and the Hog Lot Moshe Adler The Temptations of a Union Boss: the Case of Brian McLaughlin Walden Bello Chain Gang Economics Lee Ballinger The Collapse of Hip Capitalism: How Tower Records Committed Suicide Joshua Frank Party in a Cage: Snake Oil and the Midterm Elections Carl Gelderloos Cheerleading the Massacre in Oaxaca: an Open Letter to the Washington Post Peter Rost, MD Panic in Big Pharma Saul Landau Bush's Anti-Terrorism Record: Don't Look Too Close Website of the Day The Meatrix October 31, 2006 William S. Lind The Third and Final Act: Iran Stephen S. Pearcy Dem Candidate's Wife Urges Cindy Sheehan Not to Protest Iraq War Uri Avnery Who's Afraid of an Iranian Bomb? Michael Colby Corporations Win Again!: Bush Opens National Parks to Bio-Prospecting Sunsara Taylor A No-Win Election for Women Ben Beachy Targeting Nicaraguans' Stomachs: 11th Hour Election Meddling by the US Edward Humes Nine Words: America's Disservice to Veterans Roger Burbach The Meaning of Lula's Victory in Brazil Subcomandante Marcos A Communique from the EZLN on Oaxaca Niranjan Ramakrishnan Funny Business in the Booth: Vote for James H. 'Jim' Sharon Smith Those Damned Democrats Website of the Day Parks Not for Sale   October 30, 2006 Robert Fisk Dirty Bombs Over Lebanon: Did Israel Use Uranium Weapons? Bruce Jackson Normalizing Torture Norman Solomon I Was Wrong About Thomas Friedman, the World's Wealthiest Pundit Lance Selfa Liberal Doormats: Tread on Us Ali Khan The Veil and the British Male Elite Lee Sustar European Islamophobia: Fanning the Flames of Hate Robert Jensen The Death of Empathy Akiva Eldar Lieberman: Making Haider Look Good Tim Montague The Natural Step to Eco-Villages Brian M. Downing Evil in the Valley: Civilian Massacres, From Vietnam to Iraq Website of the Day Alien Impeachment October 27 / 29, 2006 Weekend Edition Jeffrey St. Clair Hogwash: Fecal Factories in the Heartland Maher Arar The Horrors of Extraordinary Rendition: a Personal Account David Rosen Perversions of Power: Mark Foley and the Bush Administration Gregory Elich "A Bursting Boiler at Russia's Doorstep:" Why Bush is Seeking Confrontation with N. Korea Tom Barry Fear and Loathing in the North: an Apartheid Fence in America? Jeff Taylor Democrats By Default? Dave Lindorff Why Nancy Pelosi is Wrong Ron Jacobs The General Who Called Out the Devil: the Politics of Hugo Chavez Maurus Chino Hauba Hanu: Oppression Affects All People Christopher Brauchli Veiled Threats: the Global War on Fashion Sherwood Ross The Wages of Whistleblowing: Why Bunny Greenhouse Sits in a Corner Rev. William Alberts In Search of a Real Inter-Religious Dialogue on War and Justice Aseem Shrivastava Pushing India Toward a "Dollar Democracy" Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Bush's Mea Culpa Speech, First Draft Russ Fine / Dee Fine Of Peters and Principles: Learning About Sex and Hypocrisy from the GOP Seth Sandronsky Social Security: the Distortions of Sebastian Mallaby Michael Carmichael Rogue President: Midterm Meltdown Joe Allen The Legacy of Gillo Pontecorvo: a Maker of Revolutionary Films David Vest Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Landau, Engel and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Safely Home   October 26, 2006 Ismael Hossein-zadeh Islamic Fascism?: Inflammatory Ironies Carlos Zorrilla The Police Raid on My House: Trumped Up Charges and Collusion Between a Mining Company and the Government of Ecuador Paul Craig Roberts The Crimes of Greed vs. the Crimes of Government: If Enron's Skilling Gets 24 Years in Prison, How Many Should Bush and Cheney Get? Mike Whitney The Charnel House of Baghdad Lily Hughes A Cruel and Unusual Reality: Inside the Texas Death House Jennifer Matsui Madonna's African Safari: The Great White Baby Hunter Tim Matson How to Save Vermont Stephen Fleischman Like a Soldier: Benchmarks, Timelines and Lies Missy Beattie The Blood of October: Are We Sure Barney Still Supports This War? Patrick Cockburn From "Mission Accomplished" to "Mission Impossible" in Iraq Website of the Day Open Letter to The Nation   October 25, 2006 Michael Donnelly Ethnicity and Baseball John Stanton The Vindication of Sibel Edmonds John Ross Upheaval from the Bottom Conn Hallinan Hunting Hugo: When It's About Oil Nothing is Off the Table--Not Even Assassination Robert Jensen Academic Freedom on the Rocks Johnny Barber Drinking Tea with Hizbullah Bruce K. Gagnon Space Cowboy: Bush's War on Heaven Daniel McGowan Elie Wiesel for Israeli President? James J. Brittain Uribe's Failure to Learn from Colombia's Past Peter Harley Afghanistan in 3-D Jonathan Cook Israel's Minister of Strategic Threats Shepherd Bliss The Bioneers and the New York Times Website of the Day The Price of Staying the Course   October 24, 2006 John Walsh The Book of Rahm: Emanuel's War Plan for Democrats M. Shahid Alam Not All Terrorists Are Muslim: the Latest Falsehood from the Advocates of Civilizational War Dr. Trudy Bond The Silence at Home, as America Eats Her Young Michael Phillips The Story of My Kidnapping in Nablus: "I Never Feared for My Life" Dave Lindorff Truth and Consequences on Iraq: Bush's Latest Cut-and-Paste War Plan David Phinney A US Fortress Rises in Baghdad: Asian Labor Trafficking Used to Build World's Largest Embassy Laura Carlsen Food Insecurity: the World Needs Its Small Farmers Pierre Tristam The American Way of Gore Marguerite Rose Jimenez "About That Trip to Cuba:" When the FBI Came Calling Website of the Day Tampon Terrorists   October 23, 2006 Saree Makdisi Israel's Cluster Bomb War: "What We Did Was Insane and Monstrous" Joshua Frank The Antiwar Movement and Independent Politics: an Interview with Cindy Sheehan Fred Gardner What Have California Doctors Learned About Cannabis? Ralph Nader The End of Habeas Corpus and the Belligerent Despot-in-Chief Ron Jacobs Bush's Clark Clifford: James Baker Wants a Kinder, Gentler War Norman Solomon Punditry Without Consequences: Channeling Thomas Friedman Richard Manning Outside the Market: We Need and Owe Rural People Neil Kitson Canadians in Afghanistan: Bloody, Unbowed, Stoned? William MacDougall The Socialist, the Columnist, His Wife and the Prostitute Gilad Atzmon Surviving the Board of Deputies Werther The Evening of Empire Website of the Day Different Drummer: Internet Coffeehouse Movement   October 20 / 22, 2006 Alexander Cockburn The Myth of Microloans Gary Leupp How the US Declared War on North Korea Brian Cloughley What Are They Dying For? Dave Zirin Pat Tillman's Brother Breaks His Silence William Blum Don't Look Back: Who Said Clinton Didn't Kill Anybody? Christopher Brauchli The Cronies' War Winslow Wheeler The Mad Logic of Pentagon Spending: As Costs Rise, Readiness Declines Michael Donnelly GOP Death Slide: Is the Party Really Over? Fred Gardner Corporate Drugs Useless Against Alzheimer's Susie Day How to Stay Out of Gitmo Lucinda Marshall Behind Closed Doors: the Invisibility of Domestic Violence Fred Wilcox The Second Palestinian Intifada: History of a Struggle for Survival Alan Maass Standing Up Against Racism at Columbia: a Wake Up Call to the Passive Left Lee Sustar A Bipartisan Border Wall: New Phases in the Crackdown on Immigrants Ariadna Theokopoulos Shame on You, Dr. Warf: Hail the Epidemiologist in Chief Missy Beattie Surges: the Dow and the Death Count CP News Wire Bush's Paraguay Land Grab: Hideout or Water Raid? CP News Services Sexually Repressed Republicans: Robert Bork, Riveted Poets' Basement Davies, Engel, Buknatski and Orloski Website of the Weekend Scenes from Oaxaca   October 19, 2006 Elaine Cassel The Bush Administration's Assault on Defense Lawyers Col. Dan Smith Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine: Cracks in the Bush / Blair Axis Manuel Garcia, Jr. North Korea's Nuclear Test: a Q & A Josh Gryniewicz Wal-Mart Tightens the Squeeze on Workers Amira Hass What is 20 Tons of Explosives? Eric Holt-Gimenez Poison and Famine in the Fields: How the Agri-Food Industry's Deadly Cycle Feeds Immigration Jesse Hagopian Arrested Democracy: On Trying to Ignore Aaron Dixon Sam Husseini How Third Parties Can Solve the "Spoiler" Problem and Win Elections John Weisheit A Gathering of Water Buffaloes: Feds Celebrate Death of the Colorado River CP News Service A Plea to U2 From Africa's Children: Stop Bono Before He Kills Again Website of the Day George W. Bush: Hollywood Producer Art Gallery of the Day Botero's Abu Ghraib Paintings in Manhattan   October 18, 2006 Joshua Frank Cindy Sheehan's Lesser Evilism: Democrats or Bust? Dr. Curran Warf, MD Slandering Sound Science: Bush's Attack on the Lancet Iraq War Death Study Saul Landau Bush's Foley: Will the Dems Blow It? Tom Barry The Politics of Fear Bruce Jackson Thundersnow: a Report from Buffalo Dave Lindorff Loveless Among the Ruins: Even Repubs Flee Bush's Failed Middle East Policy Frederico Fuentes When Cochabamba Said "Enough": Bolivia's Blow to Neoliberalism Michael Simmons Greetings from Echo Park: an Open Letter to Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner Daryll E. Ray The Root Problems in American Agriculture Kate Doyle The Dead of Tlatelolco Website of the Day The Lynne Stewart Defense Committee   October 17, 2006 Michael Neumann Hit and Run: Guerrilla Reviewing Manuel Garcia, Jr. Nuclear Test, Political Flare: Interpreting the Physics and Politics of N. Korea's Nuclear Test Stephen S. Pearcy The Interrogation of Julia Wilson: Secret Service Grills 14 Year-Old Artist Sharon Smith Afghanistan Reconsidered: The Taliban Aren't Gone, Women Haven't Been Liberated Al Krebs The Corporate Assault on Zoning David Underhill Politicus Interruptus: Come Back, Jo Bonner Daniel Wolff NY's Iraq Veterans Against the War Needs Your Help ... Now James Brooks Desirable Duds: Israeli / US Cluster Bombs Litter Lebanon Website of the Day Stop Torture Now   October 16, 2006 Gary Leupp North Korea as a Religious State Patrick Cockburn General Mutinies Against Blair David Wilson Where Have All the Doctors Gone?: the Collapse of Iraq's Health Care Services Robert Fisk Confronting Turkey's Armenian Genocide Robert Jensen Racism and Cheap Thrills at U. of Texas Law School Ingmar Lee / Krista Roessingh An Appeal for S. India's Wild Elephants Mike Whitney America's Other War Party Jake Whitney The Courageous Dr. Rost Sanho Tree Sugar Daddy Politics: Was Foley Blackmailed to Secure His Vote on CAFTA? Website of the Day Best War Ever   October 14/15, 2006 Weekend Edition Uri Avnery Gaza as Laboratory: the Great Experiment John Walsh How Rahm Emmanuel Has Rigged a Pro-War Congress Jean Bricmont A Fable About Palestine Jennifer Van Bergen Bush's Military Commissions Act and the Future of America Ralph Nader Wilted Yankees: the Fruits of Checkbook Baseball Floyd Rudmin The Logic of Proliferation: How Bush's Belligerence Prompted N. Korea to Pursue Nuclear Weapons Mark Weisbrot Correcting the Facts on US/Venezuela Relations Laura Carlsen Building a Future in the Mixteca Hani Shukrallah A Stroll Through the Cairo Mall: Shopping as Cultural Pursuit Dr. Susan Block The Spent Milk of Human Foley John Chuckman North Korea's Bomb: Still 1,126 Nuke Tests Behind the US Lucinda Marshall Is Betty Ugly?: the Profits of Denigration Don Monkerud The Case Against Depleted Uranium Missy Comley Beattie What Bush Means By Tolerable Violence in Iraq Ron Jacobs Shouting "No One is Illegal" in a Crowded Theater Website of the Weekend Ratfink Raunchfest   October 13, 2006 Jorge Mariscal PowerPoint Racism: How Military Recruiters Pitch to Latinos Stephen Philion The Myth of the Spat Upon Vets: an Interview with Jerry Lembcke John Blair Strip Mining Wildlife Preserves: Black Beauty's Filthy Lucre Col. Dan Smith Oil, Atoms and War Alastair Crooke / Mark Perry How Hezbollah Defeated Israel: Part Two, Winning the Ground War Stephen Fleischman Journalism Then and Now Charles Perroud The Death Penalty's Invisible Victims Anne E. Brodsky Return to Afghanistan: Where the Rhetoric Doesn't Match the Reality Website of the Day Underwater Nuke Test   October 12, 2006 Jonathan Cook Israel's Plan for a Military Strike on Iran Norman Solomon The Pundit Path to Death in Iraq M. Shahid Alam On Colonialism and Colleagues Paul Craig Roberts Can We Call It Genocide Now? Meredith Schafer / Chris Kutalik Is a General Transportation Strike Looming for 2008? Can Labor Seize the Moment? Carl Gelderloos Images of Occupation: Teaching in Nablus Alastair Crooke / Mark Perry How Hezbollah Defeated Israel: Part One, Winning the Intelligence War Charles Sullivan Assassins of Truth William S. Lind Why Do We Still Fight a Lost War? CP News Service The South Turns Against the War Website of the Day There's a Riot Goin' On   October 11, 2006 John Feffer Pyongyang 1, Bush 0 Dave Lindorff A Killing Occupation Jackson Katz Gunning Down Women: Coverage of "School Shootings" Misses Central Issue April Howard / Ben Dangl The Tin War in Bolivia Michael Carmichael World War W Ken Couesbouc The New Witchcraft: Marvin Harris on the War on Terror Gregory Afghani Sleepless on Skid Row: Guilty of Being Homeless in America Alexander Cockburn 600,000 Dead in Iraq: Chortles in the New Yorker for Slaughter's Cheerleader, C. Hitchens Website of the Day Petition: Defend Columbia Students Who Confronted the Minutemen   October 10, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Lost Wars and a Lost Economy Robert Robideau The Myth Keepers of Columbus Joshua Frank The Democrats and the War on Civil Liberties Dave Lindorff Free the Press Free Linda Greenhouse Dave Zirin Brother of the Fist Heather Gray Where Votes Matter: My Experience in South Africa James Knotwell Big Ag in the Heartland: the Future of Nebraska's Family Farms Missy Beattie The Return of James Baker, III Mike Whitney Bush and North Korea: Bumbling Toward Disaster David Rosen Sex Panic on Capitol Hill: Mark Foley and the Politics of Sex in America Website of the Day Eno / Byrne: Music to Enjoy the Foley Scandal By   October 9. 2006 Robert Fisk The Age of Terror Norman Solomon Welcome to the Nuclear Club Ron Jacobs The Boom Heard Around the World Gideon Levy The Mystery of America Walter Brasch Their Back Pages: Sex, Lies and Family Values Mickey Z. Who Killed Michael Moore? John Holt Grizzlies in Our Midst: Can Humans and Bears Coexist? Lucinda Marshall Not So Pretty in Pink: Profits and Breast Cancer Saul Landau Post-Castro Cuba Website of the Day War, Inc.     October 7 / 8, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn Wargasms and Orgasms Peter Kwong The Chinese Face of Neoliberalism Ralph Nader Revolt of the Generals Mark Donham What Cynthia McKinney Means to Me Dave Lindorff Philly's Police Snoops Peter Bosshard World Bank Shuts Out Dissident Voices: Big Dams, Huge Profits & Political Corruption Ron Jacobs Evil Hour in Colombia Lawrence R. Velvel Governmental Derelicts: Moral Meltdown in America Fred Gardner Arnold Vetoes Hemp Bill David Green The US, Israel and the Invasion of Lebanon Jim B. Activism, Incorporated: Outsourcing Grassroots Politics? Missy Beattie Prayers for Peace at the Edge of the Abyss Michael Donnelly Blame the Page: Grand Old Perverts Go on Offensive Jackson Thoreau Enter Newt Jon Hung Revisiting Korematsu: Denying Civil Rights Based on National Origin CounterPunch News Service Why We Confronted the Minutemen at Columbia Tom D'Antoni Playlist Poets' Basement Orloski, Davies, Tirado, Gaffney and Ford Website of the Weekend Reagan Gone Wild   October 6, 2006 Alison Weir Just Another Mother Murdered Tiffany Ten Eyck / Mark Brenner Made in (DeUnionized) America Corporate Crime Reporter Look Who's Behind "37 Reasons" to Vote for Big Business: Former Clinton PR Flak Mike McCurry Juan Antonio Montecino Cleaving a False Divide in Latin America Walden Bello A Siamese Tragedy Christopher Brauchli Rank Invitations: Dining with Bush Brynne Keith-Jennings Dan Burton in Nicaragua: the Congressman, His Stick and the Elections Jonathan Cook The Struggle for Palestine's Soul Website of the Day Fighting Hog Farms and Clearcuts in the Heartland   October 5, 2006 John Walsh Turn the Page Carol Norris The Radical Right, the Myth of the Gay Child Abuser and You: a Psychotherapist on the Hysteria Over Foley Paul Craig Roberts Will November Bring Hope or Another Stolen Election? Ricardo Alarcón The Truth About the Embargo of Cuba James Abourezk Waterboarding the Constitution: After Torture, What's Next? Nicola Nasser Removing Hamas: Brinksmanship or Coup d'Etat? Kirkpatrick Sale Breaking Away: the First North American Secessionist Conference Uri Avnery Peace with Syria: Lunch in Damascus Website of the Day More Naughty GOP Messages October 4, 2006 Elizabeth Terzakis The Walls That Racism Built: Blood Revenge, the Death Penalty and Kevin Cooper Paul Wolf The Mushy Rebellion: Pakistan Under Musharraf Sean Penn The Arrogant, the Misguided and the Cowards Dave Lindorff Outrage as Misdirection: The Real Scandal isn't Foley Diane Farsetta For Sale: Iraqi Kurdistan Sharon Smith Democrats: Yes to War, No to Pedophilia Felice Pace Revoking 1776 Sara Roy The Economy of Gaza Website of the Day Alexander Cockburn: the Video Interview (Part Two) October 3, 2006 Jennifer Van Bergen Compassionate Conservative Pedophiles Greg Moses The Infallible Empire: Junking Habeas Corpus Stan Cox Real Bad ID: a National Driver's License and the Fading Right of Anonymity Niranjan Ramakrishnan How Empires Die Evelyn Pringle Big Pharma Takes a Hit: Alaska's Supreme Court Outlaws Forced Drugging Fred Wilhelms SoundExchange and Unpaid Music Artists: Help Us Find These Musicians and Get Them Paid Michael Abelman Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food: the Risks of Convenience and Consolidation Gary Leupp The Foley Follies Website of the Day Bush and Blair: Endless Love   October 2, 2006 Eric Hazan Roadmap to Nowhere: an Interview with Tanya Reinhart on Israel/Palestine Since 2003 Mike Whitney Bloodbath on 60 Minutes: Court Stenographer Finally Comes Clean Norman Solomon American Narcissism and Iraq Assaf Kfoury Meeting Nasrallah Missy Beattie The Meaning of "ummmm": Speaker Hasert and the Over-Friendly Congressman Arthur Neslen Lie Less in Gaza Paula J. Caplan How the Supreme Court Mangled My Research Website of the Day Predator Drones Target Bechtel           Subscribe Online

Almost Home, CounterPunchers! Annual Fundraising Appeal We interrupt your regular reading habits to bring you the following important announcement: CounterPunch needs your financial support! We're not in the habit of making idle threats and this isn't one. Either we meet our fundraising goal of $60,000 over the next three weeks or we'll be forced to drastically curtail the operation of our website. It's near the end of our year and the wolves are gathering at the door. CounterPunch's website is supported almost entirely by subscribers to the print edition of our newsletter. We don't clutter the site by selling annoying popup ads. We tried getting money out of Google, but they gave us the boot. We aren't on the receiving end of six-figure grants from big foundations. George Soros doesn't have us on retainer. And we don't sell tickets on cruiseliners. The continued existence of CounterPunch depends solely on the support and dedication of our readers. And we know there are a lot of you. We get thousands of emails from you every day. Our website receives nearly 100,000 visits each day-and those numbers grow by the month. Of course, all these readers chew up a lot of bandwidth and that costs money. Through the Iraq war, the daily traumas of the Bush administration, hurricanes, earthquakes and the disappearance of the Democrats, many of you have found a refuge at CounterPunch and made us your homepage. You tell us that you love CounterPunch because the quality of writing you find here every day and because we never flinch under fire. We appreciate the support and are prepared for the fierce battles to come as the Bush administration expands its wars abroad and at home. Unlike many other outfits, we don't hit you up for money every month ... or even every quarter. We only ask for your support once a year. But we when ask, we mean it. Please, make a tax-deductible donation to CounterPunch today or purchase a subscription and a gift subscription or a crate of books as holiday presents, including Cockburn and St. Clair's latest book on the decline of the press: End Times: the Death of the Fourth Estate. To contribute by phone you can call Becky or Deva toll free at: 1-800-840-3683 or mail contribution to: CounterPunch PO Box 228 Petrolia, CA 95558 Onward, Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva November 17, 2006 Milton Friedman and the Economics of Empire The Road from Serfdom By GREG GRANDIN Milton Friedman had no idea that his six-day trip to Chile in March 1975 would generate so much controversy. He was invited to Santiago by a group of Chilean economists who over the previous decades had been educated at the University of Chicago, in a program set up by Friedman's colleague, Arnold Harberger. Two years after the overthrow of Allende, with the dictatorship unable to get inflation under control, the "Chicago Boys" began to gain real influence in General Augusto Pinochet's military government. They recommended the application of what Friedman had already taken to call "shock treatment" or a "shock program" ­ immediately halting the printing of money to finance the budget deficit, cutting state spending twenty to twenty-five percent, laying off tens of thousands of government workers, ending wage and price controls, privatizing state industries, and deregulating capital markets. "Complete free trade," Friedman advised. Friedman and Harberger were flown down to "help to sell" the plan to the military junta, which despite its zealous defense of the abstraction of free enterprise was partial to corporatism and the maintenance of a large state sector. Friedman gave a series of lectures and met with Pinochet for 45 minutes, where the general "indicated very little indeed about his own or the government's feeling." Although he noted that the dictator, responsible for the torture of tens of thousands of Chileans, seemed "sympathetically attracted to the idea of a shock treatment." Friedman returned home to a firestorm of protest, aggravated by his celebrity as a Newsweek columnist and ongoing revelations about Washington's and corporate America's involvement in the overthrow of Allende. Not only had Nixon, the CIA, and ITT, along with other companies, plotted to destabilize Allende's "democratic road to socialism," but now a renowned University of Chicago economist, whose promotion of the wonders of the free market was heavily subsidized by corporations such as Bechtel, Pepsico, Getty, Pfizer, General Motors, W.R. Grace, and Firestone, was advising the dictator who overthrew him on how to complete the counterrevolution ­ at the cost of skyrocketing unemployment among Chile's poor. The New York Times identified Friedman as the "guiding light of the junta's economic policy," while columnist Anthony Lewis asked: if "pure Chicago economic theory can be carried out in Chile only at the price of repression, should its authors feel some responsibility?" At his university, the Spartacus Youth League pledged to "drive Friedman off campus through protest and exposure," while the student government, replicating their own version of the Church Commission hearings that was just then investigating US crimes in Chile, convened a "Commission of Inquiry on the Friedman/Harberger Issue." Everywhere in the press the name Friedman was paired with the adjectives "draconian" and "shock," with small but persistent protests dogging the professor at many of his public appearances. In letters to various editors and detractors, Friedman downplayed the extent of his involvement in Chile, fingering Harberger as more directly involved in the mentoring of Chilean economists. While defensive, he nevertheless reveled in the controversy and the frisson of being ushered into speaking engagements via kitchens and back doors to avoid demonstrators. He enjoyed exposing the double standard of "liberal McCarthyism," pointing out that he was never criticized for giving similar advice to Red China, the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. In recounting an episode when a man was dragged out of the Nobel award ceremony after shouting "down with capitalism, freedom for Chile," Friedman delighted in noting that the protest backfired, resulting in his receiving "twice as long an ovation" than any other laureate. Friedman defended his relationship with Pinochet by saying that if Allende had been allowed to remain in office Chileans would have suffered "the elimination of thousands and perhaps mass starvation . . . torture and unjust imprisonment." But the elimination of thousands, mass hunger, torture and unjust imprisonment were what was taking place in Chile exactly at the moment the Chicago economist was defending his protégé. Allende's downfall came because he refused to betray Chile's long democratic tradition and invoke martial law, yet Friedman nevertheless insisted that the military junta offered "more room for individual initiative and for a private sphere of life" and thus a greater "chance of a return to a democratic society." It was pure boilerplate, but it did give Friedman a chance to rehearse his understanding of the relationship between capitalism and freedom. Critics of both Pinochet and Friedman took Chile as proof positive that the kind of free-market absolutism advocated by the Chicago School was only possible through repression. So Friedman countered by redefining the meaning of freedom. Contrary to the prevailing post-WWII belief that political liberty was dependent on some form of mild social leveling, he insisted that "economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom." More than his monetarist theorems, this equation of "capitalism and freedom" was his greatest contribution to the rehabilitation of conservatism in the 1970s. Where pre-New Deal conservatives positioned themselves in defense of social hierarchy, privilege, and order, post-WWII conservatives instead celebrated the free market as a venue of creativity and liberty. Such a formulation today stands at the heart of the conservative movement, having been accepted as commonsense by mainline politicians and opinion makers. It is likewise enshrined in Bush's National Security Strategy, which mentions "economic freedom" more than twice as many times as it does "political freedom." While he was in Chile Friedman gave a speech titled "The Fragility of Freedom" where he described the "role in the destruction of a free society that was played by the emergence of the welfare state." Chile's present difficulties, he argued, "were due almost entirely to the forty-year trend toward collectivism, socialism and the welfare state . . . a course that would lead to coercion rather than freedom." The Pinochet regime, he argued, represented a turning point in a protracted campaign, a tearing off of democracy's false husks to reach true freedom's inner core. "The problem is not of recent origin," Friedman wrote in a follow-up letter to Pinochet, but "arises from trends toward socialism that started forty years ago, and reached their logical ­ and terrible ­climax in the Allende regime." He praised the general for putting Chile back on the "right track" with the "many measures you have already taken to reverse this trend." Friedman understood the struggle to be a long one, and indeed some of the first recruits for the battle of Chile were conscripted decades earlier. With financial funding from the US government's Point Four foreign aid program and the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Chicago's Department of Economics set up scholarship programs in the mid-1950s with Chile's Catholic and public universities. About one hundred select students between 1957 and 1970 received close, hands-on training, first in an apprenticeship program in Chile and then in post-graduate work in Chicago. In principle, Friedman and his colleagues opposed the kind of developmental largesse that funded the exchange program as a market distortion, yet they took the cash to finance their department's graduate program. But they also had a more idealistic purpose. Starting in the 1950s, Latin America, particularly the southern cone countries of Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, had become a laboratory for developmentalist economics. Social scientists, such as the Argentine Raúl Prebisch from his position as head of the UN's Economic Commission on Latin America, expanded Keynesianism ­ after John Maynard Keynes, who elaborated the dominant post-WWII economic framework that envisioned an active role for the state in the workings of the market -- beyond its focus on managing countervailing cycles of inflation and unemployment to question the terms of international trade. Chronic inflation, according to Prebisch and other Latin American economists, was understood not to be a reflex of any given country's irresponsible monetary system but a symptom of deep structural inequalities that divided the global economy between the developed and the undeveloped world. Volatile commodity prices and capital investment reinforced first world advantage and third world disadvantage. Economists and politicians from across the political spectrum accepted the need for state planning, regulation, and intervention. Such ideas not only drove the economic policies of developing nations, but echoed throughout the corridors and conference rooms of the UN and the World Bank, as well as in the non-aligned movement's 1973 call for a New International Economic Order. It was the Chicago School's vision of hell, the New Deal writ large across the world stage. These ideas "fell like a bomb" on those who had long stood against Keynesianism at home only now to see its authority spread globally. The Chilean scholarship program was intended to counter such a vision. "University of Chile economists have been followers of Keynes and Prebisch more than of Marx," wrote former University of Chicago president and State Department director of overseas education programs William Benton, and "the Chicago influence" will "introduce a third basic viewpoint, that of contemporary 'market economics.'" Students returned to Chile not just with a well-rounded education in classical economics but with a burning dedication to carry the faith to benighted lands. They purged the economics departments of their universities of developmentalists and began to set up free-market institutes and think tanks ­ the Center for Social and Economic Studies, for example, and the Foundation for Liberty and Development ­ funded, as their counterparts in the US were, by corporate money. They understood their mission in continental terms, committed, as Chicago alum Ernesto Fontaine put it, "to expand throughout Latin America, confronting the ideological positions which prevented freedom and perpetuated poverty and backwardness." The program, which brought up students from universities in Argentina as well, is an example of the erratic nature of both public and private US diplomacy, conforming as it does to competing power interests within American society. At the same time that Kennedy was promoting Alliance for Progress reform capitalism, he was training and funding the men and institutions that would constitute the continent's dense network of death squads. At the same time that Chase Manhattan, Chemical, Manufacturers Hanover, and Morgan Guaranty were promoting, through the establishment of the Trilateral Commission, a more conciliatory economic policy in the third world, they were cutting off credit to Chile, making, in accordance with Nixon's directive, its economy "scream." And at the same time that every American president from Truman to Nixon was embracing Keynesianism, the University of Chicago's Economics Department, with financial support from the US government, had turned itself into free-market madrassa that indoctrinated a generation of Latin American economists to spearhead an international capitalist insurgency. Throughout the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, though, the revolution seemed to be forever deferred. In the late 1960s, the Chicago Boys had drawn up the platform of Allende's nationalist opponent in the 1970 election, which included many of the proposals that eventually would be implemented under Pinochet. But Allende won, so Chile had to wait. In the meantime, the military junta in Brazil, which took power in 1964, had invited Friedman in 1973 down for advice, which it took for awhile. A severe recession and skyrocketing unemployment followed. Friedman pronounced this first application of "shock therapy" an "economic miracle." But the generals, wisely it seems, demurred, returning to its state-directed program of industrialization that, while failing to curb inflation, did lower unemployment and lay the foundations for Brazil's current economic dominance of Latin America. Richard Nixon too, early in his first term, showed promise, but then he raised tariffs, introduced wage and price controls and, with an eye to the 1972 election, declared himself a Keynesian and opened up the money spout. Nixon was an "enormous disappointment," reflected Friedman. That left Pinochet, not the most reputable of characters but willing to go the distance. Chile became, according to Business Week, a "laboratory experiment" for taming inflation through monetary control, carrying out, said Barrons, the "most important modifications implemented in the developing world in recent times." American economists may have been writing "treatises" on the "way the world should work, but it is another country that is putting it into effect." A month after Friedman's visit, the Chilean junta announced that inflation would be stopped "at any cost." The regime cut government spending twenty-seven percent, practically shuttered the national mint, and set fire to bundles of escudos. The state divested from the banking system and deregulated finance, including interest rates. It slashed import tariffs, freed prices on over 2000 products, and removed restrictions against foreign investments. Pinochet pulled Chile out of a number of alliances with neighboring countries intended to promote regional industrialization, turning his country into a gateway for the introduction of cheap goods into Latin America. Tens of thousands of public workers lost their jobs as the government auctioned off, in what amounted to a spectacular transfer of wealth to the private sector, over four hundred state industries. Multinationals were not only granted the right to repatriate one hundred percent of their profits, but were given guaranteed exchange rates to help them do so. In order to build investor confidence, the escudo was fixed to the dollar. Within four years, nearly thirty percent of all property expropriated not just under Allende but under a previous Alliance for Progress land reform was returned to previous owners. New laws treated labor like any other "free" commodity, sweeping away four decades of progressive union legislation. Health care was privatized, as was the public pension fund. GNP plummeted thirteen percent, industrial production fell 28 percent, and purchasing power collapsed to forty percent of its 1970 level. One national business after another went bankrupt. Unemployment soared. Yet by 1978 the economy rebounded, expanding thirty-two percent between 1978 and 1981. Though salary levels remained close to twenty percent below what they were a decade previously, per capita income began to climb again. Perhaps even a better indicator of progress, torture and extrajudicial executions began to taper off. With hindsight, however, it is now clear that the Chicago economists, despite the credit they received for three years of economic growth, had set Chile on the road to near collapse. The rebound of the economy was a function of the liberalization of the financial system and massive foreign investment. That investment, it turns out, led to a speculative binge, monopolization of the banking system, and heavy borrowing. The deluge of foreign capital did allow the fixed exchange rate to be maintained for a short period. But sharp increases in private debt ­ rising from $2 billion in 1978 to over $14 billion in 1982 -- put unsustainable pressure on Chile's currency. Pegged as it was to the appreciating US dollar, the value of the escudo was kept artificially high, leading to a flood of cheap imports. While consumers took advantage of liberalized credit to purchase TVs, cars, and other high-ticket items, savings shrank, debt increased, exports fell, and the trade deficit ballooned. In 1982 things fell apart. Copper prices plummeted, accelerating Chile's balance of trade deficit. GDP plunged fifteen percent, while industrial production rapidly contracted. Bankruptcies tripled and unemployment hit 30 percent. Despite his pledge to hold firm, Pinochet devalued the escudo, devastating poor Chileans who had either availed themselves to liberalized credit to borrow in dollars or who held their savings in escudos. The Central Bank lost forty-five percent of its reserves, while the private banking system collapsed. The crisis forced the state, dusting off laws still on the books from the Allende period, to take over nearly seventy percent of the banking system and reimpose controls on finance, industry, prices and wages. Turning to the IMF for a bailout, Pinochet extended a public guarantee to repay foreign creditors and banks. But before the crisis of 1982, there were the golden years between 1978 and 1981. Just as the international left flocked to Chile during the Allende period, under Pinochet the country became a mecca for the free-market right. Economists, political scientists, and journalists came to witness the "miracle" first hand, holding up Chile as a model to be implemented throughout the world. Representatives from European and American banks poured into Santiago, paying tribute to Pinochet by restoring credit that was denied the heretic Allende. The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank extolled Chile as a paragon of responsibility, advancing it 46 loans between 1976 and 1986 for over $3.1 billion. In addition to money men, right-wing activists traveled to Chile in a show of solidarity with the Pinochet regime. Publisher of the National Review William Rusher, along with other cadres who eventually coalesced around Reagan's 1976 and 1980 bids for the Republican nomination, organized the American-Chilean Council, a solidarity committee to counter critical press coverage in the US of Pinochet. "I was unable to find a single opponent of the regime in Chile," Rusher wrote after a 1978 pilgrimage, "who believes the Chilean government engages" in torture. As to the "interim human discomfort" caused by radical free-market policies, Rusher believed that "a certain amount of deprivation today, in the interest of a far healthier society tomorrow, is neither unendurable nor necessarily reprehensible." Friedrich von Hayek, the Austrian émigré and University of Chicago professor whose 1944 Road to Serfdom dared to suggest that state planning would produce not "freedom and prosperity" but "bondage and misery," visited Pinochet's Chile a number of times. He was so impressed that he held a meeting of his famed Société Mont Pélérin there. He even recommended Chile to Thatcher as a model to complete her free-market revolution. The Prime Minister, at the nadir of Chile's 1982 financial collapse, agreed that Chile represented a "remarkable success" but believed that Britain's "democratic institutions and the need for a high degree of consent" make "some of the measures" taken by Pinochet "quite unacceptable." Like Friedman, Hayek glimpsed in Pinochet the avatar of true freedom, who would rule as a dictator only for a "transitional period," only as long as needed to reverse decades of state regulation. "My personal preference," he told a Chilean interviewer, "leans toward a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism." In a letter to the London Times he defended the junta, reporting that he had "not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende." Of course, the thousands executed and tens of thousands tortured by Pinochet's regime weren't talking. Hayek's University of Chicago colleague Milton Friedman got the grief, but it was Hayek who served as the true inspiration for Chile's capitalist crusaders. It was Hayek who depicted Allende's regime as a way station between Chile's postwar welfare state and a hypothetical totalitarian future. Accordingly, the Junta justified its terror as needed not only to prevent Chile from turning into a Stalinist gulag but to sweep away fifty years of tariffs, subsidies, capital controls, labor legislation, and social welfare provisions -- a "half century of errors," according to finance minister Sergio De Castro, that was leading Chile down its own road to serfdom. "To us, it was a revolution," said government economist Miguel Kast, an Opus Dei member and follower of both Hayek and American Enterprise Institute theologian Michael Novak. The Chicago economists had set out to affect, radically and immediately, a "foundational" conversion of Chilean society, to obliterate its "pseudo-democracy" (prior to 1973, Chile enjoyed one of the most durable constitutional democracies in the Americas). Where Friedman made allusions to the superiority of economic freedom over political freedom in his defense of Pinochet, the Chicago group institutionalized such a hierarchy in a 1980 constitution named after Hayek's 1960 treatise The Constitution of Liberty. The new charter enshrined economic liberty and political authoritarianism as complementary qualities. They justified the need of a strong executive such as Pinochet not only to bring about a profound transformation of society but to maintain it until there was a "change in Chilean mentality." Chileans had long been "educated in weakness," said the president of the Central Bank, and a strong hand was needed in order to "educate them in strength." The market itself would provide tutoring: When asked about the social consequences of the high bankruptcy rate that resulted from the shock therapy, Admiral José Toribio Merino replied that "such is the jungle of . . . economic life. A jungle of savage beasts, where he who can kill the one next to him, kills him. That is reality." But before such a savage nirvana of pure competition and risk could be attained, a dictatorship was needed to force Chileans to accept the values of consumerism, individualism, and passive rather than participatory democracy. "Democracy is not an end in itself," said Pinochet in a 1979 speech written by two of Friedman's disciples, but a conduit to a truly "free society" that protected absolute economic freedom. Friedman hedged on the relationship between capitalism and dictatorship, but his former students were consistent: "A person's actual freedom," said Finance Minister de Castro, "can only be ensured through an authoritarian regime that exercises power by implementing equal rules for everyone." "Public opinion," he admitted, "was very much against [us], so we needed a strong personality to maintain the policy." Jeane Kirkpatrick was among those who traveled to Chile to pay respect to the pioneer, lauding Pinochet for his economic initiatives. "The Chilean economy is a great success," the ambassador said, "everyone knows it, or they should know it." She was dispatched by Reagan shortly after his 1981 inauguration to "normalize completely [Washington's] relations with Chile in order to work together in a pleasant way," including the removal of economic and arms sanctions and the revocation of Carter's "discriminatory" human rights policy. Such pleasantries, though, didn't include meeting with the relatives of the disappeared, commenting on the recent deportation of leading opposition figures, or holding Pinochet responsible for the 1976 car bomb execution of Orlando Letelier, Allende's ambassador to the US, in Washington's Dupont Circle -- all issues Kirkpatrick insisted would be resolved with "quiet diplomacy." Setting aside the struggles surrounding religion, race, and sexuality that give American politics its unique edge, it was in Chile where the New Right first executed its agenda of defining democracy in terms of economic freedom and restoring the power of the executive branch. Under Pinochet's firm hand, the country, according to prominent Chicago graduate Cristián Larroulet, became a "pioneer in the world trend toward forms of government based on a free social order." Its privatized pension system, for example, is today held up as a model for the transformation of Social Security, with Bush having received advice from Chilean economist José Piñera, also a Chicago student, on how to do so in 1997. Pinochet "felt he was making history," sa