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Today's
Stories
November 21 / 23, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The Honeymoon is Looking a Bit Wan
November 20, 2008
P. Sainath
The Jurassic Auto and Idea Park
Brian McKenna
How Dow Chemical Defies Homeland Security and Risks Another 9/11
Paul Craig Roberts
What Uncle Sam Has to Say to His Creditors
Andy Worthington
How Guanántamo Can be Closed
Peter Lee
India Doubles Down in Afghanistan ... Maybe
Dr. Eyad al-Serraj
At the Erez Crossing
Sen. Russ Feingold
The Bush Pardons
Lance Selfa
Who Made the New Deal?
Ray McGovern
Keeping Gates
Benjamin G. Davis
Ending Torture; Prosecuting the Torturers
Tracy McLellan
Obama's Crony Democracy: the Return of Tom Daschle
Website of the Day
Finally, a Victory for Palestinians
November 19, 2008
M. Shahid Alam
Obama and the Politics of Race and Religion in America
Mario A. Murillo
Holder, Chiquita and Colombian Death Squads
Martine Boulard
Escaping the Dollar's Shadow
Robin D. G. Kelley
Will Obama be the First "Freedom" Democrat?
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Obama and the Iron Cage
Jonathan Cook
Who Will Stop the Settlers?
Steve Conn
Spare Change or No Change at All
George Wuerthner
The NYT and the Beetles of Mass Destruction
Michael Winship
This Just in From Middle Earth
Stephen Martin
The Other Side of the Pleasure-Dome
Website of the Day
An Important Holiday Message From Kristen Johnston
November 18, 2008
Chellis Glendinning
Cheering for Morgan Stanley
George C. Wilson
Perils of Pakistan: Will It Prove to be Obama's Cambodia?
Franklin Lamb
Who Will Evict Israel from Lebanon: Hezbollah or the UN?
Bill and Kathleen Christison
The Irresponsibility of Appointing Hillary Clinton Secretary of State
Roger Burbach
Orchestrating a Civic Coup in Bolivia: How Bush Tried to Bring Down Morales
John Ross
Drilling vs. Direct Democracy in Mexico
Wajahat Ali
Is Obama the Muslim World's Superman?
Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
What Really Happened in Washington? The G20 and the Inconsistent Script
Marc Gardner
When Mooning is a Sex Crime
Eric Walberg
Courting the Bear: a New Era for Russian/Western Relations?
Wendy Williams
The Bottled Water Con
Website of the Day
Where's Zappa When We Need Him?
November 17, 2008
Michael Hudson
Bankers Shake Down Congress and the G-20
Paul Craig Roberts
When It's a Clear Day and You Can't See GM
Mike Whitney
Busted in Washington
Steve Conn
Where is Nader Country 2008? Mapping the Nader Votes
Andy Worthington
Closing Guantánamo: Advice for Obama
Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Blockade of Gaza: "They Are All Hamas"
Rannie Amiri
Dual Loyalties Will Doom Obama
David Macaray
Bailing Out the Automakers
David Michael Green
Twelve Victories
Charles Modiano
Sports Illustrated and Sexism: Tokenism or a New Day?
Website of the Day
The South Sea Bubble
November 14 / 16, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Heading for the First Hundred Days
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Bill Clinton Doomed the Spotted Owl: a Cautionary Tale for Greens in the Age of Obama
Mike Whitney
Paulson the Bungler
Sasan Fayazmanesh
RIP: the Experts, 1929-2008
Moshe Adler
Keynes:
China's Greatest Export?
Anthony DiMaggio
Transcending Race?
Jean Bricmont
Cats, Dogs and Creationism
Sheldon Rampton
The Eisenstadt Hoax: a Real Life Example of a "Fake Fake"
Douglas Valentine
Let the Trials Begin!
Joseph Nevins /
Timothy Dunn
Barricading the Border
Tom Barry
Rahm Emanuel's Political Pragmatism on Immigration
Ron Jacobs
Che Guevara Meets Trashman: the Genius of Spain Rodriguez
Larry Portis
The State of the Israeli State
Mary Lynn Cramer Obama's Brain Trust: Seems Like Old Times
Sherry Wolf
The Myth of the Black/Gay Divide
Peter Cervantes-Gautschi
Secretary of Greed: How Larry Summers Championed Wall Street by Impoverishing the Mexican People
Jacob Hornberger
The Conservative Malaise: Hey, Brother, Can You Spare Some Habeas Corpus?
Lance Selfa
The Center-Right Nation Con
Benjamin Dangl
Vermont Against General Dynamics
Seth Sandronsky
Lifelines in Hard Times
Russell Mokhiber
Time to Give the Friends of Big Coal the Boot
Allan Stellar
Nuke a Gay Whale for the Navy
Kelly Overton
Get Thee to a Shelter:
the Obamas and the Million-Mutt March
Martha Rosenberg
Why Mink are Cheering the Economic Crisis
Richard Rhames
Palling Around with Ray the Plumber
David Yearsley
How I Played Hooky from "High School Musical 3"
Lorenzo Wolff
Zach is Back: Songs of Hurt, Rage and Resistance
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Ford and Buknatski
Website of the Weekend
The Eyes Have It
November 13, 2008
Pam Martens
The Two Trillion DollarBlack Hole
Vijay Prashad
Guilt by Participation: Sonal Shah's Membership Has Expired
Patrick Cockburn
Who is Paying for the Iraqi National Intelligence Service?
Jonathan Cook
The Withering Palestinian Economy
Ralph Nader
Obama and the Rogue Regime
Bill Quigley
McCain Owes America an Apology
Lee Sustar
Bailing Out the Big Three
Omar Barghouti
Boycotting Israeli Settlement Products
Steve Conn
More Alaska Fun
Howard Lisnoff
The Last Bastion of Hate
Jeff Cohen
What Indy Media Heroes Can Teach Us
Website of the Day
Who are the Obamagelicals?
November 12, 2008
Johanna Berrigan
Scattered Families: the Iraq Refugee Crisis
Steve Conn
The Big Mystery Election in Alaska
Patrick Bond
Against Volcker
Bokar Ture /
Dedrick Muhammad
Remembering a Black Radical in a Barack Obama America
Alan Farago
The Hispanic Vote in South Florida: Not Dyed Blue Yet
Dave Lindorff
Rescuing Joe Lieberman
Karl Grossman
Break Up Big Oil: Tyranny in the Tank
David Macaray
An Obama Litmus Test: Will Labor Have a Seat at the Table?
George Wuerthner
Act Now to Save America's Public Forests
Susie Day
Heavy Weather
Website of the Day
Does the Planet Have a Future? an Interview with Derrick Jensen
November 11, 2008
James G. Abourezk
How to Vote Against Your Own Interests
Allan J. Lichtman
What Obama Can Learn From FDR
Eric Toussaint
Financing the Bailout: a Holy Union for a Deuce of a Swindle
Ron Jacobs
Moving Beyond Hope: a Leftist Looks at the Near Future
Peter Montague
Green Coal?
Corporate Crime Reporter
BP's Big Spill on the North Slope
Laura Carlsen
Latin America Sends Obama a Piece of Its Mind
Col. Dan Smith
A New Unifying Paradigm?
Morton Skorodin
The Machine Grinds On
David Michael Green
My Michelle Moment
Charles R. Larson
Ask Your Doctor for a Free Sample
Website of the Day
Will Old Faithful Be Sucked Dry?
November 10, 2008
David Roediger
Obama's Victory and the Future of Race in the United States
Paul Craig Roberts
Conned Again?
Peter Lee
Obama's Man in Afghanistan
Corey D. B. Walker
And We Are Not Saved
Jeff Halper
A Bone in America's Throat
Bill Hatch
Look on the Bright Side, Dammit!
Andy Worthington
Guilty By Torture
Bill Quigley
Anger and Hope: Haitian Families Furious Over School Collapse
Peter Morici
Paulson's Folly
Anthony Olszewski
The Advent of a New Black Politician
Kim Nicolini
Exile and Displacement on Bunker Hill
Cpt. Paul Watson
Farley Mowat's Last Book? Maybe Not
Website of the Day
Boondocks, Another Banned Episode
November 7 / 9, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Hail to the Chief of Staff
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Fire
Vijay Prashad
Obama's Indian: the Many Faces of Sonal Shah
Tariq Ali
Great Expectations
Jean Bricmont
Our Obama Problem
John V. Whitbeck
Obama, Emanuel and Israel
Saul Landau
Politics Among the Ruins:
Obama Faces an Economic Disaster
Peter Morici
Gone, Baby, Gone: Another 240,000 Jobs Lost
Lawrence Velvel
Obama and Afghanistan: the Return of Clintonia?
Karyn Strickler
Don't Govern From the Middle
Nativo V. Lopez
Banking on Obama with Open Eyes: Latinos and Obama
Christopher Fons
A Generational Moment: From Jackson to Obama
Alan Farago
Sarah Palin's Limited Engagement
David Yearsley
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
Christopher Brauchli
Pardoning Industry: Bush's Latest Executive Orders
Samah Sabawi
Gaza's New Cemetery
Dave Lindorff
Getting the Change We've Earned
Deepak Tripathi
A Revolution to Remember
Beth Sherouse
In the Wake of Lost Initiatives:
the Gay Glass is Half Empty
Patrick Irelan
La Belle Dame Sans Regrets: Back to Alaska
Stephen Martin
Barack and the Temple
Richard Rhames
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
J. Murray
White Cherokee Mythology
Lorenzo Wolff
Anthems for the Average Kid
Kim Nicolini
Exile and Displacement on Bunker Hill: Art Meets Realism in "The Exiles"
Poets' Basement
Farrelly, Fleming and Browne
Website of the Day
Take Who Takes You (For the New Big O)
November 6, 2008
Frank J. Menetrez
Now What?
John Chuckman
The Big Leap: From Hope to Change
P. Sainath
A Magic Moment (But Still Behind the Global Curve)
Joshua Frank
A Look Under the Hood of an Obama Administration
Edna Canetti
Come, Obama, Change My Life: a Plea from Israel
John Ross
Brad Will is Still Dead
Norman Solomon
Sorry Joe: a Mandate for Spreading the Wealth
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Morning After: Pakistan and Its New Bedfellow
Robert Weissman
Mordor Brightens: Obama's Challenge--and Our Own
Harvey Wasserman
A Blow to Nuclear Power in Chicago
Website of the Day
Pot Wins Big
November 5, 2008
Cockburn / St. Clair
Why McCain Lost
Chuck Spinney
How Obama Won
Ishmael Reed
Morning in Obamerica: the Promised Land?
Chris Floyd
A Prism for the New Paradigm: "What If Bush Did It?"
Binoy Kampmark
Obama's Victory: a Nation Divided
Michael Donnelly
The Rebooting of America, 2008
David Macaray
Who Should be Secretary of Labor?
Peter Morici
Obama's First Moves on the Economy
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
What Real Change Should Bring
William Willers
Will We be Forced to Sell Off the Public Lands?
Website of the Day
The Killing Fields of South Africa
November 4, 2008
Kathleen Christison
McCain, Obama and Khalidi
James Ridgeway
A New World?
Winslow T. Wheeler
Cleaning Out the Pentagon Pig Sty
Mike Whitney
Obama's Little Red Book
Conn Hallinan
A New Foreign Policy
Holly M. Barker
The Inequities of Climate Change and the Small Island Experience
Ashley Smith
Where is the Occupation of Iraq Heading?
Andy Worthington
Guilty Verdict Fails to Justify Gitmo Trials
Martha Rosenberg
AIG: Too Big to Play Fair
Stephen Martin
Breakdown of the Globalisation Agenda
Doug Lummis
Full Moon Over Okinawa
Carlos Fierro
An Anarchist View of Elections
Website of the Day
La Pequeña as Sarah Palin
November 3, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Friends Like These
John Kennedy O'Hara
Voter Lockdown: Prosecuting Voters
Peter Montague
Is Nuclear Power Green?
Steve Conn
Nader and the Youth Vote
Andrew Gebhardt
How Much Do the Differences Between Obama, McCain and Bush Really Matter?
Ron Jacobs
Bombing Syria: Borders are for Sissies
Ralph Nader
Between Hope and Reality: an Open Letter to Senator Obama
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Cleaning Up After Bush
Uri Avnery
Obama and the Order of the Optimists
Dave Lindorff
Studs and Me
Fred Gardner
Adieu, Rimonabant
DC Larson
You Are How You Vote
David Michael Green
McCain Finally Gets Tough
Val Strange
Hopeless Hoi Polloi or Step in the Right Direction?
Tuli Kupferberg /
Jeffrey Lewis
Wailing Wall Street:
Bring Spare Money!
Website of the Day
Pranking Palin (the Uncut Version)
October 31 , 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Change You Can See
Jeffrey St. Clair
Killing Leroy Jackson: the Indian Wars Have Never Ended
Douglas Valentine
Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy: McCain's 14th Amendment Problem
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The Great Bailout Fraud: Misrepresenting the Financial Crisis
Dr. Ignacy Nowopolski
Is the Global Economy a Mistake? an Interview with Paul Craig Roberts
Alan Maass
What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Spreading the Wealth?
William P. O’Connor
Reflections of an Average Joe
Patrick Irelan
Johnny's Tantrums: McCain the "Gook Hater"
Brian Cloughley
Out of Control: Memo From Islamabad
Mats Svensson
The Last Dance in Ramallah
Binoy Kampmark
Into Syria We Went
Steve Conn
The Future of Ted and Sarah
Alan Farago
The Division of Florida: the Politics of Growth
Morton Skorodin
The Bush-Obama-McCain Administration
Robert Bryce
Not McCain
Wajahat Ali
Dear John McCain, Please Stop...
David Yearsley
Palin's Flute, Obama's Voice
Dennis Loo
What to Do with Bush and Cheney?
Pam Martens
Why 2008 Feels Like 1932
Stephen Martin
Defense Strategies in Economic Warfare
Richard Rhames
Nothing for Something: the Doomed Rustic's Lament
Ramzy Baroud
A Third Palestinian Intifada
Missy Beattie
I'm Sick of Their Voices
Howard Lisnoff
Burning Reason: More From the Religious Right
Richard Neville
Pickled Heads: First the Revelation, Then the Revolution
Saul Landau /
Farrah Hassan
Bush Ultra Lite: Oliver Stone's Oedipal Problem
Kim Nicolini
Max Payne: Vigilante Violence as Sex Story
Lorenzo Wolff
Dance to the Music--or Else!
Poets' Basement
Four Poems from the Japanese Trans. by Rexroth
Website of the Weekend
Art Against Empire
October 30, 2008
Cockburn / St. Clair
McCain's Women Problems
Vijay Prashad
Smearing Rashid Khalidi
Paul Craig Roberts
World Tires of Rule by Dollar
Glen Ford
Turning the Tide of Ethnic Cleansing in America's Cities
Stanley Heller
Wall Street Bonus Madness
William Loren Katz
"Kill Him!:" a Political Chronicle
Joshua Frank
Memo to Progressives for Obama: What Happens After the Election?
James McEnteer
The Year of Unreliable Witnesses
Felice Pace
The Big Change: Can "Civic Unreasonableness" Save the Earth?
Jonathan Cook
The Executions at Kafr Qassem
Reza Fiyouzat
Boycott the Elections!
Website of the Day
An Open Letter to Whole Foods
October 29, 2008
Arno J. Mayer
The US Empire will Survive Bush
Eric Toussaint
How the Food and Financial Crises are Interconnected
Matt Gonzalez
What Do They Have to Do to Lose Your Vote?
Steven Conn
Obama and the Camp Followers
Jonathan Cook
Israel Bars Visit to a Father's Grave
Patrick Bond
Strauss-Kahn Strikes Again!
Ramzi Kysia
A Freedom Rider in Gaza City
Douglas Valentine
A Glimpse Inside the Head of Joe the Plumber
Stephen Martin
What America is Owed
Margaret Dooley-Sammuli
Alternatives to Incarceration
Amee Chew
Support Obama, Vote McKinney?
Website of the Day
N-Word Chant Doesn't Phase Palin
October 28, 2008
James G. Abourezk
How to Bail Out the Taxpayers
Andy Worthington
The Empty Chair at Guantánamo
Gary Leupp
The Specter of the Sixties: Palin v. Ayers
Paul Craig Roberts
The End of the American Road
Mike Whitney
Meet the World's New Currency
Gregory V. Button
What the Next President Must Do to Save FEMA
Ralph Nader
Share the Sacrifices, Share the Benefits
P. Sainath
Haunted by Socialism
Martha Rosenberg
Melting Pot in Hell
Charles R. Larson
Palin/Wurzelbacher 2012!
Website of the Day
Why You Can't See Across the Grand Canyon
October 27, 2008
Michael Hudson
Scenes From the Global Class War
Barbara Rose Johnston
The Clean, Green Nuclear Machine?
John Dinges
Palling Around with Dictators: McCain and Pinochet
Mike Whitney
Chickenhawks and the Horrors of War
Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power
Alan Farago
Origins of the Fall
David Michael Green
Remind Me Again: Who Won the Cold War?
Andy Worthington
The Collapse of Omar Khadr's Guantánamo Trial
George Wuerthner
Is Ranching Sustainable? The Story of Bob the Rancher
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Obamanations of Barack
Website of the Day
Heartland of Darkness
October 24 / 26, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Waiting for the Curtain to Rise
Ishmael Reed
Boogiemen: How Lee Atwater Perfected the G.O.P.'s Appeal to Racism
Mike Whitney
Down for the Count
Don Santina
How Maria Fell: Death in the Central Valley
Scott Boehm
Manufacturing Sympathy: Palin, Special Needs and Identity Politics
Saul Landau
Faith-Based Surge: Whining About Winning in Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Iraq and the Arrogance of Washington
Binoy Kampmark
Afghanistan the Un-Winnable
Linn Washington Jr.
The Great Vote Fraud Hoax
Nicole Colson
Mocking Our Rights: McCain's Disdain for Women's Health
Bernard Chazelle
The Humorology of Power
Brian Jones
Campaign by Codeword
Christopher Brauchli
Down the Drain with
McCain's Vetters
Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Rejects Neoliberalism
Val Strange
The Fraternity of John McCain: Scenes from North Carolina
Joe Mowrey
Name That Candidate: He Supports Petraeus, the Death Penalty, the Bailout, Nuclear Power, the Occupation...
Steve Early
SEIU Learns the Meaning of "No"
David Macaray
Patriotism and the Labor Movement
Allison Kilkenny
You Have the Right to Airport Harassment
Richard Rhames
Open Season
Jim Bell
Nuclear Power's Big Con
Kris De Welde
Domestic Violence and Financial Stress
Barry Clemson
John Wayne Syndrome
Adam Engel
Last Exit to Disneyland
Mark Scaramella
The World's Weirdest Pipe Organ?
Tuli Kupferberg
Nobody for President: the Original Version (Annotated)
Lorenzo Wolff
A Frustrated, Broken-Hearted Joy from Kidnapkin
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Swartzfager and Payne
Website of the Weekend
Patrick Cockburn Dismantles the Surge
October 23, 2008
Allan J. Lichtman
What Voter Fraud?
Todd Chretien
Why I'm Not Voting for Obama
John Ross
No Child Left Behind, Mexican-Style
Peter Morici
Strategies to End the Crisis
Mats Svensson
Short Film Clips at a Checkpoint
Marlene Martin
Don't Let Them Execute an Innocent Man
Robert Jensen /
Pat Youngblood
Looking Beyond the Election and Beyond Elections
Margaret Kimberley
Rightwing Obama Love
Deepak Tripathi
Post-Bush Scenarios
David Morris
Why Joe the Plumber is a Socialist (And You Are, Too)
Website of the Day
Voting While Black in North Carolina
October 22, 2008
Brian Cloughley
Kid Killers are Barbarians
Heather Gray
Raising Hell in the South:
the Legacy of J. L. Chestnut, Jr.
Jeff Birkenstein
McCain's Disdain for Spain
Ralph Nader
The Song Remains the Same: Convergence and Avoidance in the Presidential Election
DC Larson
The Growing of a Heartland Nader Raider
David Swanson
Colin Powell, Not Qualified for Government Service
Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth
Larry Everest
9/11 and the Imperial Adventure in Afghanistan
Robert Fantina
Anything to Win
Martha Rosenberg
The Financier's Playbook
Stephen Martin
Giving It Up to the Combine
Website of the Day
Brokers with Hands on Their Faces
October 21, 2008
Vijay Prashad
Wealth's Apostles
Paul Craig Roberts
How Inflation Works: Why I Can't Buy an Old Ferrari
Corey D. B. Walker
Empire and White Supremacy
Steve Breyman
How to "Win" in Afghanistan
Eric Toussaint
The Economic Crisis and Latin America: Time to Delink
Wajahat Ali
Boo Radley Comes Out to Play: the Emerging Muslim-American Electorate
Robert Weitzel
Wasting a Vote for Lincoln's Radical Ideal (Or Why I'm Voting for Nader)
Brendan Cooney
Palinoscopy: an Exploration of Why Liberals are So Obsessed with Sarah Palin
Dave Lindorff
Cuba's Oil Reserves: a Game-Changer?
Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing
When You're a Black Candidate There's No Such Thing as a Safe Lead
Patrick B. Barr
Socialist, Socialist, SOCIALIST!
Omar Barghouti
The Boycott and Palestinian Groups: Countering the Critics
Website of the Day
How to Dismantle a US War Plane (and Get Away With It)
October 20, 2008
Michael Hudson
The ABCs of Paulson's Bailout
Anthony DiMaggio
The Scandal That Never Was: ACORN, Rightwing Media and Election "Fraud"
Tariq Ali
Zardari Bans My Books
Uri Avnery
Is Akko Burning?
Bill Quigley
Hammered by the Swedes
Ben Rosenfeld
The Politics of St. Joe, Martyr to a Lie
David Michael Green
Payback's a Bitch: McCain on the Ash Heap
William S. Lind
The Afghanistan Advantage
Chris Genovali
Drill, Baby, Drill (Wink, Wink)
Stephen Martin
The Last Man in America
Howard Lisnoff
Bad News for War Resisters
David Yearsley
Organ Meat
Website of the Day
Our Brother is Sick: the Steve Ferguson Cancer Fund
October 17 / 19, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Blow Ups and Bombers
Jeffrey St. Clair
Inside Hanford: a Trip to America's Most Toxic Place
Pam Martens
How the Banksters are Making a Killing Off the Bailout
Paul Craig Roberts
Government of Thieves
Mike Whtney
No More Investment Banks
Michael D. Yates
Bowling Alley Blues: Racism Dies Hard in Johnstown, PA
Suzanne Smith
The Energy-War Connection: McCain Said It, Why Don't We?
Carl Boggs
Prosecuting Bush
Ralph Nader
Closing the Courthouse Doors
Fidel Castro
The Global Crash
Dave Marsh
The Great Levi Stubbs
Saul Landau
Denial, the Election Musical Comedy
Jo Guldi
The Floods of Heaven
Kevin Zeese
Now the Cost of War Really Matters
Larry Everest
Afghanistan, Not a Good War Gone Bad
Steve Early
Stop, in the Name of Joe!
David Macaray
Hey, Joe
Ben Terrall
When Ike Hit Haiti
Missy Beattie
Palin and God's Children
Don Monkerud
American Exceptionalism
Helen Redmond
Health Care Now's Big Con
Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision: Canals and Dams to Bail Out Big Ag
Wajahat Ali
Bush Gets Stoned
Farzana Versey
The White Tiger's Stripes and Gripes
Vladimir Frolov
Medvedev to Obama: We Come Not to Bury America, But to Buy It
Kim Nicolini
Frozen River: At Last, a Great Movie That's Neither Hip Nor Cool
Poets Basement
Gibbons, Corsale, Davis and Fleming
Website of the Day
The Real Sarah Palin?
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Weekend Edition
November 21 / 23, 2008
The NYT Comes Out for Corporate Profits Over Human Rights
Colombia's Laboratory of Failure
By JAMES McENTEER
The New York Times November 18 editorial urging passage of a free-trade agreement with Colombia is factually challenged and wrong-headed – politically, economically and morally – in many ways. The editorial’s expressed sense of false urgency (“There is no more time to waste”) sounds like the Bush administration beating drums for war in Iraq. Remember the administration mantra: “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”? There was no smoking gun in Iraq. And there is no pressing need to pass a free-trade agreement with Colombia. Quite the contrary.
The Times says that rejecting the trade pact “would send a dismal message to allies the world over that the United States is an unreliable partner…” But the world already has the message that the United States is willing to support a corrupt, murderous regime – such as that of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe – as long as their own largest corporate sponsors (e.g., Coca Cola, Occidental Petroleum, Chiquita Brands) – can make big profits there.
Hollow U.S. rhetoric has achieved new hypocritical heights under the Bush-Cheney junta. A free-trade pact would only license the Uribe regime to continue its human rights abuses, ceding any leverage to pressure Colombia for positive change. The U.S. has long abetted the crimes of its own companies, supplying Occidental with funds for their own paramilitary troops. Chiquita Brands paid a $25 million-dollar fine last year for hiring paramilitaries to kill union leaders who wanted better wages and working conditions. Such practices send a “dismal message” indeed.
The Times claims falsely that the murders of trade unionists are “down sharply,” whereas in fact, by August 2008 the number of union leaders assassinated in Colombia had already surpassed the 2007 total. “Washington must keep pressing Bogota to reduce abuses by Colombia’s Army, ensure the prosecution of paramilitary thugs and further rein in violence against union members,” says the paper of record. But a free-trade agreement would forfeit that pressure. Instead, the U.S. should make its ongoing “$600 million a year in mostly military and anti-narcotics aid” contingent upon radical government reforms in Colombia. Time for the moral stick, not more financial carrots.
Despite eight years and hundreds of billions of dollars in aid from the U.S. under Plan Colombia, the flow of cocaine from that country to ours has only increased. The War on Drugs is actually a war on common sense. Government-enabled drug cartels – including Uribe’s family and friends – are making enormous profits from this illicit trade. So-called coca eradication campaigns are driving small farmers, including many indigenous people, from their traditional lands. Colombian anti-drug policies have created millions of newly-impoverished internal migrants, forced into cities to try to survive. What will a free-trade agreement do for them?
As the Times correctly points out, “the United States has very few friends these days” in Latin America. And no wonder. Besides propping up the thuggish Uribe regime on behalf of corporate profits, the U.S. has continued its long, sordid tradition of intrigues against democratically elected leaders they view as threats to globalized markets. But the arrogant Bush-Cheney approach to Latin American relations has alienated former allies and stirred a new spirit of regional inter-dependence, apart from U.S. influence.
Bush administration plots against Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales have only strengthened those leaders. The ham-handed Bush approach makes a convenient target and rallying-point for all sorts of demagoguery. The U.S. ambassador to Bolivia met openly with right-wing opponents of the Morales regime, fomenting political violence. When Morales expelled him, the U.S. expelled the Bolivian ambassador in return. Then the Bush regime went further, removing Bolivia’s favored trade status by declaring it “uncooperative in the war against drugs.” Having no incentive to retain the Drug Enforcement Agency in his country, Morales expelled them too, consolidating his power. Bush makes a noisy school-yard bully but a lousy diplomat.
What we need in Colombia and throughout Latin America is a new spirit of co-operation from the United States, not domination, based on moral strength and mutual respect, not force of arms. The Obama administration must restore credibility to U.S. foreign policy and declarations of support for human rights.
Colombia has been a laboratory for the failure of corporate over human values. Under cover of a war on drugs, the United States has fueled the flames of civil war, supplying a huge arsenal of U.S.-supplied weaponry to a burgeoning military and often unaccountable paramilitary forces. Drug traffic has only increased. Yes, the armed leftist FARC exists, but seems to function more as justification for severe repression than as a threat in itself. If such a force didn’t exist, Uribe would have to invent it.
The Times claims that failing to ratify the Colombia free-trade pact would “alienate many people in Colombia and undermine Washington’s credibility.” Tens of millions of Colombians suffer repression and terror by their own government, supported by the United States. Not just alienation, but violence and disappearances without judicial redress, are daily facts of life. Washington has no credibility there, except for the ruling minority who depend on U.S. arms. There is nothing “free” about a trade agreement with Colombia under these conditions. We must not be part of such a deal.
James McEnteer is the author of Shooting the Truth: the Rise of American Political Documentaries (Praeger 2006). He lives in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
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