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Hezbollah's Rise, Israel's Fall |
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Today's Stories September 6, 2006 John
Ross September 5, 2006 Jonathan Cook Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney
Roland Sheppard James Petras Alexander Cockburn
September 4, 2006 Clancy Sigal Jeffrey St.
Clair Anthony Alessandrini Dennis Perrin
Daniel Cassidy
Paul Craig
Roberts
September 2 / 3, 2006 Uri Avnery Jeffrey St.
Clair Ralph Nader Noam Chomsky Allan Lichtman Stanley Heller Rana el-Khatib Peter Montague Laura Carlsen Dr. Susan Block Joe Bageant Scott Stedjan / Matt Schaaf Gary Leupp Stephen Fleischman Paul Balles Ingmar Lee Jane Stillwater Ron Jacobs St. Clair /
Bossert Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
September 1, 2006 Uri Avnery Paul Craig
Roberts Bill Ayers Kevin Zeese Xochitl Bervera Norman Solomon Alexander Cockburn Richard Neville Website of the Day
August 31, 2006 David MacMichael John Ross Edward Said Amira Hass Missy Comley
Beattie Lee Sustar Jonathan Cook Website of the Day
August 30, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts George Salzman Dave Lindorff Leigh Davis Alan Maass Mike Whitney Eliza Ernshire Website of
the Day
Saul Landau Jeffrey Buchanan Dave Lindorff James Brooks John F. Burnett Walter A. Davis Rich Gibson Amira Hass Paul Craig
Roberts
August 28, 2006 John Walsh Sibel Edmonds
/ William Weaver Ramzy Kysia Ron Jacobs Gideon Levy Missy Beattie Virginia Tilley
Uri Avnery Alexander Cockburn Jordan Green Azmi Bishara Ray Close Gary Leupp Ralph Nader Joe Allen Fred Gardner Dave Lindorff David Krieger Stephen Fleischman Mary Turck Walter Brasch Jim Scharplaz Israel Shamir Alexander Cockburn Charles Henderson Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
August 25, 2006 Elena Everett Juan Cole Chris Moore James Marc Leas Salah Obeid Claudio Albertani Tom Barry Website of
the Day
CounterPunch
News Service Uri Avnery Nermeen al-Mufti Norman Solomon Megan Wiles Laura Santina Mike Whitney Seth Sandronsky Christopher
Brauchli
August 23, 2006 Dr. Trudy Bond Ramzy Baroud Ron Jacobs Heather Gray Amira Hass Mavis Anderson Ingmar Lee Francis Boyle John Ross
Gilad Atzmon Jack Heyman Eamon McCann Sharon Smith Edward S. Herman Ramzi Kysia Bill Quigley August 21, 2006 Jonathan Cook Paul Craig
Roberts Kathy Kelly Mike Roselle Lenni Brenner Maher Osseiran
August 19 /
20, 2006 Uri Avnery Eliza Ernshire Virginia Tilley Kathy Kelly Marc Levy Stephen Bradberry / Barbara Rose
Johnston William Blum Stephen Fleischman Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner David Krieger Dan La Botz Poets' Basement
August 18, 2006 Brian M. Downing John Blair Alan Hart Craig Murray Chris Dols Emily Kirksey Joaquín Bustelo William S.
Lind Podcast of the Day Website of
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August 17, 2006 CounterPunch
News Service Barucha Peller Ramzy Baroud Rothem Shtarkman Craig Murray Samar Assad Mike Ferner Arnold Kohen Kevin Zeese Missy Comley Beattie Uri Avnery Video of the Day Website of
the Day
August 16, 2006 Merav Yudilovitch Robert Fisk Mark Williams John Ross Christopher
Brauchli John Walsh Ron Jacobs Rachard Itani Felice Pace Niranjan Ramakrishnan Frank, Sharma
and Peterson Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
August 15, 2006 Andrew Ford
Lyons Binoy Kampmark Robert Fisk Ralph Nader Todd Chretien Chris Floyd Mark Engler George Galloway Laray Polk Trish Schuh Website of the Day
Uri Avnery Karim Makdisi Kathy Kelly Robert Fisk Norman Solomon Sunsara Taylor Robert Jensen Mike Whitney P. Sainath Goretti Horgan Christopher
Reed
August 12 /
13, 2006 Jean Bricmont Norman Finkelstein Robert Fisk Adrian Grima Barucha Peller Omar Barghouti Adam Engel Conn Hallinan John Stauber Rev. William
Alberts Fred Gardner Lucinda Marshall Ron Jacobs CounterPunch
News Service Poets' Basement
Col. Dan Smith John Ross Michael Donnelly William S.
Lind Linda Milazzo Rep. Cynthia
McKinney Azmi Bishara Henri Picciotto CounterPunch News Wire Dave Lindorff Jonathan Cook
Uri Avnery Dave Marsh Gabriel Kolko Arthur Versluis Jennifer Loewenstein
Linda Schade Jackie Mason Jonathan Cook Gilad Atzmon
Charles Hirschkind
Tom Barry Cockburn &
St. Clair
August 8, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Paul Larudee Joan Roelofs Dimi Reider John A. Murphy Tim Llewellyn Website of the Day
August 7, 2006 Uri Avnery Karim Makdisi Nadia Hijab Sharon Smith Magan Wiles George Beres Rachard Itani Norman Solomon Stan Cox Mickey Z. Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
August 5 / 6, 2006 Virginia Tilley Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Sgt. Martin Smith Gary Leupp Neve Gordon Ralph Nader Peter Bouckaert Peter Montague David Krieger Michael Donnelly Fred Gardner Catherine Norris Imraan Siddiqi Missy Comley
Beattie Ira Kay Dave Lindorff Pratyush Chandra Ron Jacobs St. Clair / Donnelly Poets' Basement Website of the Day Video of the
Weekend
August 4, 2006 Ralph Nader Brian Cloughley Eliza Ernshire Roger Assaf George Bisharat Remi Kanazi Laura Carlsen Niranjan Ramakrishnan Derrick O'Keefe Mickey Z. Col. Dan Smith Website of the Day
Jonathan Cook Uri Avnery Saree Makdisi Robert Fisk Farrah Hassen Nicola Nasser Ron Jacobs Mitchel Cohen Seth Sandronsky Bruce K. Gagnon Alexander Cockburn
John Ross Chip Mitchell Saul Landau Naseer Aruri Winslow T.
Wheeler Matthias Gebauer Joshua Frank Bill Quigley Manuel Yang Shamai Leibowitz David Himmelstein Lara Marlowe Website of
the Day
August 1, 2006 Michael Neumann Robert Fisk Omar Barghouti Marc Levy Diana Barahona / Jeb Sprague Claud Cockburn Ross Eisenbrey Dave Lindorff John Chuckman Francis Boyle Phil Doe Stephen Soldz Website of the Day
July 31, 2006 Jonathan Cook Uri Avnery Robert Fisk Amina Mire Marjorie Cohn Sibel Edmonds / William Weaver John Ross Stanley Rogouski Gideon Levy Ron Jacobs James Ridgeway
/ Alicia Ng Brian Tokar Alexander Cockburn
July 29 / 30,
2006 Michael Neuman Vijay Prashad Ramzi Kysia Werther Robert Fisk Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Rachard Itani Eduardo Galeano Gary Leupp Eve Poretsky John Chuckman Fred Gardner Juan Santos Punyapriya Dasgupta Liaquat Ali
Khan Israel Shamir William A.
Cook Stanley Heller Dave Lindorff Moshe Adler Susie Day Pat Williams Anthony Papa John V. Whitbeck Jackie Corr Myles Palmer Tom D'Antoni Poets' Basement Website of
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July 28, 2006 Jonathan Cook Uri Avnery Renee Bowyer Robert Fisk Patrick Cockburn Ramzy Baroud Don Fitz Elaine Cassel David Price Mike Whitney Mickey Z. Niranjan Ramakrishnan Charles Glass Website of
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July 27, 2006 Tanya Reinhart Saul Landau Ramzi Kysia Tom Barry Joseph Grosso Sharon Smith Gale Courey
Toensing Christopher Reed Werther Yusuf Mansur Richard Harth Website of the Day
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Cook Patrick
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September 6, 2006 Adios, To the Fox!Death of the Mexican PresidencyBy JOHN ROSS Mexico City. The tableau of 155 leftist deputies and senators storming the tribune of congress here September 1 to prevent President Vicente Fox from delivering his sixth and final State of the Union address (the "Informe") should be mandatory viewing for members of both houses of the U.S. Congress who, year after year, burst into servile applause for George Bush when each January he imposes his own infernal Informe upon the citizens of Gringolandia. One crucial political distinction between these two distant neighbor nations is the presence of a third party in the Mexican mix, one that at least purports to be left of the center. Swindled out of the presidency by fraud this past July 2, the party of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)--the Party of the Democratic Revolution or PRD--appears to have broken with the political class and traditional cronyism. It is not that the PRD's hands are clean its legislators have regularly prostituted their wares - but in the wake of the stolen election and having been frozen out of any power positions in the brand-new congress despite being Mexico's second political force, the Party of AMLO has little to lose, and is suddenly speaking its truth to power, a singular position for any politico right or left. Despite rampant corruption, regular vote stealing, and authoritarian tendencies, Mexico's multi-party system makes U.S. "democracy" with its two-headed single party rule, look a lot more like Idi Amin's Uganda than what the Boston tea party had in mind for the future citizens of the United States of North America. The spectacle of elected officials being pissed off enough to stare down tin-plate potentates like President Vicente Fox topped off weeks of scuffling in and around the 10 kilometer steel wall Mexican troops had thrown up around the Legislative Palace to keep Lopez Obrador's die-hard supporters from congregating in shouting distance of the congress of the country. On the government side of the barricade, 6000 preventative police (drawn from the military) and Fox's own presidential guard or the Estado Mayor had turned the congressional precinct into a war zone. One side in this standoff was equipped with clubs, electric shields, tear gas, water cannons, light tanks, live ammunition, and snipers up on the rooftops. The other only with its dreams and its "coraje" (righteous anger.) Guess which side won? When I first touched down in
this mile-high capital a full generation ago, Informe Day was
a sacrosanct national holiday. Banks closed, workers got the
day off, the streets were lined with adoring fans of the sitting
president who was always a member of the Institutional Revolutionary
Party (PRI) and the confetti drizzled down from the heavens above
like worthless manna. Each September 1, El Presidente would be
escorted into the PRI-controlled congress by a military honor
guard and a gaggle of obsequious legislatures for sometimes six-hour
speeches to the nation. This year, Informe Day dawned
dark and apocalyptic, an evil wind snaking through the deserted
streets of the capital in anticipation of violent clashes to
come. At 4 in the afternoon, Lopez Obrador summoned his followers
to the great Zocalo plaza, where he and 10,000 more have been
encamped for five weeks now, to issue marching orders to the
left-leaning hordes about to throw themselves against the military's
metal walls. But despite the masses' eagerness, AMLO's marching
orders were not to march after all. His people now occupied Nonetheless, bands of hot-hearted students and workers set out for the nearby Legislative Palace to do battle with the robocops. Although this movement has been miraculously free of violence, after a month of living in the streets, many are itchy for fisticuffs. While ski-masked youths scrimmaged
on the barricades with Fox's cops and others shook their bodies
in the Zocalo, the 155-member congressional delegation of AMLO's
Coalition for the Good of All was examining its options. Having
literally forced their way through the military checkpoints and
the metal detectors to enter the Legislative Palace, they were
in no mood for symbolic protest, as has so often been the antistrophe
during the President's annual address. "We come as aggrieved
citizens" warned Carlos Navarete, leader of the PRD in the
senate and an ex-communist, and they were going to let the President,
his bogus successor Felipe Calderon, and the archly right-wing
PAN party know it. Besides stealing the election and unconstitutionally
cordoning off congress with the troops, Fox's PAN, in league
with One after another, the parties, starting with the most inconsequential--the so-called "Alternative Social Democratic Farmers Party" (two seats)--followed each other to the podium to diss the Fox in the traditional run-up to the President's blahblah. When it was Navarete's turn, the Senator seized the microphone to denounce the constitutional violations that had turned congress into an armed camp and declared that he would not budge from the podium until the barriers came down and the robocops sent back to barracks. 154 more leftist senators and deputies solemnly filed onto the tribune and proclaimed their solidarity. In a matter of seconds, the Mexican Congress had been transformed into an extension of the seven-mile encampment of AMLO's devotees that has clogged the city's thoroughfares for a month and so enraged the motoring class here. No matter how many times the frozen-faced PANista president of congress Jorge Zerminio rapped his gavel and ordered the leftists back to their seats, AMLO's legislators would not be moved. They proudly stood their ground up on the podium, waving signs and banners labeling Vicente Fox "a traitor to democracy" and much worse. After weeks of being excluded from the cameras of Mexico's two-headed television monopoly, Lopez Obrador's message was suddenly being carried on prime time. Both Televisa and its pipsqueak partner TV Azteca, obligated by time constraints and the imminent arrival of the President, could not cut away. There in the eye of the nation, newly-elected senators Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, the grande dame of Mexico's human rights movement, and the luminous actress Maria Rojo, kept flapping their insolent signs and chanting that Fox was a traitor. The President and his pouting wife Martita had been helicoptered in from Los Pinos, Mexico's White House to deliver his State of the Union message. Guarded by hundreds of dark-suited goons, they were then transferred to a fleet of bulletproof SUVs, and warned that there was trouble in the congress. When the convoy pulled up to the principle door of the legislative palace, the President tentatively emerged as if not knowing what to expect--Martita was held back by the bodyguards--and slowly, painfully mounted the great steps of congress (he has a bad back.) The tension was now as taut as a drawn catapult. The sacred scenario of the Informe was about to go kaplooy. The Fox got about a foot and a half inside the lobby of congress before he found himself face to face with the indignant leaders of the PAN contingent in the new legislature who had the unpleasant task of informing him that the tribune was occupied by AMLO's dirty yellow scum and for the first time in modern Mexican political history, the President would not be allowed to deliver his State of the Union bullshit to the nation. Fox got gray real quick, his jowly face a mask of indecision and befuddlement for all to see. The cameras were grinding and the whole country glued to the tube as Fox's authority and what was left of the imperial presidency collapsed into dust. After conferring with his attorney general, the President must have realized that the final nail had been driven into the coffin of this useless ceremony, handed the text of his Informe to the secretary of the Congress in completion of his constitutional obligations, turned on his heels, and phalanxed by the Presidential Guard, trudged back down the steps of Congress. "ADIOOOOOS!" AMLO's leftists crooned from the tribune. Outside, Martita was waiting for the green light to enter the Palace and flout the dazzling new frock the taxpayers had bought her and when she realized that her hubby had been rebuffed, her little face crumpled up in a grimace of disgust. The President and the First Lady were then driven back to the whirlybirds and returned to Los Pinos where Fox was rushed into the presidential television studio to doctor up a tape of the thwarted address pre-recorded for just such a contingency. Broadcast an hour later on all television and radio outlets and intercut with footage of smiling Indians and exuberant school children, the once-inviolable Informe was reduced to an info-mercial. Meanwhile back in Congress, the leftist legislators clung to the podium despite the snarling insults of the PANistas, waving their mocking signs and tootling little Fox-40 Classic whistles as if they had suddenly all become soccer referees, until they were finally assured that the troops outside were being retired and the metal barriers disassembled. By then, the TV buzzards had long since lost interest in the denouement and one by one faded back into regular programming. Mr. Bean and Bart Simpson now filled the screen. At the most nerve-wracking juncture in this battle for the soul of Mexico, AMLO had won a stunning propaganda victory, pyrrhic as it may prove to be, and his people celebrated accordingly. In the camps along the Paseo de Reforma and in the Zocalo, supporters embraced and jumped up and down ("he who does not jump is a PANista"), yodeled "adiooooooses" at the Fox, waved flags, detonated bottle rockets, and rehydrated a movement that had been flagging under a deluge of hard rain and bad news. For Vicente and Martita this farewell fracaso capped a disastrous plunge from grace. Elected in 2000 in a geyser of hope as the first opposition candidate to take the presidency since the PRI had franchised the office, things had soured fast. After pledging to resolve the crisis in Chiapas "in 15 minutes" and promising in his inaugural address to make the Indian rights accords that the Zapatistas had signed with the outgoing PRI government the law of the land, Fox had failed to deliver and the rebels had broken off all contact with his government. Six years later, that southern state still leaked blood. Here at the end of his reign, Oaxaca was on fire--a new guerrilla group had appeared in public on the day of the Informe--and in the wake of the stolen election, the tangled traffic, and the military takeover of congress, Mexico City was on the brink of a nervous breakdown. In the six years Fox had occupied the throne of Mexico, the rich had grown exponentially richer and the poor were just as poor as ever. During his years in office, 4,000,000 of Vicente Fox's fellow citizens had been forced to abandon the country for El Norte because of zero job growth and the depletion of the agricultural sector. The President much hoopla'd "Whole Enchilada" i.e. integral immigration reform had been flushed down Bush's toilet and the nation had endured six years of legislative gridlock. Hundreds of women had been slaughtered in Ciudad Juarez and the narco gangs were beheading their rivals in broad daylight on the streets of provincial cities. Meanwhile Martita's sons were about to be indicted for "illegal enrichment." With the country divided in half between brown and white, rich and poor, the future - the imposition of Felipe Calderon upon an incredulous populace--looks dim. The Informe and the display of military might in which it had unfurled was a dress rehearsal for December 1 when Fox will try and hang the tri-color presidential sash around Calderon's neck as if it were Coleridge's albatross. AMLO himself is about to set up a parallel government that will dog Fox's successor for the next six years when the leftist convenes the Democratic National Convention on Mexican Independence Day September 16. A million delegates are expected to attend this milestone in the heroic resistance of AMLO's people to the imposition of Calderon. Such a government would be
illegal and constitute usurpation of functions, a crime punishable
by many years in prison, threatens Attorney General Carlos Abascal.
The officious presidential spokesperson, Ruben Aguilar, proposes
that Lopez Obrador But September 1 was a moment in this skein that not many Mexicans of meager means and less power will soon forget. "We sure showed those 'pinches rateros' who this country belongs to, no Juanito?" bellowed 71 year-old Isidro Garcia, a former boxer who handymans here at the Hotel Isabel, clapping me hard on my bum spine. I saw that same twinkle now gleaming in Isidro's eye long ago after Cuauhtemoc Cardenas had whipped the reviled Carlos Salinas, the root of much of this evil, out in Michoacan back in '88. Some precincts had come in 600 to zero not so much for Cardenas but against the PRI. When I asked the colonos what had happened, they would gleefully report "nos hemos chingada el PRI". "Do you know what a pendejo (cuckold or idiot) is?" Celia Cruz, an increasingly hunched-over "camarista" (bed maker) here at the Isabel laughed up at me, her eyes dancing to the top of her head, "a pendejo is an "arrogante" (arrogant person) who doesn't know he is a pendejo. Este Fox! Que pendejo!" As I top off this chronicle, the seven judge panel or TRIFE that must at last declare a winner in this stolen election, is about to name Felipe Calderon the next president of Mexico, although the court's rotund condemnation of Fox's unconstitutional intervention on behalf of his fellow PANista would seem to have called for annulation of the July 2 election. But for Felipe de Jesus Calderon Hinajosa and his elite white ilk, the TRIFE's confirmation would seem to be another pyrrhic victory when the fury of those who have been once again defrauded out of their votes is measured. This battle for the soul of Mexico is not over yet. John Ross's ZAPATISTAS! Making Another World Possible--Chronicles
of Resistance 2000-2006 will be published by Nation Books in
October. Ross will travel the left coast this fall with the new
volume and a hot-off-the-press chapbook of poetry Bomba!--all
suggestions of venues will be cheerfully entertained--write johnross@igc.org
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.             |
