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How they Do Ethnic Cleansing in America

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Today's Stories

January 25, 2007

John Ross
Mexico Under Calderon: Fake Left, Rule Right

January 24, 2007

Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews: a Filmed Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair

Paul Craig Roberts
The Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry

Lt. Gen. William Odom
What Can be Done in Iraq?

Sharon Smith
Health Care Reform for the Insurance Industry

Brian M. Downing
Two Americas: the Grunts and the War Profiteers

Heather Gray
Surviving War

Ron Jacobs
SOTUS Quo

James Brooks
Out of Europe, Out of Time

Robert Day
Translating Snow

Website of the Day
Defend Sarah Olsen


January 23, 2007

Trish Schuh
Lebanon on the Brink of Civil War, Again

Robert Bryce
The Politics of Cheap Oil

Stephen Soldz
Aliens in an Alien Land

John Blair
King Coal's Latest Con Job: Clean Coal is Not Clean

Gloria La Riva
Miami: a Place of Refuge for Anti-Castro Terrorists

Joshua Frank
Turning Silence into Gold: Hillary and Israel Lobby

Patrick Cockburn
In Iraq, All Foreigners are Targets

Ralph Nader
Questions for Bush on Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Pelosi and Iraq: Blunder or Treason?

Uri Avnery
Israel and Apartheid

Website of the Day
Down By the River

 

January 22, 2007

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
China's New Chip in Space War Poker

Jen Marlowe
Trapped in Darfur: the Ordeal of Suleiman Jamous

George McGovern
War of the Belligerent Professors: Get Out of Iraq

Paul Craig Roberts
Only Impeachment Can Save Us from More War

Norman Solomon
The Pentagon vs. Press Freedom

Amira Hass
Life Under Prohibition in Palestine

Mike Whitney
A Fool's Errand in Baghdad

Ramzy Baroud
The Things We Take for Granted

John Walsh
Support Jimmy Carter in Boston!

Website of the Day
The Hagelian Dialectic

 

January 20/21 2007

Alexander Cockburn
First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!

Gail Dines
I Was Ambushed by Paula Zahn

Newton Garver
Evo Morales' First Year

Gilad Atzmon
100 Years of Jewish Solitude

Seth Sandronksy
New Push For Social Security "Reform"

Raphaelle Bail
Where Nicaraguans Go to Work

Jim Goodman
Round Up the Usual Experts: Make Them Live on a Dollar a Day

Larry Portis
Chouraki's Oh Jerusalem

Website of the Weekend
Press Poodles Play it Safe


January 19, 2007

Jonathan Cook
Jimmy Carter Doesn't Tell the Half of It

Glen Ford
Barack Obama: The Mania and the Mirage

Dave Lindorff
Bush Blinks on Illegal Spying - Don't let him off the hook

Larry Portis
Zionism in the Cinema: Part Two

Website of the Day
For Whistleblowers


January 18, 2007

William Peace
Protest From a Bad Cripple

Virginia Tilley
The Steady March to War on Iran: What It Would Take to Stop It

Michael Donnelly
The Real Reason I Can't Stand Obama

B.R. Gowani
Democracy: Everywhere and Nowhere

Larry Portis
Zionism in the Cinema: Part One

Jason Hribal
A Horse is Worth More than Riches

Website of the Day
Baghdad Clampdown


January 17, 2007

Franklin Spinney
Why Time is not on Bush's Side

John Ross
Oaxaca's Rising: Vibrant as the Paint on the Walls

Susan George
Can World Trade Ever Be Fair? Back to Keynes!

Paul Craig Roberts
Attacking Iran: What's In It For Bush

Joshua Frank
Obama and the Middle East

David Lindorff
Towards Oil at $200 a Barrel


January 16, 2007

Col. Sam Gardiner
Escalation Against Iran

Marjorie Cohn
Stimson's Outrageous Threat

Saul Landau
Gore Vidal in Havana: Part 2

Ron Jacobs
Welcome Back to 1965

Susan Block
From Snowjob to Blowjob

Ken Couesbouck
Year of the Pig

Website of the Day
Amazon's Hit on Jimmy Carter


January 15, 2007

Roger Morris
Another War the Voters Hoped to End

Paul Craig Roberts
Bush Must Go

Kathy Kelly
Umm Heyder's Story

William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report

Ralph Nader
The Class War's New Map

Saul Landau
Gore Vidal In Havana

January 12 / 14, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
"21,500 More Troops": Will America Ever Leave Iraq?

David Rosen
Bush's Domestic Sex Policy: the Teen Abstinence-Only Crusade

William S. Lind
Less Than Zero

Laith al-Saud
The Ironies of Bush and Iraq

Paul Craig Roberts
Surge and Mirrors: What Bush Really Said

John Ross
Celebrating the "Sum of the World" in Chiapas

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Case of Venezuela's RCTV: Not About Free Speech

Christopher Brauchli
How to Avoid an IRS Audit: Become a Millionaire!

Robert Buzzanco
Rogue State, Redux

Evelyn Pringle
The Secrets in Eli Lilly's Cabinet

Peter Rost, MD.
Promises, Promises: Playing Politics with Drug Reimportation

Mike Whitney
Baghdad Crackdown

Yifat Susskind
Beyond the Surge: Demanding an End to Bush's Wars

Saul Cohen
Latin America's Real Mr. Danger: Negroponte's Latest Gig

Missy Beattie
A Day of Action and Questions

Stephen Lendman
Holiday Hypocrisy

Website of the Weekend
Bruegel on Bush War Plan

 

January 11, 2007

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The Profits of Escalation

Paul Craig Roberts
Carter's Inconvenient Truths

Kathy Kelly
Refugee Dreams

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

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January 25, 2007

Fake Left, Rule Right

Mexico Under Calderon

By JOHN ROSS

It was as startling an about-face as veteran Latin American political observers could recall. Here was Felipe Calderon, the iconic right-winger and George Bush's latest Latino poodle dog who was awarded the Mexican presidency in fraud-marred elections last July, pumping the flesh with Latin American boogeymen Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales at the January 10th inauguration of Daniel Ortega, once Washington's Public Enemy Numero Uno, as president of Nicaragua.

Indeed, the Bush administration had done its damndest to keep Ortega and the Sandanista Front from returning to power after 17 years, threatening to revoke visas of Nicaraguans living in the U.S. and a cut-off of aid to what has become the poorest country in Central America under post-Sandanista neo-liberal regimes. Having labeled Ortega "dangerous" to U.S. interests, the Bush White House dispatched a minimalist delegation headed by a low-level cabinet member to his inauguration. But for the resurgent Latin left, Daniel's ascension to power was a cause for celebration.

Although the pachanga in Managua loomed as the most notable conclave of the continent's left leaders since Morales's inauguration in January 2006, the right-wing Calderon chose the occasion to debut upon the stage of inter-American diplomacy, his first foray outside of Mexico since his chaotic December 1st swearing in, and the Mexican president's strange encounter of a left kind, had knuckles cracking in Washington so loud that you could hear them all the way to Tierra del Fuego.

Incongruity reigned in the Calderon camp. His predecessor, Vincent Fox, had systematically squabbled with Latin America's left leadership one by one - Nestor Kirschner, Evo Morales, Fidel Castro (who he kicked out of Mexico and with whom he broke off diplomatic relations), and most obstreperously, Hugo Chavez, with whom Fox also broke diplomatic relations after the Comandante called him "a puppy dog of Imperialism."

Even the setting of Ortega's ascendancy invoked Calderon's estrangement from the party guests - his right wing, oligarchal party, National Action or PAN, had supported the U.S.-backed Contras who terrorized Nicaragua in the 1980s. Yet here was the new Mexican president in Managua, slapping backs and seemingly desperate to mend fences with the continent's new left leaders.

Although this was his inauguration, Daniel's star was eclipsed by that of the brightest astro in the Latin Left firmament, Venezuela's recently re-elected (with 63% of the vote) president Chavez who was, in fact, being sworn in that very morning across the Caribbean in Caracas, delaying his arrival in Managua and Ortega's inauguration for several embarrassing hours during which Felipe Calderon was forced to make small talk with leftists.

Meanwhile, in Caracas, Chavez was pledging to bring "21st Century Socialism" to Venezuela and nationalizing previously privatized industries - the electricity and telephone sector, oil exploration along the Orinoco, and Caracas Radio Television, a mouthpiece for the opposition, all of them properties that had once been publicly-owned. "That which has been privatized will be re-nationalized" the Comandante thundered, a declaration that had much resonance up and down the continent.

Among the enterprises threatened with re-nationalization is CANTV, the Venezuelan telephone company, in which Mexican communications tycoon Carlos Slim, the richest man in Latin America and the third wealthiest in the world, had sunk a bundle when he picked up 28% of the conglomerate from the U.S. transnational Verizon. The just-announced expropriation of Carlos Slim's grab for CANTV made the handshake between Calderon and Chavez, when at last he touched down in Managua, even more tenuous.

During the bruising Mexican electoral campaign, Felipe Calderon had repeatedly used Chavez's image in hit pieces aimed at his left-wing presidential rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) and when the Venezuelan president complained, Calderon's PAN charged he was interfering in Mexican domestic politics which put further stress on an already strained relationship. Nonetheless, the PAN's allegations that Chavez was financing Lopez Obrador's campaign ultimately proved to be a hoax - but was embraced by the Bush regime and the fake news was spread by right-wing commentators, notably Fox News's Dick Morris, north of the border.

Chavez put down in Managua with a head of steam, having just declared Venezuela a socialist state ("Socialism or Death!") He had also lashed out at Organization of American States secretary general Juan Carlos Insulza, a blue-ribbon Chilean diplomat, who he called a "pendejo" (fool) for having critiqued his expropriation of an opposition radio station. The exchange stirred bad vibes from Chile's "socialist" Prime Minister Michelle Bachelet who did not fly into Managua for Daniel Ortega's investiture.

Seated at the head table at Daniel's side during the post-inaugural banquet - Evo occupied the other flank with Ecuador's leftist president-elect Raphael Correa next to him, Chavez welcomed Nicaragua into his "Bolivarian" trade pact (Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia), the ALBA as opposed to Bush's ALCA (Free Trade Treaty of the Americas) and repeatedly embraced the one-time revolutionary new president. According to published reports, Ortega hedged his bet on the ALBA by accepting a congratulatory phone call from George Bush earlier in the day. Nicaragua remains part of CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement with Washington.

But despite the dealings behind the scene, Managua this past January 10th was once again the capital of the "lucha" (struggle) against Yanqui imperialism - although the lamentable absence of Fidel (too ill to attend) or Raul Castro (rumored to be on his way) weighed heavily on the party. Banished to the far end of the banquet table and sandwiched between the Saharan delegation and a wall, Felipe Calderon and his wife Margarita Zavala were so inconspicuous that when colorfully garbed senoritas passed out diplomatic souvenirs of Daniel's installation - the Latin American Merit Medal - the Mexican president was overlooked. The Calderons exited the state dinner hurriedly to avoid a delegation of AMLO's supporters from the pseudo-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) who were special invitees
at Ortega's gala.

Felipe Calderon had taken pains to assure George Bush that Mexico and the U.S. are "inseparable allies and amigos." While still president-elect, Calderon utilized his first and last meeting with Bush November 8th to reaffirm the partnership. It was not a good moment to talk turkey with the U.S. president, however, coming as it did one day after George Bush had lost control of the Congress to the Democrats.

Since then, there has been a sense of separation between the Mexican president and the lame duck Bush who is sinking deeper in the quagmire of Iraq each day with an opposition congress snapping at his heels. Calderon's appearance in Managua - the Mexican president who has taken to wearing military uniforms came in civil dress - was a sign of a widening drift between Washington and Los Pinos, the Mexican White House.

President Calderon found a less disinterested reception next door January 16th when he flew into El Salvador to mark the 15th anniversary of the Salvadoran peace accords signed in 1992 at Mexico City's Chapultepec castle. Although Mexican diplomats mediated the accord, Calderon's PAN party played no role in brokering the agreement.
Embraced by his right-wing counterpart Tony Saca, a stalwart of the ARENA party which emerged victorious from the U.S.-sponsored bloodletting in Salvador, Calderon had to transit a tense capital as tens of thousands of supporters of the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) which led the Salvadoran resistance, took to the city's streets to protest the incompletion of the peace accords.

With no Chavez to steal the cameras, Calderon seized the opportunity to push a revised Plan Puebla Panama (PPP), the moribund Fox development strategy that promotes integration of southern Mexico with Central America and the opening of the region to transnational resource exploitation. Both Calderon and Saca, whose political ancestors in ARENA ran one of Latin America's most notorious death squads, extended an olive branch to the social democratic parties that are sweeping elections all over the continent and sought to blur ideological distinctions. What was more important, the Mexican president insisted, was a "commitment to democracy" and warned against a return to the dictatorships of the past, "whether right or left".

Although Calderon inveighed at length against what he termed "authoritarianism", he presides over perhaps the most egregious and systematic violation of human rights on the continent today, the continuing repression of the popular movement in Oaxaca.

Despite his diplomatic walkabout, Calderon decided to eschew the Correa inauguration in Quito - in just a few short months, Rafael Correa has become Washington/s newest bete noir as he threatens to shut down the U.S. "anti-terror" base at Manta and expropriate U.S.-owned petroleum holdings.

Instead, the Mexican president is headed to Davos for the annual get-together of bankers, heads of states, and other masters of the universe on an ice mountain in Switzerland where Calderon will most probably get his first glimpse of an anti-globalization demonstration. Ex-Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, now the director of the Yale University Center for Globalization Studies, coined the phrase "globalphobe" to describe demonstrations here a decade ago. In addition to Calderon, leaders of the new Latin American left will be on hand - Lula and Kirshner are regular devotees of the Davos séance.

Although Felipe Calderon presses the flesh of the luminaries of the Latin American left, he is doing his best to ignore the left back home. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who probably beat the right-winger in the much-questioned July 2nd election, has disappeared from the public repertoire of "Fecal" (as his detractors dub him.) Calderon's backers in the electronic media are also dedicated to making AMLO disappear from the nation's screens. The Interior Secretary refused to permit the airing of Lopez Obrador's acceptance speech last November 20th as the "legitimate" president of Mexico. A half hour program, "The Truth Must Be Told", which features a sort of fireside chat with AMLO and Comedy Central-like news, is being transmitted in a 1 AM Tuesday morning time slot to insure a minimum number of viewers. The show's debut installment failed to air in 12 states due to what the Secretary of the Interior, which controls radio and TV transmissions, called a "technical problem", and the sound quality on the second edition was so poor that Lopez Obrador was inaudible.

For the Bush regime, the Mexican election was not one it could afford to lose. The Latin dominos have been falling left in alarming succession and the line had to be drawn when the wave reached the U.S, border. Despite the tainted vote count, Bush crowned Calderon president of Mexico in a phone call from Air force One not 24 hours after the ballots were cast. Outside of Calderon, Colombia's Uribe is the only head of a leading Latin American economy that still stands up for U.S. interests in the region.

The front page photos that ran throughout Latin America of Iran's outspoken president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hugging and mugging with Chavez in Caracas must have sent chills up Bush's prostate. With U.S. warships sailing into the Persian Gulf and Bush's troops rounding up Iranian diplomats in Iraq, war seems right over the horizon. Now here was Ahmadinejad invading what used to be called "an American lake" in flagrant violation of the Monroe Doctrine.

The tete a tete between the heads of state of the second and fifth biggest oil producers on the planet, both OPEC members, in a time of falling prices sent a flutter through the markets. Ahmadinejad then winged over to Managua for an "abrazo" with Daniel and promised aid to that desperately poor country stripped to the bone by a president who called himself "El Gordo" and a successor who took his orders from the World Bank.

But despite the induction of Daniel Ortega and Rafael Correa into the ranks of Latin America's left leaders, 2007 could be a bumpy year for that side of the political spectrum. Correa himself faces a congress in which his party does not occupy one seat in a nation that has had eight presidents in the past 10 years. Like Evo Morales, he has called for the writing of a new constitution.

In Bolivia, Evo is under fire from an "autonomy" movement created by the once-ruling, all-white dominant classes to restore the privileges they enjoyed when an Indian was not their president. Nestor Kirschner who will run for a second term in Argentina this year has unemployment riots on his hands and across the Andes, his "Socialist" neighbor Bachelet is confronted with rioting students and the umbrage of offended Pinochet cultists. Uruguay's Tabere Vazquez wants to negotiate a bi-lateral free trade pact with Washington (much as Peru has done) before Bush's fast track authority runs out. Lula, who pledges that his second term will be one of social change in Brazil, won the run-off election with the backing of the banking elite.

Even Hugo Chavez faces problems with establishing "21st Century Socialism" in Venezuela. "You can't impose socialism over the radio" writes Argentinean-born Marxist Guillermo Almeyra in his Sunday La Jornada column, "in fact, trying to do that would be anti-socialist."

John Ross will be on the road in the southwest, south, midwest, and Atlantic coast from February through April with his latest opus ZAPATISTAS! Making Another World Possible--Chronicles of Resistance 2000-2006. Write him at johnross@igc.org for suggestions of possible venues and dates.




 

 

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