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Today's
Stories
January 12
/ 14, 2007
Laith al-Saud
The
Ironies of Bush and Iraq
January 11,
2007
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The
Profits of Escalation
Paul Craig
Roberts
Carter's Inconvenient Truths
Kathy Kelly
Refugee Drreams
Dave Lindorff
Blood for Face
Jeff Leys
The War Widens
Richard W.
Behan
Barrels and Bodies
Col. Douglas MacGregor
Surging Right Into Al-Sadr's Hands
Website of
the Day
An Explanation from Google
Speech of the Day
Is There Even One Politician Alive Who Could Give This Speech?
January 10, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
Walk in Oaxaca
Robert Fantina
Punishing
Deserters: Prosecution or Persecution?
Patrick Cockburn
Why Troop Escalation Won't Bring Peace to Iraq
Paul Craig Roberts
Distracting Congress: Troop Escalation and Iran
Col. Dan Smith
Why U.S. Policy is Failing
Ben Tripp
The Politics of Bad Karma
Evelyn Pringle
How the FDA Protects Big Pharma
Ron Jacobs
Coalition of the Lunatics: Trying to Create the Next World War
Mike Ferner
If Not Now, When?
Dave Zirin
Judgment of the Juiced: Why McGwire Wasn't Elected to the Hall
of Fame
Website of
the Day
Revolting Students!
Bootleg of the Day
Bob
Dylan: Live at Scotia Bank Place
January 9, 2007
R. T. Naylor
The
Somalian Labyrinth
Jonathan Cook
Israel's
Purging of Palestinian Christians
Mike Ely and Linda Flores
The Smithfield Strikers: No Longer
Hidden, No Longer Hiding
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: More Bellicose Than Bush
Norman Solomon
The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse
Sen. Russell
Feingold
An Open Letter to President Bush: So Now You Want to Snoop Through
Our Mail?
Joe Allen
Justice for the Omaha Two: Black Power, Racism and COINTELPRO
in the Heartland
James T. Phillips
"Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate": The Hell
That is Iraq
Brian Concannon
Resolutions for Haiti
Leonard Peltier
When the Truth Doesn't Matter: 30 Years of FBI Harassment and
Misconduct
Website of the Day
Kick Out the Jams, MFers!: Meet the New RRC
January 8,
2007
Werther
Why
We Fight
Jeff Leys
The Occupation Project: a Campaign of Civil Disobedience to End
Iraq War Funding
Paul Craig Roberts
Nuking Iran
Shulamit Aloni
Israeli Apartheid: Sorry, This Road is For Jews Only
Dave Lindorff
The Party of Invertebrates Reverts to Form
Sunsara Taylor
The Democrats' First Day: Same As It Ever Was
Seth Sandronsky
Syndicated Error: George Will and the Minimum Wage
Dr. Susan Block
Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film
Website of the Day
Watch CounterPuncher Sunsara Taylor Take on Bill O'Reilly!
January 6 / 7, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
War and the NYT
Franklin C.
Spinney
Stalingrad
on the Tigris
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Urge to Surge
Ralph Nader
Democrats in the Spotlight
Walden Bello
Globalization in Retreat?
Marleen Martin
The Needle and the Damage Done: Tortured in the Death Chamber
Brian Cloughley
We Do What We Like: Return Our Rapist or Else ...
Uri Avnery
The Kiss of Death
Saul Landau
Fidel Castro in the Fields
Ron Jacobs
From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act: a Legacy of Torture
Joseph Nevins
Crimes Against Humanity from Ford to Saddam
William S. Lind
A State Restored? Somalia and 4GW
Gary Leupp
Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President!
Elisa Salasin
Bringing Life to Numbers
George Ciccariello-Maher
Beyond
Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution
Stefan Wray
Confronting Recruiters: the Story of the Bush Street Raiders
Michael Leonardi
Toward an International Moratorium: Italy's Crusade Against the
Death Penalty
Richard Rhames
Reality TV: Triumph of the Thugs
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Barbara LaMorticella
Two Poems
Website of the Weekend
FBI Witch Hunts
Song of the
Weekend
End Times: a Soundtrack
January 5, 2007
Jorge Mariscal
Growing
the Military: Who Will Serve?
John Walsh
Clash of the Elites: Beltway Insiders vs. Neo-Cons!
Christopher Brauchli
The Great Relaxer: Bush and Federal Regulations
Travis Sharpe
No More New Nukes, Please
Tom Barry
Hawk for Hire: Roger Noriega's New Gig
Linda Schade
/ Kevin Zeese
Americans Voted for Peace: Has the New Congress Already Let Them
Down?
Tiffany Ten Eyck
Workers' Centers and Unions: a New Alliance
Mahmoud El-Yousseph
A Challenge to Pelosi
Lucinda Marshall
3003 Funerals: "And They're Still Burying Ford!"
Website of
the Day
Van the Man: Warm Love
January 4, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
The
Martyrdom of Saddam Hussein
Winslow T.
Wheeler
A Guide to Earmarks: Will the Democrats' Reforms Do Anything
to Curb Pork Barrel Spending?
M. Shahid Alam
Has Regime Change Boomeranged?
Raed Jarrar
So This is Plan B? The US Attack on Saleh Al-Mutlaq's Headquarters
Bert Sacks
Can the US Legally Kill Iraqi Children?: a Challenge to the Supreme
Court
Kathy Rentenbach
Report from Oaxaca
Stephen Fleischman
The Rain of Riches: Bonuses, Then and Now
George Bisharat
Carter's Truths
Peter Rost, MD
Hail the Hangman, Jail the Cameraman!
Evelyn Pringle
Can Eli Lilly be Held Criminally Liable for Zyprexa?
Website of the Day
Courage to Resist
January 3,
2007
Kathy Kelly
Wrapped
Around a Bullet
Paul Craig
Roberts
His Last Hurrah: Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason
William Johnson
No Worker is Illegal: SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change
Its Policy on Immigration
Stan Cox
Under a Brown Cloud: Money vs. the Monsoon
Trita Parsi
A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran
Declan McKenna
Ireland's Slavish Hostility Toward Cuba
Joe Bageant
Dispatch from the Chinese Landfill
Nicola Nasser
Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism
Missy Beattie
Dead Wrong
Website of
the Day
Pharmed Out
January 2, 2007
Michael Watts
Oil
Inferno
Amina Mire
Return of the Warlords: Death and Destruction for Somalis
James Brooks
Pushing the Wedge in Palestine
Alevtina Rea
The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ?
Al Krebs
Global Food Security: a Call to Action
Peter Rost
Invitation to a Hanging: the Saddam Hussein Execution Video
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
A Deadly December
John Stanton
Appetites for Destruction
Website of the Day
Out Now: Petition
January 1,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Iron
Man, Tin God: the Meaning of Saddam Hussein
Uri Avnery
What
Makes Sammy Run?
Joshua Frank
Eliot Spitzer's Constitutional Hang Up: Architect of New York's
Patriot Act
December 30
/ 31, 2006
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
2006,
Hard to Call It Vintage, But 2007 Could Finally Be Bobby Byrd's
Year
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
2006: a Nation Soaked in Blood Tears Itself Apart
Paul Wolf
Dying for Our Sins: A Lawyer for Saddam Describes How His Execution
on the First of Eid May Transform Him Into a Martyr
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Executing
Saddam, Protecting the Rackets
Tariq Ali
Saddam
at the End of a Rope
Paul Craig Roberts
The New Dark Age: Official Lies, Dogma and Unaccountable Power
Douglas Valentine
At the End of My Rope: Hanging With Saddam
Brian M. Downing
The New Iraq Policy: Escalation
Michael Donnelly
Injustice in Black and White: the Duke Non-Rape Case
Stephen Lendman
Did Sharon Order the Assassination of Arafat? The Revelations
of Uri Dan
Fred Gardner
Comes Now the Ghost of "Decrim:" Nixon and Marijuana
Bailly / Caudron / Lambert
Who Owns Ikea?: the Opaque Legacy of Ingvar Kamprad
Ralph Nader
The Prospects for Progressive Politics
Nick Dearden
The War on Terror Hits Africa
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
The Third Degree: an Interview with AC Thompson on the Origins
of the CIA's Secret Rendition Flights
Missy Beattie
In Harm's Way: How Our National Coward Describes War
Ron Jacobs
Sigh of the Oppressed: Religion and Politics
Dan La Botz
Defend Illegal Immigrants: Help Them! Harbor Them!
Andrew Wimmer
An Act of Contrition: the Peace Movement in 2007
Dr. Carol Wolman, MD
Psychiatrist: Impeach Bush for Good of Country
Martha Rosenberg
New Year's Resolutions for Big Pharma
Dick J. Reavis
News Before It Happens: Bush's 2007 MLK Day Speech
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Listening to James Brown and His Followers
Poets' Basement
Grima, Curtis, Davies, Orloski and Engel
Website of
the Weekend
Charlie Fowler's Photolog: a Life at Altitude
Music Video of the Weekend
"We're Winning the War on Drugs!"
December 29, 2006
Bill Quigley
A
Tale of Two Sisters: Why is HUD Spending Tens of Millions in
Katrina Money to Bulldoze 4,534 Public Housing Apartments in
New Orleans?
Norman Finkelstein
The Dershowitz Treatment
John Borowski
Curb Your Environmentalism: Laurie David and Me
Abid Mustafa
The Re-Talibanization of Afghanistan
Greg Moses
World Responds to Palestinian Family's Jailing Despite Media
Blackout
Uri Cohen
Stand Up for Herod: a Seasonal Story of Ancient Palestine
Bailly / Caudron
/ Lambert
The
Secrets in Ikea's Closet
Website of
the Day
Justice for New Orleans
December 28,
2006
Norman Finkelstein
The
Ludicrous Attacks on Jimmy Carter's Book
Anthony Cowell
Highway Robbery: Privatizing New Jersey's Toll Roads
John Ross
Gateway to the Next Mexican Revolution?
Hilaria Cruz
I'm Going to Stay Right Here: Story of a Oaxacan Prisoner
Greg Moses
Palestinian Immigrant Jailings in Texas
Brittany Bond
The Blood Trail of Luis Posada Carriles, Washington's Preferred
Terrorist
Website of
the Day
Godfather of Soul and Father of Funk
December 27,
2006
Alexander Cockburn
Farewell
to Our Greatest President: Adieu, Gerald Ford
Faruq Ziada
Is
There a Sunni Majority in Iraq?
Christopher Brauchli
Burning EPA's Books: What They Don't Want You to Read Might Save
Your Life
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Journey to Vietnam: Dare We Not Say Genocide?
Nikolas Kozloff
Saving
Caracas
Mark Schneider
Why Hope? Reasons for Optimism
December 26, 2006
Peter Stone
Brown
James
Brown: Please Don't Go
Tito Tricot
Chile: the Ghosts of Torture
Gary Leupp
Cowboys Differ on Iran Attack: Cheney/Bush vs. the Baker Commission
John V. Walsh
Dershowitz vs. Carter in Beantown: Peace Movement AWOL, Again
Reza Fiyouzat
Red Christmas: Why Santa Was Hot in China This Year
Ron Jacobs
The Golem: a Conversation with Marc Estrin
Website of
the Day
JB:
Prisoner of Love
December 25, 2006
Saul Landau
A
Jeep Trip with Fidel
Lang / McGovern
To
Surge or Not to Surge?
Michael Dickinson
Should Stupid Thoughts Be Crimes?: Deny Santa If You Will, But
...
Website of
the Day
James Brown, RIP
December 23 / 24, 2006
Marjorie Cohn
What's
Going On?
Jeffrey L.
Gould
The Capital of Salvadoran Memory: El Mozote After 25 Years
Diane Christian
The Rape of Iraq
William Loren
Katz
From the Raid on "Fort Negro" to Iraq: Lessons from
the First US Invasion
Greg Moses
This War Can't be Made Right by Winning
M. Shahid Alam
An Islamic Civil War: Chaos by Design?
Fred Gardner
Exposé as Inoculant: HRT, Zyprexa, Lilly and the Press
Dave Lindorff
Crime of the Century
Azmi Bishara
Ways of Denial
Ralph Nader
The BCS: a Monopoly on College Football
Seth Sandronsky
Fiscally Imperiled Social Security?
William Hughes
Cop Assaults Activists at Lockheed Protest
Ron Jacobs
Making Stones Weep
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to on New Year's Eve
December 22,
2006
David Rosen
Bush's
Foreign Sex Policy: Imperialism's Second Front
Christopher
Brauchli
When the Secret is the Question: Secret Prisons, Top Secret Interrogations
John Ross
Flashlights
in the Tunnel of Hate
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Political
Sell-Outs in Black and White
Rahul Mahajan
Dennis Kucinich: Maverick or Stalking Horse?
Arthur Neslen
Provoking Civil War in the Occupied Territories
Peter Rost, MD
The Secrets of His Success: Fired Pfizer CEO Walks Away with
$198 Million
Website of
the Day
10 Ways to Change the World in 2007
December 21, 2006
Rosa Mariam
Elizalde
An
Interview with Gore Vidal: "I am Jealous of Cuba"
Arundhati Roy
Breaking the News
Brian Cloughley
Poppies Rising: Afghanistan's Drug Catastrophe
Daniel White
Jimmy Carter in Austin: Time to Come Clean on the Shoot Down
of That Itavia DC-9
John V. Whitbeck
On Israel's Right to Exist
Sam Smith
Still Smearing Ralph Nader for 2000
Paris Reidhead
GM Ice Cream: Something's Fishy in Your Good Humor Bar
Kevin Wehr
Denying Disaster: Katrina and the Case for Impeachment
Website of the Day
Pesticides and Amphibians: a Vital New Database
December 20, 2006
Gabriel Kolko
Rumsfeld
and the American Way of War
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The Pentagon Measures the Chaos in Iraq
Tariq Ali
The War is Lost
Saree Makdisi
Israel, Apartheid and Jimmy Carter
Bruce Jackson
Saying "Oh!": John Mohawk and the Power to Make Peace
Dave Lindorff
Democrats Walk Into a Bush Trap on Iraq
Leslie Radford
The Winter Harvest of the South Central Farmers
Dave Jansson
Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Secessionists Confront the
Empire
Johnny Barber
Jesus is a Terrorist
Website of
the Day
Is It for Freedom?
December 19, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
Democrats
Prepare to Fund Longer War
Jonathan Cook
End
of the Strongmen
Greg Moses
Globalized Gulag: Palestinian Refugees and Children Held in Hutto,
TX Jail
Sean Penn
Georgie,
There's a Crowd Downstairs
Dave Lindorff
Innocents Abroad: Cracking Down on Gitmo Detainees Despite Overwhelming
Evidence Most Are Not Terrorists
Ralph Nader
Going
Postal
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Pink Tide?
Carlos Villarreal
The
Well is Poisoned: Victory Requires an Immediate Pull-Out
Website of
the Day
Chuck Spinney on the Pentagon
December 18, 2006
Luis J. Rodriguez
En
Lak Ech: Chicanos, Mayans and Mel Gibson
Norman Solomon
Washington Refuses to End the War: Powell, Baker, Hamilton--Thanks
for Nothing!
Uri Avnery
Lebanon: War Without a Plan
Ron Jacobs
More Troops, More Body Bags
Phil Gasper
Afghanistan: Bush's Other War Unravels
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Iran's Elections: The World Isn't Florida and Bush Isn't Its
Supreme Leader
William Blum
The United States of Punishment
Jim Goodman
So What's the Big Deal If Wal-Mart Makes a Mistake?
James Brooks
Talking Surge: Let's Kill Some More Before We Go
Maria C. Khoury
Walking Into the Art World: Designing a Palestinian Academy for
the Arts
Website of the Day
Got Powell
December 16 / 17, 2006
Weekend Edition
Vijay Prashad
A
Perilous Way to Socialism
Saul Landau
Filming Fidel
Anthony Arnove
The US Occupation of Iraq: Act III of a Tragedy of Many Parts
Paul Cantor
The Puppet and the Puppeteer: Pinochet and Kissinger
Annie Nocenti
Baluchistan's Fight: The Khan of Kalat Gathers the Tribes
Nicole Colson
Hard Times on the Killing Floor: Smithfield's Rotten Record
Stephen Gowans
Tehran's Holocaust Conference
Jordan Flaherty
A Catastrophic Failure: Foundations, Nonprofits and the Second
Looting of New Orleans
Fred Gardner
Dustin Costa Faces 15 to Life
P. Sainath
There's No Such Thing as a Free Cow
Seth Sandronsky
The Democrats and Social Security: Watch What the Party Says
and Does
Nadia Hijab
An AIPAC Shot Across Baker's Bow?
Deb Reich
Dear Santa, (Or Someone): Greetings from the Occupied Holy Lands
Susie Day
Cops Shoot Another Rich White Man!
Albert Wan
Why Does It Take 50 Bullets?
Missy Beattie
Will the Next Leader Stand Up? Please!
Martha Rosenberg
Kicking the Wyeth Habit Saves Women's Lives
Lee Ballinger
The Devil's Highway: Clinton, Border Checkpoints and the Deaths
of the Yuma 14
Michael Dickinson
Kingdom of Fear
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Live/Evil: Listening to Miles Davis
Poets' Basement
Davies, Buknatski and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine"
December 15,
2006
Eliza Ernshire
Palestinian
"Civil War" and the Israeli Chocolate Ration
Virginia Tilley
What
Are You Going to Do Now, Israel?
Mike Ferner
Roll Call for the Choir: If They Vote for War, Occupy 'Em!
John Ross
Mad Mel's Mayan Apocalypse
Fred Wilhelms
The Flip Side of Ahmet Ertegun: Where Did You Get Those Shoes?
Kevin Zeese
Dennis Kucinich's Strange Mission: Can You Be a Real Anti-War
Candidate in a Pro-War Party?
David Severn
Social Engineering Begins at Home: Jeffrey Skoll, Billionaire
Philantropist
Dave Lindorff
Sen. Tim Johnson Death Watch: Senate Gridlock May Be Best Outcome
Sunsara Taylor
As American as Shopping and Torture
Website of
the Day
June 2, 2004: When Iraq Was There For The Looting
December 14,
2006
Jonathan Cook
The
Recognition Trap
Riz Khan
An Interview with Jimmy Carter
Jason Hribal
Kasatka, the Sea World Orca
Pennick / Gray
The Plight of Black Farmers: Racism in the US Farm Program
Richard Levins
That Embezzled Anti-Castro Money
Pat Williams
The College Crisis: Universal Access, Student Loan Debts and
Pell Grants
Peter Rost, MD
Simply Irresistible: Do Women Prefer Bad Boys?
Website of
the Day
The Sound of Rummy
December 13,
2006
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
is Beyond Repair
Greg Moses
The Dixie Chicks Come Home to Roost
Elizabeth Schulte
Hungry for the Holidays
Joshua Frank
Death By Coke
Debra Eschmeyer
Corporations Control Your Dinner
Leon Hadar
Baker's Rescue Mission: Too Little, Too Late
Peter Rost, MD
I've Been a Very Bad Boy
Margaret Knapke
Mow bé and Malachi, Presenté!
Reza Fiyouzat
Are Cows Free?
Fred Wilhelms
A Last Minute Appeal: If You Know One of These Musicians Let
Them Know They Are Owed Money--By Friday!
Website of
the Day
The Crimes of Augusto Pinochet
December 12, 2006
Fernando A.
Torres
The
Last Man of the Junta: an Open Letter to Kissinger from One of
Pinochet's Political Prisoners
Paul Craig
Roberts
America's
Injustice System is Criminal
Stephen Soldz
Abusive Interrogations
Uri Avnery
Baker's Cake
William S. Lind
Knocking Opportunity: From Vulcans to Vultures in Iraq
Missy Beattie
Convicted for Our Convictions: Trespassing for Truth at the UN
Dave Lindorff
The 35-Year Long Scream: Torture, Impeachment and a Vietnam Vet's
Tears
George Pyle
Our Perverse Farm Plan: Where Christmas Comes Every Five Years
Norman Solomon
Is the USA the Center of the World?
Website of
the Day
Citizens' War Tribunal
December 11,
2006
Virginia Tilley
Banning
Mandela
Roger Burbach
The Condor Model: the Atrocities of Pinochet and the US
Col. Douglas MacGregor
There's Only One Option Left: Leave!
Fawwas Traboulsi
Lebanon on the Brink
Ron Jacobs
Death of a Pig: Poetic Justice for Pinochet
Gideon Levy
The Cruel Line into Gaza: Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle
Mary McGrane
Burning Books at Harvard Law
Bernardo Ruiz
The Disappeared of Oaxaca: a Message from One of the Actors in
Apocalypto
Website of the Day
La Cancion de la Unidad
Video of the
Day
Killing
Castro: Congresswoman as Contract Killer?
December 9
/ 10, 2006
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
Liberal
Consensus for More Troops in Iraq
Sen. Gordon Smith
Out of Iraq: Cut and Run or Cut and Walk
Greg Grandin
Jeane
Kirkpatrick, Mid-Wife of the Neo-Cons
Paul Craig Roberts
How Many More Will Die for Bush's Ego?
Col. Dan Smith
The Vietnamization of Iraq: Inside the Military Training Program
Ralph Nader
The Man from NAM: John Engler's Trail of Destruction
Behrooz Ghamari
The Donkey and the Date: Iran's Upcoming Municipal Elections
Rev. Willliam Alberts
Doing Unto Others: Pastor Haggard and President Bush
James T. Phillips
The James Gang: "Did You Kill Her?"
Bennis / Leaver
A Bi-Partisan Occupation
Dave Lindorff
A Congress of Hucksters and Pipsqueaks
Nikolas Kozloff
Robert Gates and Venezuela: Another Saber Rattler in Latin America
Seth Sandronsky
Activating White Racism
Lucinda Marshall
McKinney and Karpinsky: Silenced for Telling the Truth
Mike Whitney
Something's Gotta Give: James Baker vs. the Lobby
John V. Whitbeck
Recommendation No. 80
Faisal Kutty
Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Merely a Western
Construct?
Hugh Sansom
Smearing Jimmy Carter: an Open Letter to the New York Times
Robert Gold
My South American Journey: Impunity in Colombia
Boots Riley
Crash and Burn: an Urgent Message from The Coup
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Engel & Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Alive in Mexico
December 8, 2006
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Study Group's Cautious Appraisal
Leutisha Stills
Just
How Progressive is the Congressional Black Caucus?
Norman Finkelstein
The Media Lynching of Jimmy Carter
Will Youmans
Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington: Brookings Hosts an Ethnic
Cleanser
Peter Rost, MD
What Went Wrong at Pfizer?
Jonathan Demme
My Friend Bruce Langhorne: a Great Musician Needs Your Help!
Ray McGovern
Senate Democrats Give Gates a Free Pass
Lucinda Marshall
What She Wore
Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn
The Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
John Lennon's FBI Files
December 7,
2006
Alex Friedman
Rev.
Phelps' Hate-Fueled Fanatics Find a Home in the Kansas Prison
Industry
Maureen Webb
Risk Scoring and the National Insecurity State
Paul Craig Roberts
Catastrophe Still Awaits
Dave Lindorff
Prosecutor Admits: Mumia Abu-Jamal Had "No True Defense"
Matt Vidal
Drug Pushers, Inc.: Power and Profit in the Legal Drug Trade
Yifat Susskind
Looking for a Few Good Principles: What Should be Done in Iraq
Rodriguez / Jones
NYPD's Death Squads: From Diallo to Sean Bell
Website of
the Day
2006, Remixed
December 6, 2006
Robert Bryce
Omitting
the Obvious with James Baker: From the S&L Crisis to the
Iraq Study Group
William S. Lind
The Boomerang Effect: When Will the First IED Strike Cincy?
Zoe Blunt
The Clearcut Truth About the Great Bear Rainforest
Corporate Crime Reporter
The New Conventional Wisdom: Prosecute Individuals, Not Corporations
Amira Hass
A Regrettable Indifference: Israel's Treatment of Palestinian
Prisoners
Richard W. Behan
The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War
Sophie McNeill
Why Hezbollah is Broadcasting Sunday Mass
December 5, 2006
Virginia Tilley
Apartheid
Israel: a Beacon of Hope?
Sharon Smith
The New Washington Consensus: Blame the Victims in Iraq
Joe Bageant
Somewhere a Banker Smiles
Ron Jacobs
A War Washington Can't Win
Norman Solomon
Media Consensus, Stay in Iraq!
Mike Whitney
Rumsfeld's Final Snowflake: "I Was Just About to Change
Everything ... "
Derrick O'Keefe
Regimes Unchanged: Chavez's Victory Strengthen's Cuba
Julian Assange
The Road to Hanoi
Missy Beattie
Bush, the Unhappy Helmsman
Website of
the Day
Lessons of Suez and Iraq
December 4,
2006
Alexander Cockburn
Gaza
and Darfur
George Ciccariello-Maher
Tears of the Escualidos: Election Diary, Venezuela
Ray McGovern
Lame Ducks, Hold That Nomination!: a CIA Insider's Take on Gates
John Ross
Repression on the Menu in Mexico
Walden Bello
Hurricane Milton: Friedman, Bayonets and Markets
Peter Rost,
MD
Pfizer's Clueless Executives
Stephen Lendman
The Withering of the Bush Dynasty
Gideon Levy
This Ceasefire will Go Up in Flames
Website of the Day
The "Babes" of Hizbullah?
December 2
/ 3, 2006
Weekend Edition
Barucha Calamity
Peller
The
Dirty War of Oaxaca
Paul Craig
Roberts
Is Bush Sane?: When Denial Goes Pathological
Ralph Nader
The Big Boys of Financial Crime
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Committee of Enablers: Is Gates Fit to Serve? Are the Senators?
Amira Hass
The Checkpoint Generation
Maymanah Farhat
Depoliticizing Arab Art: Christie's and the Rush to "Discover"
the Arab World
Dave Lindorff
Fighting the Iraq War--At Home
Fred Gardner
Dr. Jimenez Defends His Practice Methods
Col. Dan Smith
The Semantics of Civil War
Raed Jarrar
Maliki's Monopoly of Power
Seth Sandronsky
US Prison Nation: Locking Up Surplus Labor
K.-Y. Taylor
The Bride Wore Black: the Shooting of Sean Bell and the Resurgence
of American Racism
Yifat Susskind
Greed, Dogma and AIDS
David Rosen
Made in China: the Global Trade in Sex Toys
Ron Jacobs
All Hands on Deck!: the New Pirates of the Caribbean
Nikolas Kozloff
Venezuela Prepares to Vote
Talli Nauman
Fighting La Choya: the Secret Toxic Dump on the Border
Alan Gregory
Shadow Trout: Why Hatchery Fish Aren't Real
Joe Allen
RFK and Hollywood Mythmaking: Emilio Estevez's Beatification
of Bobby Kennedy
St. Clair /
D'Antoni
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Davies, Engel, Ford and Orloski
Website of
the Day
Demo for Oaxaca
December 1,
2006
Greg Grandin
Midnight
in Mexico: Calderón's Inauguration Behind Closed Doors
Linn Washington,
Jr.
The
Mumia Case After 25 Years: Still More Keystone Kops Antics
George Ciccariello-Maher
Sleeping with the Enemy: At Home with the Anti-Chavistas
Brian J. Foley
Taking Responsibility for Iraq
Dave Zirin
Rebel Athletes: Organizing the Jocks for Justice
Joshua Frank
The Montana Formula: Jon Tester's Neopopulism
Chris Floyd
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|
Weekend
Edition
January 12 / 14, 2007
Lost in a Masquerade
Holiday
Hypocrisy
By STEPHEN LENDMAN
Borrowing the line from Gilbert &
Sullivan's HMS Pinafore: "Things are seldom as they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream." It's as true here in the
US today as it was in 19th century England, and its message explains
how to understand and view our affairs of state and why the title
of this essay was chosen--to reflect on our national federal
holidays that, in fact, represent something much different than
the stated reasons we commemorate them for. Eleven such holidays
are reviewed below moving chronologically through the year post-New
Year's Day discussed briefly at the end because it's part of
the Christmas holiday season celebration.
Martin Luther
King Day
Martin Luther King was a Baptist
minister, political activist, renowned orator, Nobel Peace Prize
laureate and the most noted leader of the American civil rights
movement until his assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968,
two months before Robert Kennedy met the same fate in a Los Angeles
hotel a day after he won the Democrat primary in his campaign
for the office of president that year. In mid-January, King's
January 15 birthday is commemorated as a federal holiday as it
has been since it was for the first time on January 20, 1986
after Ronald Reagan reluctantly signed the legislation authorizing
it in November, 1983. He did it in spite of his personal opposition,
only capitulating after the bill authorizing it was passed in
both Houses of Congress with veto-proof margins.
After King's death in 1968,
Representative John Conyers introduced a bill in the House to
make his birthday a national holiday. It was a long struggle
from then till it was finally achieved because of racist opposition
in the Congress against honoring a black man led by former Senator
Jesse Helms who accused Dr. King of having communist ties as
well as making other outlandish slurs against his good name and
accusing him of opposing the Vietnam war which he certainly did
with passion and eloquence that may have led to his death.
Helms was a hard-liner throughout
his public life (like too many others in the Congress then and
now), and his career was characterized by mean-spiritedness and
a lifelong opposition to democracy, diversity and affirmative
action as well as his racist support for segregation and efforts
to deny black people their constitutionally mandated rights.
Some may also remember his 1990 reelection campaign waged against
Harvey Gantt, the first black mayor of Charlotte, NC, in which
Helms disgracefully used a racist ad to counter his opponent's
lead in the polls. It was called "Hands" and showed
a pair of white hands crumpling a job-rejection letter with a
narration explaining he was best qualified and needed the job
a racial quota gave to a less deserving black man. It worked,
overcoming Gantt's lead and helped reelect Helms undeservedly.
Martin Luther King Day is the
only national holiday commemorating an African American, but
it took over 15 long years of campaigning to get it authorized
and over two more before it was first observed. It took even
longer for Dr. King's day to be finally recognized in all 50
states for the first time on January 17, 2000. It likely only
happened at all because the Congress finally was moved to act
after receiving a petition with six million signatures that was
the largest number ever collected supporting a national issue.
Sadly, it happened because an assassin's bullet took his life
much too soon.
To this day, the question remains:
who killed Martin Luther King, but it's not hard to imagine why.
James Earl Ray was accused of being the lone assassin, at first
pleaded guilty in 1969 after being arrested earlier and held
in jail for eight months. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison,
never got a trial, and retracted his guilty plea three days after
making it claiming his lawyer deceived him--to no avail. The
case was closed and his fate was sealed even though later evidence
uncovered casts great doubt on his guilt. He nonetheless spent
the rest of his life in prison dying on April 23, 1998 at age
70. Today his name is hardly ever mentioned in the dominant media
nor is any attempt made to clear it, which is no surprise.
But if Ray didn't do it, who
then had a motive and might have. Every year commemorating his
birth, we note and honor Dr. King's memorable "I have a
Dream" speech while ignoring the most important of his dreams
including the speeches he made supporting them. King was the
foremost of our nation's civil rights advocates, but he also
wanted to end the country's long history of exploitative materialism
and culture of militarism supporting it. He wanted everyone's
civil rights respected and honored but also was dedicated to
pursuing social justice, promoting non-violence, and was unreservedly
against war, becoming increasingly vocal in his opposition to
the one raging in Vietnam using powerful language like calling
the US government "the greatest purveyor of violence in
the world."
King had already won great
victories in his civil rights battles with the passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 that for
the first time gave African Americans the rights guaranteed them
under the Constitution that Jim Crow laws in the South denied
them for decades. It was his public stand on the other great
issues driving him that caused those in power concern. No King
commemorative today ever mentions his memorable "Beyond
Vietnam" speech delivered to clergy and the public on April
4, 1967, one year to the day before he was assassinated in Memphis.
It was an heroic and spellbinding moment with Dr. King at his
eloquent best calling for an end to the war and violence. It
also may have been a defining moment in his life that had a single
year left in it.
King knew he lived on the edge
because of his beliefs and his ability to reach and profoundly
influence a vast audience in the country and throughout the world.
He rightfully believed his life was in danger and it might just
be a matter of time before it was taken. We don't know for sure
who, in fact, killed him if it wasn't James Earl Ray which seems
very unlikely based on the best evidence now known. We do know
who had motive, cause and easy opportunity to do it most any
time or place. We also know if the US government was behind it,
what part of it likely got the assignment.
It may have been the FBI with
its long record of abuse against targeted enemies of the state
that includes extensive documentation of its Cointelpro operations
from the 1950s till the early 1970s but likely never stopped
and has to be more active than ever now in the age of George
Bush and its culture of illegal surveillance, witch-hunting,
and imperial justice. In earlier years, the FBI targeted organizations
and individuals on the left as well as those considered radical
including non-violent ones like The Black Panthers, the American
Indian Movement, and Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC) and Dr. King himself because of Director J.
Edgar Hoover's obsession with the civil rights leader and his
near-fanatical efforts to defame and defile him.
The CIA has an even more disturbing
record of lawlessness as part of its overall mandate to collect
and analyze intelligence about foreign governments, corporations,
organizations and individuals as well as conduct whatever covert,
"black bag," or extrajudicial state-sponsored assassinations
assigned it that in half a century ran into the hundreds.
Since it was created in 1947,
the CIA's record has been documented in detail including in the
works of author, researcher and former State Department employee
William Blum in his books Rogue State and Killing Hope detailing
the shameful record of US foreign policy and the CIA's role in
it since WW II. It includes carrying out state-sponsored assassinations
including those against foreign leaders unwilling to surrender
their nation's sovereignty to ours based on imperial management
with no outliers allowed--reason enough to remove them with CIA
operatives often assigned the task but taking care to do it with
enough discretion to make it look like the long arm of Washington
was uninvolved.
Through the years the methods
used have included a "rogue element's bullet, a hard to
detect poison or an "unfortunate" plane crash that
was the method of choice to murder Panamian president Omar Torrijos
in 1981 and Ecuadorian president Jaimi Roldos in a helicopter
crash the same year. Sometimes other "plane accidents"
are like the one CIA-trained Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) personnel,
led by Ugandan-born and US-trained Paul Kagame (at Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas' Command and General Staff College), arranged with surface-to-air
missiles to shoot down the aircraft carrying Rwandan President
Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira
on April 6, 1994 that led to the ethnic slaughter that year.
It elevated "our guy" Major-General Kagame to power
and later to be president of Rwanda where he let US forces operate
freely in the country using it as a base to pursue the greater
prize Washington sought in the resource-rich Congo (DRC)even
though it took hundreds of thousands of innocent lives to do
it and millions in Congo where war for its spoils still continues
but gets little attention.
Probably the best known and
most infamous state-sponsored assassination was the CIA-orchestrated
coup and murder of Chilean president Salvador Allende on another
September 11 in 1973. It ended the most vibrant democracy in
the Americas replacing it with the brutal 17 year dictatorship
of General Augusto Pinochet, who unfortunately died on December
10 without ever having to answer for his crimes against humanity.
So far neither have those in authority at CIA or higher-ups in
the Nixon administration like Henry Kissinger. He played a key
role in the coup plot, ironically the same year he won a Nobel
Peace Prize, as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State
and now must check with the State Department for legal advice
before traveling abroad for assurance he won't be served with
a warrant for his arrest and detention.
That kind of record through
the years shows CIA and its operatives may have been behind the
murder of Martin Luther King to remove a powerful voice whose
influential opposition to war and support for non-violence and
social justice conflicted with this government's agenda of imperial
conquest for power and profit.
If one or more FBI, CIA or
other US government assassins murdered Martin Luther King, the
federal holiday commemorating his birth mocks him and stands
as a shameless deceptive act dishonoring all he stood and worked
for in his short 39 year life. It also makes his day of observance
an act of collective guilt by the nation responsible for ending
a noble life that might have accomplished far more if he'd had
a chance to continue pursuing the goals he hoped to achieve but
never got the chance. Maybe that was the whole idea and the reason
he wasn't allowed to go on with his work.
Presidents'
Day
Presidents' Day is observed
on the third Monday of February, was formerly celebrated as Washington's
Birthday, and now states have the option to use either designation
or some other one if they choose as Alabama does commemorating
Washington and Jefferson Day. They can also pick another day
as Georgia does observing Washington's birthday the day after
Christmas.
The period around this time
is often used as an occasion for schools to teach students the
history of US presidents, especially Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln
and some of our other noted ones. If only that occasion were
used to teach real history (like found in Howard Zinn's A People's
History of the United States) instead of the fiction leading
young minds to believe these historic leaders were larger than
life heros, noble in purpose and service to the nation in its
highest office, and now deserving to be revered and remembered
with a few further immortalized in granite sculpture carving
at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial on stolen Lakota Sioux
land in South Dakota's Black Hills.
No past president gets more
reverential treatment than our first, the general who led the
Continental Army against the British in the nation's war of liberation
from the Crown. He became our first president by coronation because
he ran unopposed twice, and he's now known as the "Father
of the Country" because he was its leader in war and then
"selected" as its first head of state. Students are
never taught that Washington expressed great aspirations referring
to the new nation as a "rising empire" even at its
birth and backed his sentiments with deeds to help make it one.
He did it during the Revolutionary War by his savage acts against
native Indians, all of whom he considered subhumans (or American
Untermenschen). He compared them to wolves and "beasts of
prey" and called for their total destruction much like the
way George Bush today calls for defeating "terrorists"
less well-defined than the ones Washington's had in mind and
went about destroying ruthlessly.
He dispatched General John
Sulivan and 5,000 troops to attack the noncombatant Onondaga
people in 1779 with orders to destroy all their villages, homes,
fields, food supplies, cattle herds and orchards in a scorched
earth campaign to annihilate them. He wanted to kill as many
as possible and did. He also wanted their land (like Bush today
wants Iraq's oil) and took it by force, including from the Onieda
people who aided Washington when he most needed help at Valley
Forge. The truth about the nation's "Father," kept
out of young minds in school, was our first president and all
others after him pursued a policy of genocide against the nation's
original inhabitants who lived mainly in peace for thousands
of years on the lands we came uninvited to and took from them.
It began in 1492 when Columbus
and those with him first arrived in what's now Haiti exterminating
virtually the entire estimated eight million native Arawak, or
Taino, people. The genocidal slaughter of all North, South and
Central American Indian peoples followed reducing their population
by about 100 million or as much as 98% of their original numbers.
This is our shameful legacy of a new nation conceived as a great
democratic experiment never tried before in the West outside
of ancient Athens for a few decades but only for a privileged
minority in it then and now.
It was never intended to be
one for the nation's indigenous peoples. Their presence impeded
what came to be known by the 1840s as the our "Manifest
Destiny," or virtual divine right, to expand west and south
seizing all the land from coast to coast south of Canada from
the people living on it who were exterminated as well as Texas
and the northern half of Mexico we wanted including the prized
possession of California.
Also excluded from our grand
vision were the many millions of black African captives sold
into slavery and sent to their harsh fate in the new world "democracy"
where those surviving the oppressive Middle Passage voyage, at
the cost of 50 million lives lost some believe, were held in
brutal bondage as human property to serve against their will
or be sold like commodities to another master.
This is the true legacy of
Presidents' Day. It commemorates the nation's leaders who led
the nation making it grow by a state policy of genocide and imperial
expansion for wealth and power at the expense of those in the
way of the privileged class whose only concern for ordinary people
was and still is the use they could get from them. Try finding
that history in a secondary or college text (unless Howard Zinn
or a few others wrote it) or mentioned in the corporate-controlled
media the next time this day of dishonor is observed.
Easter
Easter is a day of great religious
significance, but only for Christians who worship Jesus of Nazareth
or Jesus Christ. It's not observed by many around the country
or world of other religious faiths or none at all. Still, in
the US, Christian observances take on special meaning in a nation
first settled and founded by those of Christian faith even though
most came for secular reasons, not to escape religious persecution.
The Founders believed church and state should be separated, and
Jefferson first spoke of "a wall of separation" between
the two in 1802 after freedom of religion was mandated in the
First Amendment to the Constitution that came into force in 1791.
Still, throughout our history,
many believed the nation was a Christian one and tried to tear
down the separation wall the Founders erected. That view became
especially prominent since the ascendancy of neoconservative
influence, beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980,
as these hard-liners want the country governed by Christian principles,
including Judaic ones as well, but give short shrift to others
and demonizing them the way Islam is now condemned as something
synonymous with "terrorism" and "Islamofascism."
In the US today, all Christian
holidays of importance get prominent mention and due reverence
paid them, especially Christmas and Easter, the two holiest days
in the Christian calendar. Prominent Jews, too, aren't ignored,
many have near-equal status with Christians, and most non-Jews
in the country know about special Jewish holy days like the Yom
Kippur Day of Atonement and Rosh Hashanah New Year even if they're
not sure why they're commemorated.
But try finding any mention
of a Muslim holy day other than a general recognition of Ramadan
(established in the year 638) without explanation of what the
month-long observance in the 9th month of the Islamic calendar
signifies. This period is considered the most important and blessed
month of the Islamic year, and it's believed there are about
as many Muslims in the US as Jews as well as about 1.8 billion
of them worldwide (compared to an estimated 13.3 million Jews
overall in 2002), a number surely large enough to warrant its
adherents respect but instead only finds them wrongly condemned
as a collective Antichrist and threat to national security.
Easter is commemorated between
late March and late April (and early April to early May in Eastern
Christianity little known about in the US) and is also known
as Resurrection Day. It's the most important religious feast
of the Christian liturgical year and thus gets due prominence
in prayer and public displays of religious observance. But Americanized
flair goes much further taking full advantage of a chance to
commercialize almost anything. So around this period there are
Easter Sunday parades and other non-religious promotional activities
and expressions that always manage to be emphasized--even on
the day celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which observers
believe occurred on the third day following his death by crucifixion
between 27 and 33 AD. The Roman Catholic Church gives this period
special recognition with an eight day feast called the Octave
of Easter. It's also the time of year when the Jewish seven day
period of Passover is commemorated, marking the Exodus of the
Israelites from enslavement in Egypt, that also now gets more
prominent mention in the country as part of the effort to market
anything, even important religious days and periods of observance,
but only ones celebrated by Christians and Jews.
In a nation obsessed with and
addicted to a culture of consumerism, even marketing the Almighty
is fair game. Easter then, like other holidays and special days
in the calendar, is just another day to be exploited for profit
along with it being observed for the event and significance it
commemorates. It's a subject left for the end of this essay when
its most frenzied expression arrives between Thanksgiving and
the New Year celebration. It's the time of year when corporate
America's only interest in the spirit of the season is how to
make a buck out of it--as many as possible because that's the
make-or-break time of year they rely on and must do well in to
have the year overall be successful for owners and/or shareholders.
So with Thanksgiving dinner still being digested, they practically
scream "let the holiday shopping begin," and let it
continue right into the new year almost unabated.
It happens on Easter as well,
whether it's new outfits for the season, a day or two on the
town, vacation travel or any other way the business community
can exploit an occasion to get the public to part with its resources
spent on everything imaginable people never knew they needed
or wanted until the power of round the clock advertising convinced
them their lives would be unfulfilled without them. Discussion
of this subject will be picked up later in this essay to show
it's quite acceptable to exploit a religious holy day for profit
even if it corrupts the reason it's commemorated that should
be an occasion for solemnity and not for the consumerism that
defiles it. But corporate bottom lines aren't enhanced by religious
reverence or observance--at least not until the big business
finds ways to sell its wares in places and at times of worship
and can get away with it. It's hard to imagine they're not trying
to figure out how to do it.
Memorial
and Veterans Days
Because both days are related,
they're discussed under a single heading. The first, Memorial
Day, is commemorated on the last Monday in May and was first
observed in 1866 and called Decoration Day beginning in 1868.
Usage of Memorial Day wasn't common until after WW II and wasn't
the holiday's official name until federal law called it that
in 1967. The day is an occasion to honor the nation's men and
women who died in military service to the country. More on that
in a moment.
Veterans Day was formerly known
as Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day in Europe, that originally
commemorated the end of WW I on the 11th hour of the 11th day
of the 11th month of the year in 1918 when the guns went silent,
or were supposed to. It was first observed in the US in 1919
and made a legal holiday here in 1938. In June, 1954, Congress
enacted legislation changing the holiday's name to Veterans Day.
Both holidays would never be
needed in a nation dedicated to peace, but one committed to perpetual
war for an unattainable peace dishonors its youth in life and
disingenuously honors those who died in imperial wars for conquest
and plunder. Nations waging wars only guarantee more of them
in an endless cycle of violence, militarism, brutality and shameless
inhumanity to those made to suffer and die in combat theaters--so
the privileged who get to stay home can profit from them.
People don't want wars but
can always be made to support and fight in them using the proven
method of choice that always works--fear based on shameless lies
and deception by governments with hidden motives unrevealed because
who would go along with them if they did. Only by deceitfully
scaring people enough to believe the nation's security is threatened
will they support foreign wars and fight in them thinking they
have no other choice. When traumatized enough, those wanting
peace can be convinced to go along with the most outlandish schemes
planned that if ever explained would be condemned and never supported.
If people only knew the wisdom
of iconic investigative journalist IF Stone, they'd know in times
of war, or events leading to it, truth is the first casualty.
He told young journalists that "All governments are run
by liars and nothing they say (about anything) should be believed,
and on another occasion shortened it saying, "All governments
lie."
Serial lying is the defining
characteristic of the Bush administration, but all others earlier
were duplicitous as well including the one led by the Republican
former president just passed whose short two and a half year
tenure only gave him less time to commit fewer crimes of war
and against humanity. He managed to do his best with the time
he had, yet we honor him instead of exposing his shameless acts
deserving condemnation.
It's almost like it's preordained
and in the country's DNA that this nation is warrior state sending
its expendable youth to fight and die in foreign wars but not
for national security, honor or the rights of free people anywhere.
It's always for wealth and power that conquest and plunder afford
the privileged who get to stay home safe and in comfort letting
others do their dying and then shamelessly hold a day of remembrance
honoring them for their sacrifice. This is the long tradition
of this nation that since inception in 1776 has been at war with
one or more adversaries every year without exception from that
time to the present.
These two federal holidays
warrant special condemnation. They represent a galling legacy
of endless wars and false patriotic glorification of them including
the so-called "good" one about which there was nothing
good at all. Choosing days to honor the dead who sacrificed everything
is a sacrilege and failure to note they died in vain on the alter
of power and privilege for the few. Their deaths assure an unending
cycle of violence and killing with legions of nameless, faceless
grave sites ahead known only to those experiencing unconscionable
loss.
These commemorative days stand
above the others as symbols of this nation's depravity and ultimate
crime against humanity and wasted lives it's taken. They ignore
what Lincoln hoped for at Gettysburg in November, 1863 when he
said "we here resolve that these dead shall not have died
in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of
freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for
the people shall not perish from the earth." He knew the
horror of war and understood for that to be they must end. He
also feared they would not and had to reflect that future wars
would take their leaders to new battlefields in an endless cycle
of death and destruction wars always guarantee.
Future commemorations of past
wars should chart a new course--a vow pledging they'll end, and
this nation resolves never again. Remembrance should then be
an act of contrition and path to redemption, honoring the living,
and taking a sacred oath of non-violence promising to stand by
it for all time. It should be a solemn dedication to equity and
social justice for all in a state of peace renouncing wars and
the shameless holidays in their honor. One day they'll be no
more wars because no one will go fight in them. When it comes,
days of memorial and honoring veterans will end replaced by a
Peace Day honoring the living and sacredness of life so those
past dead finally won't have died in vain. Pray it comes soon.
Independence
Day
Along with Christmas, no federal
holiday is more celebrated than the day of the nation's independence
from the British Crown declared on July 4, 1776. Coming in the
summer with good weather across the country, it's a day of parades,
outings, and baseball at all levels that many years ago nearly
always meant so-called major league double-headers that was a
big occasion for young boys growing up in "big league"
cities whose dads took them out for an endless day at the ballpark.
It's also a day of commemorative and exulting fireworks and other
expressions celebrating the nation's history, liberation and
traditions--not the truths about them but the acceptable illusions
taught in school and extolled by the dominant media and their
disingenuous allies in academia and the clergy who go along propagating
the nation's myths.
Young minds are never taught
the nation's real history, just what's falsely glorified with
all ugly parts about important events and leaders responsible
for them suppressed to assure a new generation of "good
citizens" is properly trained, just like the ones preceding
it, assuring those in it will be loyal to the state because they
believe the mythology about the country schools at all levels
teach is the greatest on earth.
We should commemorate the glorious
achievement of our Founders and their Revolution that liberated
the nation from a repressive British monarchy and aristocracy
replacing it with an experimental system of government never
tried before in the West outside its imperfect form in Athens
in ancient Greece for a few decades. After the war of liberation,
the Founders met in 1787, in the same Philadelphia State House
where the Declaration of Independence was signed 11 years earlier,
to frame our historic Constitution and later our Bill of Rights
ratified in 1791.
It was historic and glorious,
but much was left undone and to be desired. Only white male property
owners got the most fundamental of all rights in a democracy
until 1850--the right to vote that should have been federally
mandated for all male and female adults in the country but wasn't.
In addition, slavery was a national shame until the 13th Amendment
freed black people, who were just property until 1865. But they
still never got real liberties until the civil rights legislation
of the 1960s completed what the Constitution and its Amendments
left undone. Even so, from then to the present, African Americans
and others of color have always had far fewer rights and privileges
than the nation's whites, and shamefully our society is as segregated
today as it was in the 1960s before the landmark civil rights
laws were passed guaranteeing this would never happen again.
It did, and it's hardly a reason for people affected and all
others of conscience to celebrate on July 4 or any day.
The nation's native Indians
have even less to celebrate, the small number of them remaining
of the 100 million or so throughout the Americas slaughtered
without mercy from the very earliest days before the nation was
liberated from the British Crown. Native Americans lived on these
lands for thousands of years in relative peace. It wasn't until
white settlers and "Western civilization" arrived that
everything changed for the worst.
When the first European settlers
came in the late 15th century, they were accepted and at times
aided by the nation's first peoples who preferred peace to conflict.
But native graciousness wasn't returned in kind, and it led to
the great push West and South and near total extermination of
the many great Indian nations given no rights or quarter in our
grand new democratic experiment for the privileged few. It was
only in 1924 that indigenous peoples got any rights with the
passage of the Indian Citizenship Act when there were hardly
any left to enjoy what little they got grudgingly. Getting no
rights at all were the many millions never born because their
ancestors were slaughtered in cold blood leaving no new generations
to follow.
Even today, in the 21st century,
over 80 years since Indian people got citizenship including the
right to vote, no peoples overall in the "land of the free"
have fewer rights as citizens or live in more desperate poverty
and despair unaddressed and virtually ignored than the original
inhabitants of this vast continent for whom justice long delayed
is justice never gotten. No day is ever held honoring these courageous
people acknowledging their sacrifice for what the privileged
few now enjoy.
Why would any of them, even
as citizens, have reason to commemorate the date of the nation's
"liberation" that for them only meant the continuance
of their destruction and denial of their proud cultures. Today
the traditions of our original inhabitants are unknown by the
greater public, they're untaught in schools, and they're ignored
by the dominant media that only disgracefully mock and demonize
Indian people in films and society as drunks, beasts, primitives
and savages, noble or otherwise. What native American could respect
a government speaking only with forked tongue and acting like
real savages making and breaking treaties, taking their lands,
destroying their welfare and finally their lives. The kind of
"liberation" this nation brought to the people of Iraq
for the past 16 years, we gave our original inhabitants for 500
years "liberating" them, like Iraqis today, from their
liberty and lives.
Others in the nation also have
little to celebrate on this or any other day. Today it's truer
than ever in an age of extreme greed, unprecedented wealth disparity,
galling corruption and virtual abandonment of the rule of law
by an administration and Congress uncaring about the rights of
ordinary people anywhere. Through lies, deceit and contempt for
humanity, they created a state of permanent war and disregard
for the needs and human and civil rights of the majority. They
also ignored and exacerbated conditions for the growing millions
of poor, persecuted and deprived, who have no reason for joy
on our day of "liberation" that gave them no rights
or "free" society fruits few of them ever enjoy. Today,
tens of millions of poor people, especially those of color, are
practically condemned as criminals for their disadvantaged state,
through no fault of their own, in a corrupted racist society
worshiping wealth, privilege and all the interests of capital
at the expense of those having none.
Newly arrived immigrants also
have little to celebrate, especially the unwanted and exploited
ones of color from the South forced to come here because their
nation's leaders and ours destroyed their lives at home by the
oppressive NAFTA trade pact enacted to enrich corporate giants
at the expense of ordinary working people, mostly living south
of the border in Mexico.
Muslims from everywhere, including
citizens already here, have little to celebrate as well, in a
nation defiling Islam in the age of George Bush equating them
all with "terrorists" threatening the nation's security.
Thousands threatening no one have been illegally hounded in witch-hunt
roundups since 9/11, held in secret detention, unjustly deported,
and given no rights including due process to clear their names.
Their "crime" is their faith and color in a nation
constitutionally mandating all its people can worship freely
now no longer valid and abandoned along with all demonized, unwanted,
poor and deprived peoples condemned for who they are because
they're not white and privileged--the only race and class in
the country exempt from the harshness directed against all others.
Shame on the nation on its day of "liberation" and
all others that strayed from its founding principles never granted
to all and still only offered a chosen few.
Labor Day
Labor Day is commemorated on
the first Monday in September each year since the first one was
celebrated in New York in 1882. Around the world outside the
US, socialist and labor movements are observed on May 1 to recognize
the social and economic achievements of labor movements and working
class people in them. This day gets limited attention in the
US, but where it's observed here it's commonly to commemorate
the Haymarket Riot of May 4, 1886 in Chicago that followed the
May 1 general strike in the city for an eight hour day leading
to the violence that broke out on the 4th.
Labor Day became a national
federal holiday when Congress passed legislation for it in June,
1894, a time when working people had few rights. It took many
painful years of struggle and strife before they got any of the
ones finally achieved grudgingly from management only wanting
to exploit them for profit. Only by organizing, taking to the
streets, going on strike, holding boycotts, battling police and
National Guard forces supporting management against working people,
paying with their blood and lives did they finally gain an eight
hour day, a living wage, on-the-job benefits and the pinnacle
of labor triumph in the 1930s with the passage of the Wagner
Act establishing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) guaranteeing
labor had the right to bargain collectively on equal terms with
management for the first time ever.
All of it was won from the
bottom up. Management gave nothing until forced to and neither
did the federal government always siding with business interests
unless and until enough people power forces Washington to yield
legislatively or face possible serious work stoppages or even
a national insurrection--all this in a democracy claiming to
represent all people, the great majority of whom happen to be
ordinary working ones. |
