Today's Stories

May 23, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
War Abroad, Poverty at Home

Conn Hallinan
Ballots and Bullets: From Beirut to Bolivia

Mark Engler
The World After Bush

George Wuerthner
Cars and Cows: Living Large in America

Sandy Boyer /
Shaun Harkin
The Long Incarceration of Pol Brennan

May 22, 2008

Vijay Prashad
Racist Grammar

Joanne Mariner
A Military Commissions Cheat Sheet

Sharon Smith
60 Years of Apartheid

Jeff Birkenstein
Disaster Redux: Some Early Thoughts on the Earthquake in China

Brendan McQuade
From Obama to the PRTs in Iraq

Peter Morici
The Sorry State of the Banking Industry

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Restoration Boulevard

Dave Zirin
What I Want to Ask Mary Tillman

Ron Jacobs
CPR for the Antiwar Movement

Stephen Lendman
Immoral Hazard

Website of the Day
Hagee: God Sent Hitler to Drive the Jews to Israel

May 21, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Gothic Politics of Hillary Clinton

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Military Bases in South America

Alan Farago
Miami, Cuba and the Presidential Campaign

Dave Lindorff
Big John and the Scary, Scary Iran Threat

David Model
Genocide in Iraq?

Eric Walberg
Afghanistan: Who is the Enemy?

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Gets a President

Kenneth Couesbouc
Tax Against Tyranny

Website of the Day
Child Labor and War-Affected Children: a Photo Essay

May 20, 2008

Ralph Nader
A Trip Inside Google

Uri Avnery
With Friends Like These

Patrick Irelan
The Empire and the Fleet

Ray McGovern
Come Out, Admiral Fallon, Wherever You Are

David Macaray
The UAW Strike Against American Axle

Chris Genovali
Big Oil on the Water: Skating Around the Tanker Issue

Ibrahim Fawal
Birmingham, Israel and the Nakba

Christopher Ketcham
Let Us Now Praise Famous Suicides

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo Trial Delayed

Martha Rosenberg
Merck is a Repeat Offender

Website of the Day
Defend the Students Who Pied Tom Friedman

May 19, 2008

Saul Landau
Cuba Will Live

Paul Craig Roberts
The Metamorphosis of the Conservative Movement

Brian McKenna
Brotherly Love in Philly's Badlands

Patrick Cockburn
City of the Dead: Mosul on Lockdown

B. R. Gowani
The Central Problem Pakistan Needs to Tackle

Dr. Trudy Bond
Psychologists and Torture: If Not Now, When?

Cindy Sheehan
Whose War is It?

John Mohawk
The Warriors Who Turned to Peace

Remi Kanazi
When Free Speech Doesn't Come for Free

Robert Day
I Get a Horse

Website of the Day
Evolve or Die

May 17 / 18, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The View from the Crusaders' Castle

Tim Wise
Testosterone is Not to Blame: Why Sexism isn't the Reason for Hillary's Loss

Andy Worthington
Gitmo Trials: Betrayal, Backsliding and Boycotts

Robert Fantina
The Double-Talk Express Derails

Karim Makdisi
In the Wake of the Doha Truce

Harry Browne
Only Ireland Can Vote on EU's Future

John Ross
Suicide by Taco? The Demise of Mexico's PRD

Dave Lindorff
Fear at the Pump

Robert Weissman
Pharmaceutical Payola

Laray Polk
Bush Family Appeasement

David Yearsley
Puritans in Seattle

Ron Jacobs
Riot Squads, Privatization and the National Front

Paul Quinnett
My Last Flight

Sam Bahour
Refugees are the Key

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Poverty Wages

Dr. Susan Block
The Groom May Kiss the Groom

Kim Nicolini
Paranoid Park: Inside the Fractured Landscape of Male Adolescence

Jeremy Scahill
John Cusack's War

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Dominguez, Gerard and Davies

May 16, 2008

Stephen Soldz
Involuntary Drugging of Detainees

Jonathan Cook
Police Attack Al-Nakba March

Paul Craig Roberts
Lies of Aggression

Christopher Brauchli
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pharmacy

James L. Secor
Olympic Torch China: the View from Shaoxing

Franklin Lamb
Did Hezbollah Thwart a Bush/Olmert Attack on Beirut?

Linn Washington, Jr.
The Price of Protecting Racist Cops

Dave Lindorff
What West Virginia Means

May 15, 2008

Stan Cox
Big Brother Close Up

Jeff Halper
Rethinking Israel After 60 Years

Greg Moses
Living for the Children of Palestine

John Ross
Why Mexican Justice is a Euphemism

Ron Jacobs
Go to Work, Go to Jail

Binoy Kampmark
Indian Jailbirds: the Case of Binayak Sen

Eve Spangler
We Should Not Celebrate Dispossession

Martha Rosenberg
Meat Wars with South Korea

Website of the Day
Idaho Wolf Killers

May 14, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Oil Wars

Reza Fiyouzat
Torture, a Bully's Creed

Felice Pace
California Water Politics: Of Dams and Water Buffaloes

Hamdan A. Yousuf / Dania S. Ahmed
A Generation Defined by War

Robert Weitzel
Hillary's "Final Solution" to the Persian Problem

Ralph Nader
You're Either with the American People or the Big Auto Bosses

Dave Lindorff
Hillary, McCain and the Stupid Vote

Missy Comley Beattie
White Heaven: Hillary's W. Virginia Idyll

Neve Gordon
Israel as a Site of Struggle

Dr. Susan Block
A Washington Witch Hanging

Website of the Day
Hillary's Downfall

May 13, 2008

David Rosen
Sexual Terrorism: the Sadistic Side of Bush's War on Terror

Alan Farago
Nuclear Florida: Beachfront Reactors in an Age of Rising Sea Levels?

Saul Landau
The Crisis at Home

Saree Makdisi
Forget the Two-State Solution

Paul Craig Roberts
How Empires Fall

Andy Worthington
Gitmo's Suicide Bomber

Brother Bede Vincent
The Problem with Rev. Wright--There are Too Few Like Him

Linda Mamoun
Marketing Ethnic Cleansing

David Macaray
The Myth That Won't Die

Website of the Day
Burning the Future: Coal in America

May 12, 2008

St. Clair / Frank
The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy

Ziga Vodovnik
Rebels Against Tyranny: an Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism

Gary Leupp
Why All of Our Efforts Won't Stop an Attack on Iran

Frankln Lamb
Choufeit's Bloody Pentacost

Suzanne Baroud
The Ambition of Hillary Clinton

Martha Rosenberg
Farmer Ernie's Chamber of Horrors

Dave Zirin
The Boss's Boycott

Carl Finamore
I Ain't Gonna Work No More

Peter Morici
Recession Watch

Richard Rhames
The Third Way to Nowhere

Website of the Day
The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

May 10 / 11, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 Casualties a Year

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah Eases Up and Beirut Opens Its Shutters

Ciara Gilmartin
A Surge in Iraqi Detainees

Diane Farsetta
Inside a Nuclear Industry Soirée

Kent Paterson
Mother's Day in Ciudad Juarez

Alan Farago
The Social Engineers

Rannie Amiri
Beirut on the Brink

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia, Morales and the Red Ponchos

Robert Fantina
The Lexicon Legacy of George W. Bush

Nikolas Kozloff
El Salvador 2009: Another Feather in the Cap of Chavez?

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Yumare Massacre, 22 Years On

David Yearsley
Bacharach at 80

Ron Jacobs
Rosa Luxemburg's Shock Doctrine

John Holt
Can Yellowstone Survive?

David Michael Green
It's So Over

Ben Terrall
Dealing Sleep

Kim Nicolini
The Best Film of the Bush Era?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Frisella, Gladstone-Gelman

May 9, 2008

Franklin Lamb
A Wild Day in Beirut

Andy Worthington
The Afghans of Gitmo

Benjamin Dangl
Polarizing Bolivia

Mark A. Huddle
Remembering Mildred Loving, an Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

David Macaray
Hollywood Gives SAG the Brush Off

Dave Lindorff
Team Clinton: Going Down Ugly

C.G. Estabrook
The Way We Live Now

Matt Kosko
McCain, Clinton, Obama and the Wages of Lesser-Evilism

Robert Weissman
Big Business is not the Solution to Global Poverty

Michael Dickinson
Jailing the Joint

Website of the Day
The Role of Third Parties in the U.S.A.

May 8, 2008

Sharon Smith
Rockefeller Family Fables

Saul Landau
The NATO Axiom

Laura Carlsen
A Primer on Plan Mexico

Binoy Kampmark
Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.

Kenneth Couesbouc
China's Paper Feet

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Constitutional Shenanigans

Franklin Lamb
Blindsided, Hezbollah Mulls Its Response

Sen. Russ Feingold
Government in Secret

George Wuerthner
The Problems with Conservation Easements

Richard W. Behan
A Brief Exposé of a Fraudulent War

Adam Federman
Marching for Sean Bell

Website of the Day
State of the Air

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Taking on the Queen of the System

An Uphill Battle

By CINDY SHEEHAN

A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

When one reflects on ones life, there are several ways to do it. We can look back in a linear fashion and say, for example:

"When I was 11, my beloved grandmother died."

"In 1975, I graduated from high school."

"In 1977, I got married."

"In 1979, I gave birth to my first child, a son." "In the 1980's, money was tight."

You get the picture.

Or, we can look at life as a journey or path we are on. The road has been smooth, rocky, windy, narrow, or wide; we have descended into deep, dark valleys, or we have sailed along on cruise control, until an unexpected obstacle arises and there's either a crash or a near miss.

Since my son, Casey, was killed in Iraq, on April 04, 2004, I feel like I have been pulling myself inch, after painful inch out of a deep dark Valley. Some days the going felt almost effortless; but on some days it seemed like I fell back to the Valley floor and had to start the laborious journey over.

Now after four years of the most grueling struggle, I feel like I have finally climbed out of that Valley only to be faced with a tall, steep mountain.

My Independent candidacy for Congress against House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi has been termed by most of the punditocracy as not winnable, but certainly as an "uphill battle."

Like I just said, everyday since April 04, 2004, has been an "uphill battle" for me climbing out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, which I was thrown into by BushCo and their shadowy puppet-masters: The Military Industrial Complex.

Along the way out of the Valley there have been ledges or plateaus where real healing occurred and where I have gained strength for the rest of the climb. I am not afraid of valleys, or mountains anymore. I know the reinforcements will appear when needed and the top of the mountain can be achieved.

The mountain I am facing now has a name: The System.

The System in this country is a corporately-controlled, fascistic-capitalism that has taken over our government and media and, as active, dues paying members of The System holds our politicians in a prison of slavery.

The System is ravenously greedy and morbidly violent.

The System feeds its own by starving the rest of us or murdering children to keep its coffers filled and its wheels greased with the blood of innocents.

The System must feed on us or it will die.

The System resists change and will do anything it must to maintain its status quo.

Climbing this mountain is fraught with danger and unbelievably hard work but I know what is on top of that mountain. I have seen it like my brother Martin and at the summit is everything that is good and worthy of the ascent.

On the top of that mountain is peace, and with true peace comes prosperity for everyone. The top of that mountain is green with clear running rivers and sweet air to breathe.

On my mountain we are ALL fed adequately, clothed appropriately, educated soundly and we all have health care, are paid livable wages and a dry roof over our heads.

On the top of my mountain, problems are solved without violence whether between family members or between nation states.

At the base of the mountain, violence is the solution to all problems and no amount of death or destruction is too horrendous, even when problems are imaginary.

The System sucks our communities dry to feed the war machine so our children go cold, hungry and improperly educated. Both the air and water are poisoned at the base of the mountain and The System doesn't care who is exploited as long as The System survives, unchallenged.

I could choose not to challenge The Queen of the System and live in my own world at the base of the mountain where my newborn grandson, Jonah, may face the same untimely and needless death as his Uncle Casey if I choose the easy path.

It would be easier in the short run, but the cost in the long run is a price that is too steep to pay. The cost for our apathy and laziness will be paid by all of our children and grandchildren.

The best thing at the Summit of my mountain is Hope. I know if The System is challenged and defeated, the healing that begins with the death of The System will proceed and we can all be integrated into a society that cares for what Jesus of Nazareth called the "Least of These" and does not exist to perpetuate itself ad (destructive) nauseum.

When I was climbing out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I did not do it alone. I had plenty of help. Some people voluntarily came into the Valley to help rescue me, others were there for the same reason I was: The System tossed them there like garbage. We climbed out together.

I need your help to climb the mountain ahead.

Next to watching my son's coffin being lowered into his too-early grave, this is the most difficult challenge I have ever faced and I cannot do it, and I must not even be allowed to, do it alone.

If we face it together, bonded by the "fierce urgency of now" and our mutual love for all humankind then the ascent will be smoother and the victory much more sweet. We will achieve.

Cindy Sheehan is running for congress as an independent. She can be reached through her website.

 

 

 

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