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Today's
Stories
April 8, 2008
Mike Whitney
Should
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be Set Free?
Nikolas Kozloff
Bush
Bullies Congress on Colombia Deal
Greg Moses
Migrant Detention in South Texas
Joshua Frank
The Other Military Draft
Jeff Nygaard
Health, Security and Mandates
April 7, 2008
Ishmael Reed
The
Irish Black Thing
Harry Browne
Irish
Peace Activist Acquitted; Deported
Uri Avnery
Tibet and Palestine
Lenni Brenner
Obama's Constitution, His Pastor and His Unbelieving Mom in Heaven
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
America Must Respect Pakistan's Democracy
Robert Fisk
Fearful Lives in the Land of the Free
Edwin Krales
Ensuring the Success of Fascism in Spain: the US Corporate Role
Chris Genovali
Vancouver Island's Dwindling Ancient Forests
Website of the Day
LA Artists Against War
April 5 / 6,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
Did
the Elites Want MLK Dead?
Ramzy Baroud
There
are No Checkpoints in Heaven
Ralph Nader
Runaway Bailouts
David Yearsley
How Scott Joplin Had Wall Street Down
Saul Landau
Sex Politics in America
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Petraeus and Crocker Show
Lawrence Korb / Ian Moss
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a True Patriot
Seth Sandronsky
Meet America's Promise Alliance: Colin Powell's New Gig
John Ross
La Cumbia de la Doctrina Bush: Colombia Kills Four Mexican Students
in Ecuador Bombing
Robert Fantina
McCain, Republicans and Family Values
David Michael Green
Back to Disaster: Hoover at Home, Tet Abroad
Missy Beattie
McCan't
Patrick Bond
Vultures Circle Zimbabwe
Dr. Susan Block
The New American Pot Dealers
Phyllis Pollack
The Stones Meet the Press
Adam Engel
The Boobus in the Lie
Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Diamand
and St. Clair
Website of the Weekend
Richard Pryor Goes to the Gun Shop
April 4, 2008
Dave Lindorff
The
Night I Heard King Had Been Shot
Greg Moses
Missing
King
Ron Jacobs
Two Murders, 40 Years On: Bobby Hutton and Martin Luther King,
Jr.
Alan Farago
Show Me the Size of Your Bail Out and I'll Show You Mine
Alison Weir
Funding
Our Decline: U.S. Aid to Israel
David Rosen
Rape as an Instrument of Total War
Robert Weissman
The Unrealized Dream
Jacob Hornberger
Was Killing Iraqi Children Worth It?
Jackie Corr
Hillary and Obama Head for Butte
Carl Finamore
Taking On United Airlines
Laray Polk
We Are All Dith Pran
Susie Day
Advice for the War-Torn
Website of
the Day
Winter Soldiers: a Video Portrait
April 3, 2008
Peter Morici
The Deepening Recession
Joe Bageant
The Audacity of Depression
Andy Worthington
Cleared But Still Detained:
The Ordeal of Moroccan Prisoner Said al-Boujaadia
Nikolas Kozloff
Condi's Divide and Rule Strategy in South America
Rannie Amiri
The U.S. Disdain for Mideast Democracy
David Macaray
More Labor Strife in Hollywood
Stephen Lendman
Lynne Stewart's Long Struggle for Justice
Website of
the Day
The
True Face of Da Vinci?
April 2, 2008
Diane Farsetta
Indian
Point on the Potomac
Harry Browne
Bertie
Ahern Laid Low by Secretary
Wajahat Ali
The Folly of Attacking Iran: a Conversation with Steven Kinzer
George Wuerthner
Open Season on Wolves
Col. Dan Smith
The
Militarization of America
Philippe Marlière
The Politics of Bling-Bling in France: Sarkozy's Cultivated Anti-Intellectualism
Steve Early
A Purple Uprising in Oakland
Bernard Chazelle
Saving the American Left
Reza Fiyouzat
Bowling in Hell
April 1, 2008
Jeff Leys
Fracturing
the Peace to End the War
Thomas P. Healy
Restoring the Constitution: a Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg
Winslow T. Wheeler
When Pigs Sprout Wings: Mangled Rationales for a Fatter Defense
Budget
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
New Deal Nostalgia
Patrick Irelan
Cocaine, Colombia and the Cartels
Andy Worthington
The Case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani
John V. Walsh
The Shunning of Ralph Nader
Michael J.
Smith
Woolly Mamet
Robert Weissman
The New Philip Morris--Even Worse Than the Old?
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Defining Moments
Martha Rosenberg
Brain Mist Disease: Boss Hog's Gift to Humanity
Website of
the Day
Support Briana!
March 31, 2008
Mike Whitney
Dead
on Arrival: Paulson's Fixit Plan for Wall Street
Mats Svensson
Walls,
Tunnels and Daily Humiliations
Paul Rockwell
Hillary's
Lies About Outsourcing
Paul Craig Roberts
A Third American War in the Making?
Patrick Cockburn
Sadr
Calls for Ceasefire
Peter Dale Scott
The Showdown
Alfredo Molano
Cultura Mafiosa in Colombia
Peter Morici
Why Paulson's Reform Plan Falls Short
Uri Avnery
Day of the Land, 32 Years Later
Michael Simmons
The American Bard in New Orleans
Betsy Roberts
/ Karen Orr
The Clorox Coup
Phyllis Pollack
First the Sun and Then the Moon: Scorsese Does the Stones
Website of
the Day
Five Years Too Many
March 29 / 30, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
When
They Pick Up the Phone at 3 AM, What Will They Say?
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Police Refuse to Back Maliki's Attacks on Medhi Army
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Next Big Bail Out Plan
Christopher Brauchli
The Pastor of Armageddon and the Slave Sale: McCain, Lieberman
and Rev. Hagee
William Blum
China, Tibet and the Propaganda Olympics
Robert Fantina
Iraq
Troika: McCain, Obama and Clinton
John Ross
AMLO, the Comeback Kid? Fighting the Privatization of Mexico's
Oil
Allison Kilkenny
Shady Lending Hits Home
Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba, the Beatles and Historical Context
Suzanne Baroud
The Great Lake of Gaza: a New Crisis in the Making
Richard Rhames
Social Security: Throwing Granny from the Gravy Train
Christopher Fons
Transcending the 60s? Obama and the Baby Boomers
Carl Finamore
Misery at 35,000 Feet: Mergers Stall, Fares Soar, Services Slump
and Consumers Sour
Eamonn McCann
Hillary Misremembers Again!
Missy Beattie
Justice and the Monsters of War
Fred Gardner
Jim Thorpe, All-American
Kim Nicolini
Cock Chuggers and Cheese Curls: Richard Kelly's "Southland
Tales"
David Yearsley
"All the World's a Hospital"
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Valentine and Ko Un
Website of
the Weekend
Hidden Iraq
March 28, 2008
Saul Landau
Growing
Dread About Iraq
Alan Farago
Other People's Money: the Chop Shop Economy
Peter Morici
Knocking Down False Economic Gods
Andy Worthington
Plight of the Uyghus: a Chinese Muslim's Desperate Plea from
Guantánamo
Felice Pace
Ashes of Lies: Why No One Trusts the US Forest Service
Peter Montague
Sierra Club Cleans House -- With Clorox!
Dave Lindorff
The Mumia Exception
March 27, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Basra
Erupts
Binoy Kampmark
Free Market Apostates
Joanne Mariner
"Was George Washington a Terrorist?"
Norman Solomon
NPR News: National Pentagon Radio?
William S. Lind
Mars Only Knocks Once: a Prognosis for Iraq
John V. Walsh
Obama's Speech: a Touch of Bigotry?
Robert Weissman
How Things Work
Ron Jacobs
Meeting Charlie Ehlen
Ralph Nader
Put Impeachment Back on the Table
David Macaray
Court Rules Against Grocery Workers
John Borowski
Clearcutting the History of Forest Destruction
Website of
the Day
Going Out for an English
March 26, 2008
Stan Cox
The
Germs Next Door
Sharon Smith
Greed
Pays: Welfare on Wall Street
Anita Sinha / Jill Tauber
Dreams Turned into Rubble in New Orleans
Matt Vidal
So Much for the Self-Regulating Market
William S. Lind
Operation Cassandra
Joe Mowrey
The Audacity of Hypocrisy: Obama's Pandering to Israel
Dave Lindorff
Duck and Cover (Up): Hillary Under Fire
Ray McGovern
Frontline's War: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late
Justin Smith
Why Race and Gender are Separate Issues
Sam Husseini
The Winter Soldier Hearings and Indy Media
Martha Rosenberg
Blood on Ice: Gentlemen, Pick Up Your Clubs
Michael Dickinson
Politicians as Dogs
Website of the Day
The Wal-Mart Virus: How the Infection Spread
March 25, 2008
Ishmael Reed
The
Crazy Rev. Wright
Corey D. B.
Walker
The Politics of Jeremiah Wright
Linn Washington Jr.
Racism in America and Other Uncomfortable Facts
Alan Farago
The Money Launderers: a Picnic for Wall St. Insiders
Vijay Prashad
A Glimmer of Hope From the Gulf Coast
Joshua Frank
A Silver Lining to the Bush Years?
Ralph Nader
How Public Servants Can Help End This War
David Rovics
If I Can't Dance: Why is the Left So Boring?
Peter Morici
America's Banks are Broken
Dave Zirin
Olympic Flames: China's Crackdown in Tibet
David Krieger
The Crisis in Tibet
Website of
the Day
Memorializing Iraq
March 24, 2008
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Blonde
Ambition: Hillary's Berserker Campaign for 2012
Peter Morici
Digging Out of the Recession
Uri Avnery
Two Americas
Wajahat Ali
First of the Mohicans: an Interview with Rep. Keith Ellison
Paul Craig Roberts
Inside the Shell Game
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Coming War on Venezuela
Stephen Lendman
Sami Al-Arian's Long Ordeal
Christopher
Brauchli
Possessing Someone Else's Country
Cat Woods
A Letter to Mom on Obama
Stacey Warde
Tax Burden
Dave Lindorff
The American Dead Hits 4,000, But Who's Counting?
Website of
the Day
Live from the Longest Walk
March 22 /
23, 2008
Ralph Nader
Bush
Blisters the Truth on Iraq
Nicole Colson
Can You Afford to Feed Your Family?
James Petras
The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives
Laura Carlsen
From Bombs to Markets: The Andean Crisis and the Geopolitics
of Trade
Greg Moses
Tolerance and the American Pulpit
Andy Worthington
Torture Stories Dog Guantánamo Trials
Michael Dickinson
Art on Trial
John Ross
Bush's Surge Hits Mosul
Missy Comley Beattie
Killer Economics
David Michael
Green
Happy Anniversary, America!
Ramzy Baroud
The Coming Uncertain War on Iran
Martha Rosenberg
Easter Egg Shells from Hell
Paul Watson
Evolution is Going to the Dogs in the Galapagos
Isabella Kenfield
Monsanto's
Raid on Brazil
James Murren
Logging v. Water in Honduras
Jacob Hornberger
Sex and the Immigration Officer
Kathlyn Stone
Ben Heine, Master of the Art of Resistance
Seth Sandronsky
Rethinking New Mexico's History
Kim Nicolini
Class, Gender and Abortion in Communist Romania
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Booked Up: What I'm Reading This Week
Poets' Basement
Wilson, Woods, Gibbons and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Merci, McCain!
March 21, 2008
Marleen Martin
Land
Behind Bars: the Hidden Casualties of America's "War on
Crime"
Peter Montague
Run
Your Car on Coal? Maybe Not
Saul Landau
Monroe's
Deadly Doctrine
Anis Hamadeh
Merkel in the Knesset
Jacob Hornberger
McCain's Al Qaeda Scare: Slip or Tactic?
Khalil Nakhleh
Al Nakba of 1948: How Long Will It Persist?
Adam Isacson
Colombia, Paramilitary Threats and Assassinations
Kenneth Couesbouc
Money for Nothing
Madis Senner
Will the Feds Underwrite the Stock Market?
Monica Benderman
The Costs of Freedom: What Are You Willing to Pay?
Website of the Day
Stop Foreclosures and Evictions
March 20, 2008
Damien Millet
/
Eric Toussaint
The
Triple Failing of the Big Private Banks
Mike Whitney
Winding
Up Bear
John Ross
What Do We Owe Iraq?
Dave Lindorff
Paying the Piper: the Bodies and Bills are Piling Up
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan on Fire
Jill Nagle
Memo to Sex Workers: Stop Financing Shock Journalism
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America
Dan La Botz
Obama's Race Speech
Robert Weissman
Alternative Power: Shutting Down the API
Stella Dallas
/
Jennifer Matsui
Apostasy Now! Mamet, Enter Stage Right
Website of the Day
The Angry Monk
March 19, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
A
War of Lies
Robert Fisk
The Little Men and the Inferno
Jeff Taylor
Five Years of War in Iraq
Ed Ruggero
From Pinkville to Iraq: the Dark Anniversary of My Lai
Ron Jacobs
Who'll Stop the Rain?
Christopher
Fons
Obama Takes the Race Bait
Sherwood Ross
In Defense of Rev. Wright
Cynthia McKinney
An Urgent Crisis: Confronting America's Racial Disparities
Joshua Frank
The Kool-Aid That Kills
Robert Weissman
Monsanto's Genetic Food Gamble
Walter Brasch
It's a Welfare State--If You're Rich
Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation
Andrew Wimmer
War Demands Its Due
Website of
the Day
Glimpses of Nature
March 18, 2008
David Price
The
Military "Leveraging" of Cultural Knowledge
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Collapse of American Power
Tim Wise
Of National Lies and Racial America: Jeremiah Wright, Barack
Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth
Patrick Cockburn
One of the Most Disastrous Wars Ever Fought
Conn Hallinan
Afghanistan, a River Running Backward
James T. Phillips
Monsters: Past, Present and Wannabe
Uri Avnery
The Killing in Bethlehem
David Macaray
Could Wal-Mart Revive the Labor Movement?
Marjorie Cohn
Beware an Attack on Iran
Peter Zinn
Obama in New Orleans
Dan La Botz
The Economic Crisis, Labor and the Left
Monica Benderman
Where are We Going?
March 17, 2008
Pam Martens
The
Fed's Wall Street Dilemma
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The US, Iran and the Policy of Dual Containment
Nelson P. Valdés
The Imperial Branding of Simon Bolivar and the Cuban Revolution
Peter Morici
The Corrosive Consequences of the Trade Deficit
Wajahat Ali
Disrobing the Nine: a Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on the
Supreme Court Since 9/11
Ronnie Cummins
Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma
Shaun Harkin
Saint Patrick's Day in Fortress America
Ali Khan
No Pardon for Musharraf
Robert Jensen
Beyond Peace
P. Sainath
Oh, What a Lovely Waiver!
Greg Moses
Jeremiah was a Bullhorn
Dr. Susan Block
Advice for Eliot Spitzer
Website of the Day
No Cowboys
March 15 /
16, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
How
to Destroy a Country in Five Years
Mike Whitney
Bearly
Alive: Investment Giant Rushed to ICU by Panicky Fed Chief
Ralph Nader
Of
Laws and Men
Robert Pollin
It's Still the Economy, Stupid
Diane Christian
The Poetics of Perversity: From Boccaccio to Spitzer
Wajahat Ali
Faking the Hood: a Conversation with Ishmael Reed
Tom Wright
/
Therese Saliba
Rachel Corrie's Case for Justice
Alan Farago
Back to Florida: Where Bushtime Began
Greg Moses
Raiding the Family Room in Texas
Michael Hudson
A Grand Global Bargain?
Martha Rosenberg
Why Hillary's Favorite Chicken Company is Eying China
John Goekler
Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict
Uzma Aslam
Khan
A Letter to Barack Obama: Where's the Change, Barack?
Oren Ben-Dor
The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon
David Underhill
Mammon, Morals and the Mobile Tanker Deal
Fred Gardner
The Education of Eliot Spitzer
David Michael
Green
Why Spitzer Should Have Resigned (and Why He Shouldn't Have)
Rev. William E. Alberts
Jesus, Entombed in Heaven
Gail Dines
It's All About the John: Prostitution and Male Power
David Yearsley
Conducting, Anarchy and the Problem of When to Begin
Chris Clarke
Walking with Zeke: the Luckiest of Dogs
Poets' Basement
Anderson, Lodge & Subiet
Website of
the Day
Deviant Art
March 14, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Watching
the Dollar Die
Don Santina
Vichy
Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons
Tim Rinne
StratCom
Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska
Robert Fantina
In
Torture We Trust
Saul Landau
Letter
to the Presidents-in-Waitings
David Macaray
Common
Myths About Labor Unions
Franklin Lamb
Is
the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon
Michael Neumann
The
One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics
March 13, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Republicans
and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America
Mike Whitney
Meltdown
Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze
Assaf Kfoury
"One-State
or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives
Andy Worthington
Afghan
Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story
Adam Federman
From
Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road
March 12, 2008
Dave Lindorff
Bringing
Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US
R.F. Blader
The
Spitzer Backlash
Yonatan Mendel
How
to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or
"Palestine"
Jonathan Cook
One
State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Fallon
and Gates -- At Least One Cheer
James J. Brittain
Was
the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders
Ron Jacobs
"All
the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul"
March 11, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
to End the Subprime Crisis
Ed O'Loughlin
How
Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal
Ramzy Baroud
'Unwavering
Commitment' to Inequality
Kathy Christison
One
State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine
China Hand
PRC
Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran
John Joslin
Thank
You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette
Mike Averko
Serb
Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide
Ben Rosenfeld
Gavin
Newsom's Kneejerk Plan
Thierry Paquot
High
Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block
March 10, 2008
Uri Avnery
"Kill
A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza
Col. Dan Smith
Scoring
the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond
R.F. Blader
Why
"Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its
Sheen
Michael Neumann
The
One-State Illusion: More is Less
Bob Fitrakis
and Harvey Wasserman
Did
the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?
James J. Brittain
Anti-Uribe
Protests in Colombia and the World
Missy Comley
Beattie
The
Passion of John McCain
March 8-9,
2008 Weekend Edition
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Only Way to Fight the Clintons
Mike Whitney
Sorting
Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America
Peter Morici
Fed
and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets
Ralph Nader
The
Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore
Jonathan Cook
The
Meaning of Gaza's Shoah
Steve Niva
Behind
the Israeli Escalation in Gaza
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Crisis
over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax
Hervé
Do Alto and Franck Poupeau
Bolivia:
Morales is Checked
Eric Walberg
To
Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…?
Scott Johnson
City
of A Thousand Foreclosures
Mark Scaramella
James
Brown's Gate
Bill Clinton
President
Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force
Chairman
Poet's Basement
St.
Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson
Website of
the Weekend
Hillary
Blackens Barack
March 7, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face
Robin Blackburn
Question
for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the'Right War'?
Saul Landau
The
Stupid Economy
Binoy Kampmark
When
Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats
Chris Floyd
Crushing
the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire
Andy Worthington
Spanish
Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo
Britons
Will Potter
Before
the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word
March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008
Vincent Navarro
The
Next Failure of Health Reform
Forrest Hylton
High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President
Peter Morici
Why the Dollar is So Cheap
George Ciccariello-Maher
Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats
John Ross
Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars
Jacob Hornberger
No Standing to Lecture on Justice
Paul Watson
Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers
Dan Bacher
Off the Deep End
Website of the Day
A Katrina Reader Online
March 5, 2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader)
Joanne Mariner
After Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa
Christopher
Brauchli
The Turkish Invasions
Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left
Dave Lindorff
Busting Bush & Co. in New England
James Murren
Bombing Somalia
Adam Engel
Necropolis Now
Website of Day
Remember Song
March 4, 2008
Wajahat Ali
Mumbo
Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed
William Blum
How Could Hillary Have Known?
Bill Quigley
The Cleansing of New Orleans
Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution
Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela
James J. Brittain
/
R. James Sacouman
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
Norman Solomon
The War Election
Jacob Hornberger
Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the European Parliament
Mike Averko
Kosovo and the Press
Website of the Day
Tex-Mex Primary
March 3, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Gazan Holocaust
Alan Farago
American Politics and the Faltering Economy
Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador
Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup
Poll with John Esposito
Paul Craig Roberts
The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution
Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu
Uri Avnery
Good Morning, Hamas
Martha Rosenberg
When Your Meat is a Downer
Eva Liddell
Leave the Next Dance for Bill
Michael Donnelly
Will Ferrell Does Flint
Website of the Day
Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues
|
Apri1
8, 2008
Safety in Darketo-Gotico
Alliance of the Obscure?
Mexico
City's Urban Tribes Go on the Warpath Against EMOS
By JOHN ROSS
Mexico City.
"Que Se Mueran Los Emos!" ("That
The Emos Should Die!") the "punketos" howled and
the bottles began to fly. One young man with an astonishing
Mohawk whipped off his studded belt. Many of the youthful aggressors
covered their faces with anti-Emo tee shirts that unaccountably
featured slogans in English.
Halfway up a lamppost as the
near-riot unfolded outside the Chopo "tianguis" or
bazaar where Mexico City's urban tribes have gathered on Saturday
mornings for 28 years, a ten year-old kid flashed a finger and
spat on the Emos below cringing behind a phalanx of police and
mindlessly chanting their own name--"Emo! Emo!"--over
and over again.
Who are these mysterious Emos
and why have they been so violently excluded from the ranks of
an urban tribalism that knits the city's counter-culture youth
into a loose federation of "punketos" (punks, both
anarcho and otherwise), "darketos" (darks), "Goticos"
(Goths), "skatos" (lovers of ska music), "metaleros"
(ditto heavy metal), "ipoperos" (hiphoppers) and "cholos"
(gangbangers), amongst other colorful "bandas"?
The Emos, vernacular for "Emotivos",
are purportedly susceptible to emotional outbursts although the
prevalent emotion they display seems to be a profound melancholy--Emos
worry their parents by sometimes describing themselves as "bi-polar."
Compared to their ferociously coiffed adversaries, the Emotivos
appear to be a pretty punchless bunch. Many are very young--12
to 14 years--and dress androgynously in tube pants, muted colors.
and "tennis" (sneakers.) Like punketos, the distinguishing
feature that separates them from the pack is their hairstyle:
a hank of lank hair tumbling over one eye--"El Fleco."
Emos habitat is in comfortable
middle and upper middle class neighborhoods like Coyoacan and
the Condesa and their musical tastes are one notch above "fresa"
(literally "strawberry", a pejorative)--pop punk, post
hardcore, and alternative  rock. During
the altercation outside the Chopo bazaar, several Emos grasped
hand-written signs that read "I'm an Emo and so what?"
Seeking to explain why the
Emos had been so roughly ejected from the Saturday tianguis,
punkster Daniel R., 20, offered this assessment: "the Emos
don't stand for anything. They don't have a philosophy or an
ideology. They are not a tribe--they're just a style."
But did that very unthreatening style justify the violence?
"Actually, I think the Emos want to be beat up"
The anti-Emo pogram broke into
the headlines last month (March) in the right-wing central Mexican
city of Queretero when suspected Emos congregating in a downtown
plaza were set upon by hundreds of punks, cholos, and related
tendencies. The attack was reportedly instigated by a nameless
17 year-old who posted irate Internet messages crudely critiquing
Emo dress and tastes in music. But the anti-Emos main gripe
seemed to be that the Emotivos were always depressed. "If
they're so depressed why don't they just kill themselves?"
the instigator asked.
Spread anonymously on the Internet,
the anti-Emo putsch soon became national phenomena. 80 anti-Emos
were rounded up by police in the northern city of Durango. Anti-Emo
demonstrations were staged in the states of Puebla, Jalisco,
and Sinaloa. There are reportedly over a hundred anti-Emo videos
now posted on YouTube including one entitled "How To Kill
An Emo."
The wave of intolerance touched
Mexico City March 14 with a nasty scuffle on the plaza of the
Insurgentes metro stop, a popular Emo hangout. With punks in
pursuit, the "Granaderos"--Mexico City's Swat Squad--had
to step in to protect the Emo kids from certain massacre. To
add a surreal tint to the proceedings, a flock of Hari Krishnas
who often work the subway plaza, drummed and chanted as the melee
swirled around them.
In order to stay alive, the
Emos have had to find allies and at least one faction of Darketos
have come to their defense. At a post-Chopo peace rally, a not-so-young
young man who identified himself as "Morrigan" recalled
how ten years ago, the "darkis" had to battle identical
intolerance and accused the anti-Emos of being "poseur"
punks who persecute Emos because they like to fight and not because
they share punk "ideology." "The anti-Emo tee
shirts are the new swastikas," Morrigan harangued the mostly
Emo young gathered in a central city park. "Tolerencia!"
the kids yelled back in unison. "Tolerance!"
An Emos team-up with the Darketos
could lower the temperature of this contretemps between the urban
tribes. The Darks, devotees of the night, have an "alliance
of the obscure" with the Goticos, romantics in love with
the notion of death, whose emblematic Charles Addams Neo-Vampira
dress, replete with chains and ankhs and velvet cloaks, require
a substantial investment in identity.
The roots of today's urban
tribes can be traced back to the "Chavas Bandas", the
legendary working class barrio youth gangs that first sprang
to prominence in the rock and roll '60s and '70s here. Indeed,
some of today's tribalists are the sons and daughters of old
chavas bandas gangbangers, says Pablo Jasso, a longtime observer
of the urban counterculture.
Actually the chavas bandas
did not fight each other as often as they fought the Mexico City
police when the cops would try and break up impromptu street
dances and confiscate the sound equipment of the "sonaderos."
Above all, the chavas bandas were "rock-and-rolleros",
a music that has now devolved into countless sub genres with
which each of the contemporary tribes identifies.
In one sense, Jasso figures,
the anti-Emo surge is generational with the older punks et al
defending their turf from the next generation coming up. Nonetheless,
in the logic of the street, the newcomers must do battle to win
respect and the Emos are passive and do not fight back. Their
reliance on police protection (with which city authorities had
cursed them) during the Chopo brouhaha was one flashpoint for
the cop-hating punks' frontal attack.
Gay bashing also flashes its
ugly head in the bashing of the Emos--the Emotivos often complain
of being called "maricones" (faggots) by their persecutors.
Members of the gay and lesbian community accompanied the Emos
to the Chopo with small rainbow flags. "Even in our own
homes, we are called maricones," bitterly complains "El
Ganja", interviewed with his "ruca" (girlfriend)
"Zoe" by the daily La Jornada youth reporter Cesar
Arellano. "We are not maricones or Salvatruchas (a particularly
violent Central American youth gang)," El Ganja insisted.
"We don't want to take over anything. We just want our
own space to be who we are."
Underlying the hostilities
between the Emos and rival urban tribes is the class divide which
yawns wide in Mexico City. The Emos spring from the loins of
affluent families and are often enrolled in private schools and
the high school system of the National Autonomous University
(UNAM) in a country where only 17 per cent of young people will
have a chance to go to college. The UNAM rejects 100,000 would-be
students a year.
Kids with no education or employment
options have a lot of time on their hands to get into trouble.
Every year, a million young people enter the job market in an
economy that creates only half that number of jobs. According
to one UNAM study, three out of every ten young persons in the
15 to 29 year age range will head north to the U.S.--but now
with the border virtually sealed, that safety valve has been
shut down.
The pressure on the young is
intense. One out of every three Mexican kids grows up in poverty.
Young people between the ages of 15 and 29 account for a third
of the prisoners in Mexico City lock-ups. Arrests of 12 and
13 year-olds have boomed 73 per cent in the past ten years.
In the 14 months since Marcelo Ebrard has been mayor of the capital,
6520 young people have been arrested, about a third of the total
busts. Violence is pandemic. Homicide is the second cause of
youth deaths (accidents are first.) Suicide is third.
Despite their stylized depression,
there have been no known Emo suicides--although some Emos deliberately
cut their wrists as a form of body decoration. Most young Emos
don't even know of the suicide of Ian Curtis, lead singer with
Joy Division, a favorite Emo band, says UNAM sociologist Hector
Castillo, a drummer himself, who has interviewed members of the
tribe/style,
Still, the Emos' melancholic
demeanor excites child psychologists who see early warning signs
all over the place. The suicide motif has been drummed up by
primetime trash TV "investigations". Televisa is particularly
attracted to Anorexia. The sensationalism draws a stern warning
from National Autonomous University emeritus psychology professor
Ileana Petra, citing the examples of two ten year-olds who separately
hanged themselves after seeing TV news reports about teen-age
suicides.
According to Dr. Petra, teen-age
suicide is under-reported by as much as 40 per cent. The youngest
pre-teen suicide victim she has counted was only eight. Most
teen-age suicides are boys and the preferred mode of departure
is hanging. Studies done by Mexico City health authorities reveal
that an average 25 to 30 teen-age suicides have been recorded
each year since 2000, around 12 per cent of the total suicides
in the capital.
Urban tribalism is one survival
mechanism for young people who crave an identity in a megalopolis
of 23 million citizens. Yet despite their overwhelming numbers--the
average age of a Mexican is 19 years--young people get little
attention until they make trouble.
Despite their marginalization,
the urban tribes have created a thriving counterculture that
sets the youth musical agenda and generates lots of filthy capitalist
lucre. For nearly 30 years, the Chopo tianguis has commerced
in every new avatar of rock from Mexican metal to mariachi punk.
Dozens of improvised stands sell cds and vinyl, skulls and bleached
bones, incense, herbal elevants, crucifixes and ankhs, black
lipstick and antique clothing for the dress-up set. Piercing
parlors now dot the city's public markets and alternative hair
stylists fashion homemade Mohawks for those who want to join
the tribe.
So which urban tribe do you
belong to, a U.S. reporter old enough to be his great grandfather
asked an unpierced kid with a goofy grin after the Emo rally?
"Me? I suppose I'm a Mexica (Aztec)," the kid beamed
shyly.
John Ross is in Mexico City, preparing to begin
work on "El Monstruo", a new book about--what else?
Mexico City. He can be reached at johnross@igc.org
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