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The Democrats Bow to Bush on War: How the Anti-War Movement Failed
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Today's Stories June 9 / 10, 2007 Saul Landau June 8, 2007 Serge Halimi Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Brian Cloughley Paul Craig Roberts William Blum Joshua Frank Lance Selfa Dave Lindorff Lawrence Ferlinghetti Website of the Day
Marjorie Cohn Soldz, Reisner
and Olson: Soldz, Reisner
Paul Craig Roberts Bill Quigley Silvia Cattori Carl G. Estabrook Ellen Taylor Corporate Crime
Reporter Brenda Norrell D. K. Wilson Kevin Zeese Website of
the Day
Alain Gresh Gary Leupp Steven Sherman Bruce Dixon Corporate Crime Reporter Brian M. Downing Ron Jacobs George Bisharat Nicole Colson Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
June 5, 2007 Michael Neumann Jonathan Cook David Vest Robert Fantina Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury John V. Walsh Richard Cretan Adam Engel William S. Lind Myles Hoenig Jim Minick Website of
the Day
Nizar Latif Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Paul Watson Susan Rosenthal,
MD Richard Ward Eva Liddell Zahi Khouri Evelyn Pringle China Hand Karyn Strickler Website of the Day
June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Marc Levy Martin Smith Diana Johnstone John Ross Uri Avnery Sunsara Taylor Richard Neville P. Sainath Missy Comley
Beattie Nisrine Abiad Rannie Amiri Margot Pepper Eric Stewart Ralph Nader Dan Bacher Shaun Harkin Richard Rhames Frederick Hudson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
Dave Marsh Saul Landau David Phinney Robert Jensen Stanley Heller Yifat Susskind Robert Weissman Paul Buchheit William S.
Lind Sherwood Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
Robert Bryce Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Kathy Kelly Marjorie Cohn Chris Kutalik
Corporate Crime Reporter Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway Franklin Lamb Terrence E. Paupp Uri Avnery Alan Maass Rock and Rap
Confidential Ralph Nader Nirmal Ghosh Jean Daniels Tom Barry Website of the Day
Stephen Soldz Eliza Ernshire Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Mike Whitney David Swanson John Holt Cynthia McKinney Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day
Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Dr. Susan Block Jeeni Criscenzo Douglas Valentine Website of the Day
May 26 / 27, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Franklin Lamb Jean Bricmont Gary Leupp James Petras William Peace Judith and John Sharpe Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Democracy in Iraq, Tyranny at Home? Jonathan M.
Feldman Dave Lindorff Missy Beattie Mike Whitney Badruddin Khan Ron Jacobs Zoe Blunt Arjun Chowdhury, Heather Gray N. D. Jayaprakash Joe Allen Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
Robert Jensen David Vest John Stauber Evelyn Pringle Corporate Crime Reporter Susan Rosenthal,
MD Roberto Rodriguez Steve Fournier Patrick McElwee Robert Weissman Website of the Day
Franklin Lamb Corporate Crime
Reporter Robert Fantina Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff Sen. Russell
Feingold Fred Gardner Mike Whitney Kevin Parsneau, Arjun Chowdhury
and Mark Hoffman Caroline Paul Eva Liddell Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Rev. William
Alberts Joe DeRaymond Sudhanva Deshpande
Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Rannie Amiri China Hand Zoe Blunt Nivien Saleh Website of the Day
Robert Fisk Joshua Frank Harvey Wasserman David Mos Masumoto Sonja Karkar Conn Hallinan Dave Lindorff Jeffrey Kolakowski Evelyn Pringle Jim Baumer Website of the Day
Patrick Cockburn Nicole Colson John Ross Stephen Fleischman M. Shahid Alam Ron Jacobs Peter Rost, MD Alan Farago Paul Buchheit Website of
the Day
May 19 / 20, 2007 Andrew Cockburn Uri Avnery Peter Gelderloos Saul Landau Robert Fantina Fred Gardner Ralph Nader Jean Daniels Reza Fiyouzat Missy Beattie Robert Alvarez Sonja Karkar Dave Lindorff Jeff Sher Julian C. Holmes Clancy Sigal Prairie Miller James Murren Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
May 18, 2007 Adam Jones Sharon Smith Christopher Brauchli Peter Rost,
MD Denise Maloney Pictou David Swanson Ali Khan Susan Rosenthal,
M.D. Samer Assad CP News Service Website of the Day
May 17, 2007 Tariq Ali Yifat Susskind Dave Zirin Brian J. Foley W. John Green Eric Johnson-DeBaufre Badruddin Khan Martha Rosenberg China Hand Dan Vojir Website of the Day
Patrick Cockburn Ashley Dawson Joshua Frank Corporate Crime
Reporter Ray McGovern Glen Ford Joe Bageant Sonja Karkar Mickey S. Huff John Chuckman Kaz Dziamka Website of
the Day
May 15, 2007 Michael Neumann Patrick Cockburn Ashley Smith Marc Gardner Dave Lindorff Ben Terrall Ron Jacobs Harvey Wasserman Marcus Mabry Dr. Susan Block Website of the Day
May 14, 2007 Jennifer Roesch Jeffrey St.
Clair George Bisharat Diane Wachtell Ramzy Baroud Rosemary and
Walter Brasch Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Roberto Rodriguez Jonathan Culp Website of
the Day
May 12 / 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Diane Farsetta Ralph Nader Jean Bricmont Marcus Breen Joe Bageant Conn Hallinan Fred Gardner Juan Santos
Eve Bachrach Missy Comley
Beattie Ron Jacobs Niranjan Ramakrishnan Susie Day Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Kathleen Christison Mike Ferner John Holt Laurie Hasbrook Christopher
Brauchli Margaret Kimberley Dave Lindorff Nicole Colson John V. Walsh Website of the Day
May 10, 2007 Tariq Ali Patrick Cockburn Neve Gordon Marjorie Cohn David Rosen Alan Farago John Hellman Kathy Rentenbach BANCO Richard Rhames Website of the Day
Jeff Leys Patrick Cockburn Glen Ford Paula Rothenberg Kathryn Weber John Chuckman Jordan Flaherty Dave Lindorff Stephen Lendman Website of
the Day
May 8, 2007 Dave Lindorff Patrick Cockburn Corporate Crime Reporter Ralph Nader Malini Johar Schueller Juan Santos Dave Zirin Joshua Frank Evelyn Pringle Eamonn McCann Website of the Day
May 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Monica Benderman Greg Moses Rannie Amiri Fitrakis / Wasserman Fred Wilhelms Ramzy Baroud Bruce K. Gagnon T. W. Croft Sonja Karkar Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn William Blum Uri Avnery Franklin Lamb Fred Gardner Lawrence R.
Velvel Missy Beattie Robert Fantina Carla Blank Linn Washington,
Jr. Stephen F. Jackson P. Sainath Anthony Papa James T. Phillips John Ross Stephen Lendman Ben Terrall CounterPunch
Newswire Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
May 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Azmi Bishara Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Bob Fitrakis Janet Kauffman Website of
the Day
May 3, 2007 Jeff Halper Christopher
Brauchli Dave Zirin Corporate Crime
Reporter Robert Fisk Mike Ferner Mike Whitney Pham Binh Dave Lindorff Michael A.
Johnson Website of the Day
May 2, 2007 Saul Landau Dr. Susan Block Carla Blank Margaret Kimberly Kevin Zeese Carlos Villareal Michael Dickinson Tim Shorrock Alevtina Rea William S.
Lind Website of the Day
Andrew Cockburn Fred Gardner Chase Madar Ralph Nader John V. Walsh Joshua Frank Leslie Radford Shaun Harkin Dave Lindorff Peter Rost,
MD Peter Linebaugh Website of
the Day
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Weekend
Edition Excommunicated!Mass Nude-In Complicates Church-State Scuffling in MexicoBy JOHN ROSS Mexico City. The crowds pushing in around the newspaper kiosks a few Monday mornings ago oohed and ahhed at what has come to be known in this cosmopolitan metropolis merely as The Picture - 18,000 buck-naked chilangos and chilangas (Mexico City residents) staging a mass nude-in in the great Zocalo plaza as captured by internationally celebrated photographer Spencer Tunick. Tunick has made a good living setting up such shoots in many of the world's major cities. But the artist's shoot, usually viewed as a harmless lark, raised hackles in conservative quarters here and indeed has become one more irritant in a spate of nasty squabbles between Church and State. In one pose, Tunick had his naked subjects kneel in prayer, heads pressed against the ground in the Islamic fashion, and turned towards the rambling old Metropolitan Cathedral, a citadel of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico. Not at all happy with the pulchritude, the nation's leading prelate, Cardinal Norberto Rivera demanded that Tunick remove any image of the Cathedral in the photo. Spencer Tunick had been contracted by Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, a tall handsome JFK clone, who had just been excommunicated by Cardinal Rivera. Church-State relations are always dicey in Mexico. Extending from the Conquest and Colonial rule into the 19th Century civil war between conservatives and liberals, and through the Cristero war which took 30,000 lives in the aftermath of the anti-Church Mexican revolution, the face off between civil and clerical authorities continues to provoke confrontation. Although 93% of all Mexicans profess to be Catholics or at least Guadalupanas (devotees of the Virgin of Guadalupe), what the Church refers to as the "Jacobin" strain continues to find voice. Indeed after a century-long rupture, Mexico and the Vatican only resumed diplomatic relations 15 years ago. Since Mexico City went left in 1997, relations between the Church as personified by the Metropolitan Cathedral on one side of the Zocalo and City Hall on the other, have been frosty. But they went into deep freeze last November when the capital's legislative assembly. dominated by the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), signed off on the nation's first gay union law to the dismay of the archdiocese. Then on January 1st, the northern border state of Coahuila legalized gay unions - Mexico's first gay "marriage" took place March 7th in Coahuila when two lesbians tied the knot. Although the Church hierarchy fussed and fumed at all this blasphemy, the moral pontifications of the bishops and cardinals had a hypocritical ring in light of serial pederasty scandals involving predator priests, perhaps the most scandalous of which stars Cardinal Rivera himself. As Bishop of Tehuacan in Puebla
state during the late 1980s and early '90s, Rivera is accused
of protecting the rapist priest Nicolas Aguilar who parents charge
with abusing 60 young boys in the diocese. Rivera would later
exercise his exalted power as Cardinal of Mexico City, the world's
largest Catholic congregation, to ship Padre Nico to Los Angeles
where he would Never arrested for his crimes, Pope Benedict XVI last October stripped Father Aguilar of his clerical functions and he is now said to be eking out a living in Mexico State selling religious cassettes. Both Cardinals Mahoney and Rivera are being sued by Aguilar's victims who have vowed to bring criminal cover-up charges against the two powerful Churchmen. According to SNAP-Mexico, a molestation survivors network, at least 40 U.S. predator priests on the lam from U.S. justice are loose in Mexico - no figures are available as to how many Mexican "padres pederastas" have fled north of the border for protection. The pontiff of all Mexican pederast priests is Macial Marcial, founder of the Legionnaires of Christ, an immensely wealthy order, who made a habit of raping young acolytes he accompanied to Rome for nearly six decades - the first accusations date back to the 1950s. Kept out of sight in the Vatican by Pope John Paul II, Benedict finally condemned the 86 year-old Marcial to a life of prayer and penance on his palatial estate in Michoacan. But more pertinent than gay unions and gay priests, the battle between Church and State that is lighting up the heavens these days is an old bugaboo - legalized abortion. This April 24th , the Mexico City legislature, availing itself of its solid PRD majority, passed an abortion on demand bill. The measure would apply to the first 12 weeks of gestation only and the procedure performed at the city's 14 hospitals without fee. Like the legalization of gay marriage, the abortion on demand law was the first anywhere in the country, and spurred on by Cardinal Rivera and Jorge Serrano Limon, long-time leader of Pro Vida, a vitriolic anti-abortion group, street marches, mass pray-ins, and Pro Choice - Pro Vida scuffling in the Zocalo followed. Passage of the bill led the Vatican to issue excommunication orders for Mayor Ebrard and all legislators who had voted for the abortion law. The law was also immediately slammed by President Felipe de Jesus Calderon Hinojosa (his baptismal name), a devote Catholic and member of a founding family of the archly rightwing National Action or PAN party, created in the 1930s by Catholics to oppose what they labeled a "Bolshevik" president (Lazaro Cardenas.) "I stand with life" the President assured Televisa, the nation's number one TV octopus, using the standard anti-abortion euphemism. His wife, Margarita Zavala, seconded the sentiment. After dining with Carlos Aguar, bishop of Veracruz and president of the Mexican Episcopal Council or CEM which groups together the country's hierarchy, Calderon instructed his attorney general Eduardo Medina Mora to intervene in the brouhaha. This May 26th, both the Attorney General and the National Human Rights Commission under the signature of ombudsman Jose Luis Soberanes, an Opus Dei associate, filed for relief with Mexico's Supreme Court on the grounds that the Mexico City law violated the constitutional rights of "the product of conception." Roe Vs. Wade a la Mexicana has an instructive history. In 1999, the court quashed another abortion-on-demand edict promulgated by then-Mexico City interim mayor Rosario Robles but under the Supreme Court's rules, each case must be treated separately and does not establish a precedent, Nonetheless, since the Robles decision, the court has moved to the right and Pro Vida's Serrano Limon, who was given millions of pesos by Calderon's predecessor Vicente Fox to establish adoption homes that audits show he lavished on fancy lingerie, is reasonably optimistic that the current abortion law will be struck down. Serrano curses the PRD as if it was a biblical plague. "First it was homosexual marriage. Then it was abortion. What's next? Euthanasia?" he asked the left daily La Jornada. "Exactly" one PRD legislator, who asked not to be quoted, responded. The PRD and the Church hierarchy squared off after the July 2nd 2006 presidential elections which many thought was stolen from leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO.) During the bitter campaign, the Church's preference for Calderon was patent - though often masqued by the homilies of the bishops and the cardinals as "a vote for life." Sunday after Sunday, irate AMLO supporters - tens of thousands were then camped out in protest on the streets of the city - invaded the Metropolitan Cathedral with pro-Lopez Obrador banners and disrupted Cardinal Rivera as he said Mass. Police had sometimes to be called and the cathedral's doors were locked to prevent infiltrators, making Sunday Mass a kind of invitation-only séance. More recently, Cardinal Rivera grew furious with Mayor Ebrard after access to the Cathedral was blocked during Sunday Mass because of preparations for a concert by Shakira, the pop idol whose gyrating belly button must cause the Church fathers to gnash their teeth. This Monday (June 3rd) Felipe de Jesus Calderon will have his first tete a tete with Pope Benedict XVI in the Holy See before setting out on a European junket. In a previous persona as the Vatican watchdog for doctrinal heresies, Cardinal Josep Ratzinger waged an unrelenting witch hunt against Mexico's liberation bishops, most pointedly Chiapas emeritus bishop Samuel Ruiz who Ratzinger, a one-time member of Hitler's Nazi youth brigades, hounded for preaching "a Marxist version" of the Gospel. Ratzinger's relations with the Latin American Church turned tense during his recent visit to Aparacida Brazil to address the continent's Council of Bishops or CELAM. Whereas his predecessor John Paul II accepted responsibility for the genocide of 50,000,000 indigenous peoples in the wake of the Conquest and the Evangelization (sounding a little like Subcomandante Marcos, John Paul once shouted 'Mexico needs its Indians and its Indians need Mexico!"), Pope Benedict has proven himself a holocaust denier. The Church's trajectory in Latin America had been a "glorious" one he told the bishops on May 13th. Rather than imposing Catholicism upon the Indians and annihilating ancient native belief systems, the Evangelization had been the "salvation" of the continent's indigenous population. Latin America's Indians "silently desired Jesus Christ as their Savior" Ratzinger avowed. Although later he would concede that their had been "shadows" during the Church's reign in the Americas, no mia cupla was forthcoming. On the eve of the huddle between Calderon and Pope Benedict, Mexico's foreign minister Patricia Espinoza was adamant that abortion was not on the agenda - which in diplo-speak, means it is the only item on the agenda. With Latin America moving left at the speed of sound, Ratzinger fears a domino effect as abortion-on-demand laws sweep the continent - actually, there is little current evidence that leftist regimes promote abortion. At least two Latin American socialists, Chile's Michelle Bachelet and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, preside over countries with total bans on abortion. Still, if abortion-on-demand
stands up in Mexico City which has the largest "Popes try to impress upon Catholic presidents that they should serve the Church," observes Roberto Blancarte, once a diplomat in Rome. Although Benedict will applaud the Mexican president for his stand "for life", he will ask him to do more to rescue the Church from the incipient danger of legalized abortion and take his convictions to the rest of Latin America, to convince other heads of state that a woman's right to choose and the decriminalization of abortion is a grievous sin against Jesus Christ. Given the current socio-political dynamic in Latin America, Calderon, despite his deep Catholic roots, cannot commit to so lost a cause. "Felipe Calderon goes to the Vatican with his own problems - the narco wars for example. He doesn't need new ones" considers La Jornada religion writer Bernardo Barranco. John Ross is in Mexico tracking Brad Will's killers
and reimmersing himself in the real world. If you have further
information write him at johnross@igc.org.
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The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont             CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
