|
Today's
Stories
April 21
/ 22, 2007
Fred Gardner
Prozac
Madness
April 20,
2007
Doug Peacock
Beginning
of the End for the Yellowstone Grizzly?
Diane Farsetta
Onward, Free Market Soldiers!: Privatizing Public Diplomacy
Tom Clifford
The Surge in Iraqi Civilian Deaths: the Bloodiest 12 Months of
the War
Amira Hass
The
Holocaust as Political Asset
Nicole Colson
Desperation in Gitmo's Camp 6
Sonja Karkar
Double Jeopardy Entraps Palestinians
Heather Gray
The Supreme Court Looks a Lot Like the Taliban
Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban
Syrian Expeditions
Agustin Velloso
Spain and Iraq, Four Years On
Matthew Koehler
Distorting the News in a Timber Company Town
Website of
the Day
Gonzo's Monica
April 19,
2007
Emad Mekay
/
Jim Lobe
Scoring
at the World Bank: Wolfowitz's Quid Pro Quo
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day of Bombs and Blood in Baghdad
Larry C. Johnson
The Hobbesian Hell of Iraq: How Many Dead Equal a Failed Government?
Norman Solomon
Bowing Down to Our Own Violence
Saul Williams
Notes from a Hip Hop Head: an Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey
Sunsara Taylor
From Iraq to the Supreme Court: a New Dark Ages for Women
Harvey Wasserman
How Green is Tom Friedman?
Christopher
Brauchli
Apologies, Incorporated
Anthony Papa
Nightmare Behind Bars: John Valverde's Fight for Freedom
Dave Lindorff
Betraying Thomas Jefferson
Website of the Day
The Best Antiwar Song of the Iraq War?
April 18,
2007
Lila Rajiva
More
Gun Laws or Fewer Idiots? How the Va Tech Administration Failed
Its Campus
Landau / Hassen
Tancredo
as 17th Century Indian Chief?
Charles Fisher
/
Randy Fisher
Don Imus's Firing and the Hip-Hop Culture
Diane Christian
Facing Death Politically
Kevin Prosen
Meeting the Resistance in Iraq
China Hand
Gold Digging: The U.S. Treasury Department's Economic Campaign
Against North Korea
Peter Rost,
MD
The Strange Profits from a Re-Branded Cancer Drug
Justin Akers Chacón
What's Inside the STRIVE Bill
Jerry Kroth
Virginia Tech and Cho Seung Hui: Love and Unhappiness in an Alien
Culture
Sherwood Ross
Massacre at Va Tech: a Brief Glimpse into Daily Life in Iraq
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Bonfire of the Hannities
Alice Cherbonnier
Why South Dakota's "Informed Consent" Law Doesn't Go
Far Enough
Website of
the Year?
"I Hope I Die Before I Get Old"
April 17,
2007
Jean Bricmont
/
Diana Johnstone
The
Elections in France: a Coming Political Tsunami
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bloodbath
in Blacksburg
Frida Berrigan
Militarizing the Border
Alison Weir
The Message of PBS's "Crossroads" Series: Some Muslims
Aren't Bad
John Walsh
Why is the Peace Movement Silent About AIPAC?
Jason Hribal
Resistance is Futile: Emily the Cow and Tyke the Elephant
Evelyn Pringle
The Iraq Money Trail
Ben Terrall
Cuban Exiles Get Hero's Welcome; Haitian Refugees Get Shafted
Stan Cox
1040s and Death Certificates
Soren Ambrose
Confidence
Crisis at the IMF
Website of the Day
Go Ahead and Yell: "FIRE!"
April 16,
2007
John F. Sugg
Hate
and Hypocrisy in the Cox Empire
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Escalating
Military Spending: Income Redistribution in Disguise
Carl G. Estabrook
The Politics of the Useful Threat: It Didn't Start with the Neo-Cons
Paul Craig Roberts
The Party of Brownshirts
Uri Avnery
Blood on Our Hands
Ralph Nader
Where Are the Cries of Outrage Over Military Rapes?
Eamon McCann
Shame of the Empire: Simon, Sir Bono and Tinkerbelle
Lee Sustar
Decoding the Democrats
Mike Whitney
Trouble in Squanderville: Bubble People and the Faith-Based Market
Don Fitz
Solar Capitalism?
Stephen Lendman
Ecuador Votes for Revolutionary Change
Website of the Day
Black Mesa Water Coalition
April 14
/ 15, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Ho
Industry Whores
Jorge Mariscal
Gen.
Petraeus's Field Manual: a Traveler's Guide to Big Muddy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Beautiful and the Dammed: How the West Got Flooded
Dave Marsh
The
Imus Affair, Hip Hop and Politics
Dr. Trudy Bond
Shrinks, Lies and Torture: How Psychologists Became the Pentagon's
Bitches
Joe Bageant
A Feral Dog Howls in Harvard Yard
Fidel Castro
The Terrorist Walks
Alfredo Molano
"More Than Complicated"
Alan Farago
When Miami Crashes
Michael Neumann
Anglophone Fantasies and French Realities
Fred Gardner
Barbara McNair's Unsung Heroism: Bringing Down the Owner of EST
Ron Jacobs
A Conversation with Three Iraq Veterans Against the War
Gail Dines
Racy Sex, Sexy Racism
Linda Ford
Imus and Lady Hoopsters: a Long History of Bias Against Women
Athletes
Missy Beattie
What Would Imus Do?: Iraq, Ho, Ho, Ho
Dan La Botz
Farm Labor Organizer Murdered in Mexico
Giuliana Sgrena
The Lies of Mario Lozano
Laura Carlsen
A Moratorium on Free Trade Agreements
Abu Spinoza
Wolfowitz's Real Crimes
Elizabeth Schulte
Grinding It Out with Quentin Tarantino
Poets' Basement
Davies, Harley, Engel and Landau
Website of
the Weekend
Vonnegut's Final Interview
April 13,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
The
Shattering of Mosul
Stephen Soldz
Aid
and Comfort for Torturers: Psychology and Coercive Interrogations
in Historical Perspective
George Ciccarriello-Maher
The
Failed Chávez Coup: Five Years On
Laith al-Saud
Kirkuk, Oil and the Kurds
Dave Zirin
Memo to Imus
John Ross
Drawing a Line in the Heartland
Ramzy Baroud
America as Proxy
Harvey Wasserman
The Novelist Who Hated War: Peace Be With You, Mr. Vonnegut
Lopez, Olivo and Garcia
Columbia University's Two-Tiered Punishments
Dols, Fukumori,
Judd and Tillett-Saks
Columbia: On the Wrong Side of Justice
Website of the Day
Democrats: an Iraq Scorecard
April 12,
2007
JoAnn Wypijewski
We
May be Rid of Imus, But We're Still Stuck with the Culture
Paul Craig
Roberts
Big Profits from Big Brother
Marjorie Cohn
U.S. Attorneys and Voting Rights
Evelyn Pringle
Bush Family War Profiteering: Will Congress Finally Cut Them
Off?
Ron Jacobs
God
Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut
Norman Solomon
The Awful Truth About Hillary, Barack and John
Joe DeRaymond
The Release of Dennis Counterman: The Justice Game, the Alford
Plea and Death Row
Nicola Nasser
Squeezing Palestinians into an Impossible Mission
Nikolas Kozloff
Chile, a Country Geographically Located in South America "By
Accident"
William S.
Lind
Horatio Hornblower's Worst Nightmare
Siegfried L. Sassoon
A Statement Against the Continuation of the War
Website of
the Day
Where
You Want This Killin' Done?
April 11, 2007
R. T. Naylor
Quebec's
Lessons for the US: How "Wars on Terror" Should be
Fought
Vijay Prashad
The
Generation of IEDs and iPods
Patrick Cockburn
The Myth of Tal Afar
Winslow T. Wheeler
When Will the War Money Really Run Out?
Jack Balkwill
Prison for a Peacemaker: A Vietnam Vet Interviews Kathy Kelly
Alan Farago
Florida's Fundamentally Weak Environmental Movement
Russell D.
Hoffman
The Carbon Offset Tax is Just Another Nuke Bailout
Peter Rost, MD
The Fine Print on Drug Industry Kickbacks
Mike Whitney
Doomsday for the Greenback?
Dave Lindorff
Torture and Selective Outrage
Susie Day
Peter Pace Porks a Peck of Pinko Perverts
Website of the Day
Save the Internet!
April 10,
2007
James G. Abourezk
How
Syria Helped the US in the "War on Terror"-and How
Bush Said "Thanks"
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Why Imus Should be Fired-And Why He Won't Be
Joshua Frank
Democrats for War
Lee Sustar
How Concessions by UAW Lost Jobs
Joseph Grosso
Tiger Woods in Dubai: Luxury and Exploitation
Nirmal Ghosh
China and the Fate of the Tiger
Robert Jensen
Impeach the System
Ramzy Baroud
Not an Intellectual Squabble
Paul Rockwell
History Will Vindicate Lt. Ehren Watada
Mario Joseph
and
Brian Concannon
Solidaridad? Chávez in Haiti
Fred Wilhelms
Why the New Royalty Rates Hurt Artists
Website of
the Day
Thaw!
April 9,
2007
Saul Landau
Whining
Imperialists
Uri Avnery
Shalom, Shin Bet
Nicole Colson
Sami Al-Arian's Nightmare: an Interview with Nahla Al-Arian
Gideon Levy
Israel Does Not Want Peace
Corporate Crime Reporter
Big Coal Invokes Reverse Nuremberg Defense
Evelyn Pringle
The Surge in Casualties
Hill Kemp
Mega Lessons from Iraq War, Year 5
Martha Rosenberg
Monsanto's
Desperate Plea: "Regulate Our Competitors!"
Keith Rosenthal
Behind Boston's Recent "Crime Wave"
Jane Stillwater
Green Zone Cabin Fever
Website of the Day
Support Norman Finkelstein
April 7 / 8, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Dead
Dogs Don't Bleed: How Giuliani Lost America
Sara Roy
A Jewish Plea
Arno J. Mayer
Back to Cleopatra's Nose: Bush-Bashing and Empire's Onward March
Jeffrey St.
Clair
In the Realm of the Grizzly Kings
Vicente Navarro
Why Huntington and Beck Are Wrong
Fidel Castro
Where Have All the Bees Gone? And Other Reflections on the Internationalizaton
of Genocide
Fred Gardner
Medical News from the Business Pages
Ralph Nader
The IRS Owes You Money
David N. Rahni
Test Tube Zealots: American Chemical Society Purges Iranian Chemists
Arthur Neslen
When an Anti-Semite is Not an Anti-Semite
Pratyush Chandra
Joseph Stiglitz's "Another World"
Missy Beattie
Enough Already! The Politics of Exasperation
Marc Levy
A Beginner's Guide to Combat
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Holt, Orloski and Louise
Website of the Weekend
Reactor Man
April 6,
2007
Franklin Lamb
Why
is Hezbollah on the Terrorism List?
Gloria La Riva
On the Case of the Cuban Five and Luis Posada Carriles
Corporate Crime Reporter
The Politics of Coal in West Virginia
Ron Jacobs
Good Friday, Beethoven and Patti Smith
Felice Pace
Simon Says: The Pro-Israel Bias of NPR
Walter Brasch
Treason in the White House?
David Swanson
Heroes, Sung and Unsung
Sylvia Syracuse
Roadside Rampage: Salvadoran Murders in Guatemala
April 5, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
A
De Facto Hostage Exchange
Tom Barry
The Fred Thompson Factor
Richard W. Behan
Congressional Complicity
Nicola Nasser
Playing US Politics with Iraqi Blood for Oil
Bernadine Dohrn
The New and Old SDS: Convergence Not Division
Laray Polk
Lucky Dragon: Does the World Really Need a New H-Bomb?
Helen Redmond
Female Chauvinist Pigs?
April 4,
2007
Col. Dan Smith
"Have
You No Sense of Decency?": the Tillman Affair and the Moral
Decay of the Army
Joshua Frank
Democratic
Blood Money: Sen. Feinstein's War Profiteering
Margaret Kimberly
Of Confessions and Torture
Sharon Smith
Circuit City's Guinea Pigs: the Latest Trend in Corporate America
Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV
Martin Luther
King,Jr.
Beyond
Vietnam
Bill Quigley
Incident at Fort Huachuca, the Army's Torture Training Center
Dave Zirin
Picking Chicago's Pockets with the Olympics
Evelyn Pringle
Drug Companies Want Women of Childrearing Years
Peter Rost,
MD
Pfizer's Puny Fine
Website of the Day
Crash of the Honey Bees
April 3,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
US's
Bungled Plan to Kidnap Iran's Top Spook Prompted hostage Taking
Marjorie Cohn
Coming Up Short on Habeas Corpus for Gitmo Detainees
Brian M. Downing
The Army's Road to Iraq
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Coddling
Pfizer: Praise the Criminal, Dis the Whistleblower
Carol Norris
A Psychologist on Sexual Assault: Yes, Virginia, There is a Sollution
Ralph Nader
Tailpipe Blues
Dave Lindorff
I Quit: A Movement of One (Or a Maybe a Million)
Scott Bontz
The Great Depletion
Thomas Dolby
Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Racism and the National Anthem
Website of
the Day
Cockburn on BookTV
April 2, 2007
Gary Leupp
A
Bogus Hostage Crisis
Uri Avnery
Condi
in the Middle East: Olmert and the Pussycat
James Petras
Palestine: The Political Economy of a Disaster
Norman Solomon
McCain in Baghdad: Walking in McNamara's Footsteps
Robert Fisk
War of Humiliation
Stanley Heller
A Neocon Looks Two Conquests Ahead: The Ravings of James Woolsey
Sherwood Ross
How the Pentagon Cheats Iraq Vets Out of Medical Care and Disability
Pay
Monica Benderman
On Keeping Men Alive: Report from Ft. Stewart
Stephen Fleischman
Winners and Losers in a Dog-Eat-Dog System
Anne McElroy
Dachel
Never Mind the Mercury
Website of the Day
Midwestern Common Sense on the War
March 31 / April 1, 2007
Cockburn /
St. Clair
That
Was an Antiwar Vote?
Fred Gardner
How Corrupt is Malcolm Gladwell? Shilling for Enron and Breast
Cancer
Greg Moses
The Pirates of Homeland Security
Gary Leupp
300 vs. Iran (and Herodotus)
Robert Fisk
Shakespeare and War
Roger Morris
The Politics of the Witch Hunt
Conn Hallinan
The Price of Fire: Oil, Water and Resistance in Bolivia
Kristin J.
Anderson
A Protocol for Death
Jason Hribal
California's Most Unhappy Cows
John Ross
Strange Fruit Down South
Christopher Brauchli
Bush and the Politics of Falsehoods: If You're Going to Lie,
Lie Big
David Underhill
War Breeds Stranger Bedfellows
Elizabeth Schulte
The Pentagon's "Don't Ask" Disaster
Ben Terrall
Time for Lula to Stop Doing Bush's Dirty Work in Haiti
Missy Beattie
Guess Who Isn't Coming to Dinner: The Story of King Abdullah
and the O-Word
Sonja Karkar
How Palestine Became Israel's Land
Daniel Wolff
Have You Heard the News?
David Vest
A Romanian Jazz Rebel Drops a Bomb on Paris
Ron Jacobs
Wynton Marsalis Checks In on the Land That Never Has Been Yet
Poets' Basement
Davies, Holt, Wigley and Landau
Website of the Weekend
Kansas City Rocks
March 30, 2007
Alan Maass
Oil
and the Empire
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
A Memo on Iran: Brinksmanship in Uncharted Waters
Richard W. Behan
George Bush's Land Mine: If Iraqis Get Revenue Sharing, Exxon
Gets Their Oil
Gabriel Kolko
Israel's Last Chance
William S. Lind
Operation Anabasis
Stedjan / Weis
The Cluster Bomb Treaty: Again, It's the US vs. the World
Kevin Zeese
Is Bush Lame or Is Congress?
David Busch
Homeless in LA
Fidel Castro
Biofuels and Global Hunger
CounterPunch
News Service
Mistrial in Olympia 15 Case
Website of the Day
Free Shaquanda Cotton
March 29, 2007
Saul Landau
Comparing
Padillas
Patrick Cockburn
When Iraqi Cops Go on a Rampage
Dave Lindorff
War and the Futures Market: Oil Traders Fear an Attack on Iran
Arthur Neslen
Normalizing Injustice: Jaffa's Ugly Truth
Michael Dickinson
Incident at Westminster Abbey
Ingmar Lee
Plantskyyd: Planting Trees with Pig's Blood in British Columbia
Aseem Shrivastava
As India Goes Global, the Public Goes Private
Marlene Martin
Sacco and Vanzetti, Revisited
Mahmoud El-Yousseph
Wake Up, You Live in America!
Michael Foley
A Citizen's Peace Lobby
Website of the Day
Impeach Bush Club Parade
March 28,
2007
Nicole Colson
The
Ongoing Persecution of Sami Al-Arian
Harry Clark
Michigan Peaceworks on Palestine
Larry Everest
Another $100 Billion to Continue the War
Jonathan M.
Feldman
Citigroup,
Property and Theft
Dave Zirin
Yet Another Book on Muhammad Ali (and Why I Wrote It)
Jane Stillwater
How Runaway Inflation Has Slipped Under the Radar
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Pakistan's Cry for Justice
Jim Wilfong
Who Owns Maine's Water?
Hawra Karama
An Open Letter to Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi Uncle Tom
Website of
the Day
Free Fire on Iraqi Civilians
March 27, 2007
Iain Boal /
Standard Schaefer
British
Petroleum and the New Greenmail
Patrick Cockburn
The Hostage Game
Monica Benderman
On Ending War: Is America Ready for the Troops When They Come
Home?
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Political
Players and Single Payer
Joshua Frank
Dems in Power: Broken Promises and Bald-Faced Lies
Harvey Wasserman
Will Al Gore Deliver Us to Solartopia?
Sen. Russell Feingold
FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act
Tillman Family
Crimes and Cover Ups are Not "Missteps"
Patrick Bond
Zimbabwe's Descent
David Judd
Arbitrary Discipline at Columbia
Website of the Day
Why Work?
March 26, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
Seven
Days on Iraq's Cruel Roads
Uri Avnery
Schoolbooks and Borders
Greg Moses
Hothouses for Hapless Masses on the Rio Grande
Bill Hatch
A Plague of Big Shots
John V. Walsh
The Democrats' War Funding Debacle
Diane Christian
God Does Not Love the Aggressor
Dan La Botz
The Immigration Movement at a Crossroads
Frederico Fuentes
Latin America Tells Bush to "Get Out!"
Sunsara Taylor
Democrats' Victory Means More Iraqi Deaths
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman: Beyond the Hype
Website of the Day
DynCorp's Iraq Training Policy
March 24 / 25, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Where
are the Laptop Bombardiers Now?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Nuclear Saviors?: Kyoto, Gore and the Atomic Lobby
David Rosen
An American Obituary: Anna Nicole Smith and the Exploitation
of Nature
Ron Jacobs
The Political History of the Car Bomb
Robert Fantina
Vietnam and Iraq, the Rhetoric Remains the Same
Alan Maass
Why Ralph Nader Took a Stand
Atul Gawande
On Washing Hands: A Surgeon's Notes on How Infections Spread
in Hospitals
Marianne McDonald
Staging
Anti-Colonial Protest
China Hand
Zealots Scheme to Derail North Korea Accord
Kaz Dziamka
The Iroquois Way of Impeachment
Andrew Wimmer
The Nursemaid's Tale
Don Monkerud
World's Biggest Debtor Nation
Anthony Papa
Bong Hits 4 Jesus Case
Matthew Provonsha
Return of the Black Bloc
Missy Beattie
Calling Youth and Young Adults
Stephen Fleischman
Confrontation, At Last
Poets' Basement
Newberry, Laymon, Harley and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
An Interview with Ron Jacobs
Song of the Weekend
"Who Would Jesus Bomb?"
March 23,
2007
Saul Landau
Return
to Syria
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome to Iraq, Mr. Ban
Greg Moses
Protesting Immigrant Prisons in the Rio Grande Valley
Rep. Ron Paul
The War Funding Bill
Franklin Lamb
Will Hezbollah Hand Israel Its 6th Defeat?
Stephen Gowans
Mugabe Gets the Milosevic Treatment
Roger Burbach
Leftist Victory in Ecuador
Dave Lindorff
The Gutless Mini-Politics of the Congressional Democrats
William S. Lind
Candles in the Hurricane
Alan Mammoser
The New Rules of Food
Russell Hoffman
Al Gore's Nose is Glowing
Website of
the Day
Global Outsourcing and the US Working Class
March 22,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Oil-Rich
Kirkuk at the Melting Point
Robin Blackburn
Toxic
Waste in the Sub-Prime Market
Michael Donnelly
Mr. Green Goes to Washington: Another Oscar Performance from
Al Gore
Uzma Aslam
Khan
Down Pakistan's No-Constitution Avenue
Lee Sustar
Bush's Braceros: The Ugly Truth About the Guest Worker Program
Robert D. Skeels
LA's Vicious War on the Homeless
Rev. William Alberts
The Forbidden C-Word
Anne McElroy
Dachel
The Search for the Elusive Autism Gene
Mickey Z.
This is Your Brain on Meat
Website of
the Day
Raimondo Does Hitchens
March 21, 2007
Tao Ruspoli
A
Conversation with Robbie Conal
James Petras
Meet
the Global Ruling Class
Fred Gardner
A U.S. Army Pipe Dream
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Cramer Comes Clean: Lies, Market Manipulation and Wall Street
Faisal Kutty
Too Guilty to Fly, Too Innocent to Charge?
Robert Fantina
U.S. Imperialism in Action
Isabella Kenfield and Roger
Burbach
Brazilian Opposition to Bush-Lula Ethanol Accords
Lucinda Marshall
Missing in Action: Why is the Peace Movement Ignoring the Impact
of War on Women?
Winslow Wheeler
Dem Budget Tricks: Reform Means What We Say It Means!
Website of
the Day
Student Day of Action Against the War
March 20,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
is a Vast, Blood-Drenched Human Disaster
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The Blank Check War
Sharon Smith
Hillary's Cojones: Our Bleached-Blond Thatcher?
Uri Avnery
The New Palestinian Unity Government
Stan Cox
Down-to-a-Trickle Economics
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Hating the Rich
Alan Farago
Why Al Gore Soft-Peddled the Environment in 2000
Richard W.
Behan
Impeachment and Patriotism
Juan Antonio Montecino Latin America Has Moved On
David Krieger
The Treaty of Tlatelolco
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to Pfizer's CEO: $11 Million Salary, 36% Raise,
10,000 Fired Employees
Mickey Z.
A Cat-Eat-Cat World: Beyond the Pet Food Recall
Website of
the Day
Bringing the War Home
Webclip of
the Day
Sunsara Taylor Beats O'Reilly, Again
March 19,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Crime
Blotter: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Patrick Cockburn
Operation
Deepening Nightmare
Stauber / Rampton
Why Won't MoveOn Move Forward?
Werther
Plame Wars: Valerie Plame, the Washington Post and the Ghost
of Joe McCarthy
Noam Chomsky
In Memory of Tanya Reinhart
Jeff Leys
Tap Dancing on Graves: How Democrats Bought the War
Richard May
And Then There Were None: Europe's Afghan Backlash
Ron Jacobs
Lessons of the Antiwar Movement and the Washington Post's Lessons
of the Iraq War
Mike Whitney
Rove in the Dock
Website of
the Day
Ringtones That Roar
March 17
/ 18, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Here
Comes Another "Crime Wave"
John Scagliotti
A Sissy's Manifesto
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Green Imposter: When Al Gore Was Veep
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Confession Backfired
Greg Moses
Jailing Immigrant Mothers in El Paso
Harry Clark
Thrice-Told Tales: Those Israel-Syria Peace Talks
Brian Cloughley
In the Name of Improving People's Lives: Mounting Civilian Deaths
in Afghanistan and Iraq
Mehran Ghassemi
An Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh on the US, Israel and Iran
William Loren Katz
A Disturbing Expulsion: Racism and the Cherokee Nation
John Ross
Being a Zapatista Where You Live
Ralph Nader
Ban the Bomblets!
Walter Brasch
An Intolerant Minority: the Witch Hunt Against Gays in the Military
Samer Assad
The Palestinian Unity Government: Another for US Diplomacy
Dave Zirin
Bowie Kuhn: Death of a Baseball Reactionary
Ron Jacobs
The Darker Nation's: Remembering and Re-examining the Third World
Missy Beattie
No to War and Pace
Don Santina
First, They Came for the Democrats
Sami Adwan
What Hillary Should Know About Palestinian Schoolbooks
Dr. Susan Block
Gods of Spring: the Erotics of the Equinox
Poets' Basement
Reed, Landau, Engel, Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
God Save Helen Mirren
March 16,
2007
R. T. Naylor
The
Political Economy of Diamonds
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Last Days of Constitutional Rule
Joshua Frank
Obama's Israel Problem
Diane Farsetta
How Reporters Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Front
Groups
Tom Barry
Tancredo's Putsch: Anti-Immigrant Agenda Veers Hard Right
Stephen Lendman
Plays from a Political Fake Book: Congress's Phony Opposition
to War
Al Krebs
Compounding Infamy: Chiquita, Its Workers and Colombia's Death
Squads
Jackie Corr
Senator Schumer and the Corruption Culture
Ramzy Baroud
Palestinians Must Redefine Struggle
Reza Fiyouzat
The Chinese Way of Capitalism
Website of the Day
Introducing: the iRak
March 15,
2007
Alison Weir
Strip-Searching
Children at Israeli Checkpoints
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad
Under Surge
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo to Congressional Leaders on Iraq Funding: First Stop the
Bleeding
Franklin Spinney
Of Character and Contractors: the Unauthorized Rumsfeld
Standard Schaefer
Biofuels
and the Green Resistance
Conn Hallinan
The Right's Stuff in Africa: Neocons, Evangelicals and Sudan
Maureen Webb
Another Patriot Act Abuse
Sonja Karkar
Rachel Corrie and Palestine
Margaret Kimberly
The Profits of Self-Hatred: Malkin and D'Souza, Incorporated
Anthony Papa
The New Capones: It's Time to Rethink Drug Prohibition
Katherine Hancy
Wheeler Bush's
Latin American Tour: Good Will Lost
Video of the Day
The Easiest Targets
Website of
the Day
Memo to Kucinich: Watch Your Back!
March 14,
2007
Tao Ruspoli
A
Conversation with Peter Linebaugh on the Slave Trade, Magna Carta
and the State of the Left
Philip Agee
The
Decline of the US, the Rise of Latin America
Bruce Dixon
The Digital Redlining of African-Americans
John Walsh
How One Senator Could End the War
Sunsara Taylor
Red Light, Green Light: the Democrats and Iran
William Johnson
Still Reeling from Katrina: The Spirited Strike at Pascagoula
Shipyards
Richard Thieme
Entitlement and Empire
Jeffrey Klein
Right-Wing Academic Values
Nicola Nasser
This Time, Israeli is Missing an Historic Opportunity
Dave Lindorff
Political Hide-and-Seek with the Democrats
Website of
the Day
Oil Change
March 13,
2007
Catherine Wilkerson,
M.D.
Scenes
from a Cop Riot
Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Invastion of Lebanon
Robert Bryce
Beyond Redemption: the Legacy of George the Second
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Coal-Powered Democrats
Pierre Rimbert
Libération and the Evolution of French Neoliberalism
Dave Lindorff
What's Good for Halliburton is Good ... for Dubai
Elizabeth Schulte
The Repackaging of John Edwards
Norman Solomon
The Pragmatism of Prolonged War
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats' Fraudulent Iraq Exit Plan
Jeff Conant
Greeting Rumsfeld in Taos
Website of the Day
Tacoma and the Big Heat
March 12,
2007
Marjorie Cohn
Patriot
Act Unbound
Col. Dan Smith
Ghost Prisoners, Shadowy Jails and Secret Trials
Paul Craig Roberts
Neocons in Kafkaland
Ingmar Lee
The Sentencing of Betty Krawczyk: a 78-Year-Old Eco-Heroine
Fred Gardner
Cannabis for the Wounded: Another Walter Reed Scandal
Ron Jacobs
Showdown at Port Tacoma: Confronting the War Machine in the Northwest
Ralph Nader
Send the Bush Twins to Iraq!
John Ross
Political Prisoners in Calderon's Mexico
Stephen Fleischman
Bush's Latin American Slip
Eva Carazo Vargas
Why We Reject CAFTA
Website of
the Day
Mountain Justice Spring Break
March 9
/ 11, 2007
Sameer Dossani
Interview
with Noam Chomsky: War, Neoliberalism and Empire in the 21st
Century
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Crude Alliance: The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
Dave Marsh
Bono's Bullshit: Not One Red Cent
Patrick Cockburn
Shia Pilgrims Die Despite US Offensive
Jennifer Van Bergen
A Gonzo Argument: Alberto Gonzales's Defense of NSA Domestic
Spying
James P. Stevenson
Pardon Whom? Libby and the Cheney Unseen
Arthur J. Versluis
Crusade for Commercialism
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Not a Dime's Worth of Difference: Congress and Corporate Crime
Missy Beattie
Too Much Info, Newt!: Sex, God and Praying
Michael Simmons
Annie Get Your Gums: Why I Like Ann Coulter
Kevin Zeese
Making Democrats Pay the Price: Voting Against the War is No
Longer Enough
David Swanson
Shocking Video: The Dark Side of the Democrats
John A. Murphy
Are the Congressional Democrats Spineless?
Dave Lindorff
Bush Dodges a Constitutional Bullet in New Mexico: Abetted by
Democrats
Nikolas Kozloff
Lights! Camera! Chavez!
Christopher
Fons
Bush Goes to Latin America: Is It All About (N)PR?
Mike Roselle
A Thousand Miles of Bad River
Mike Mejia
Justice for Sibel Edmonds
Susie Day
Anna Nicole Smith Bombs Iran!
Michael Donnelly
LA Story: Rock Stars, Porn Stars and Peace
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know (Parts 4 and 5)
Poets' Basement
Reed, Laymon, Mezmer and Harley
Website of the Weekend
Japanese Dolphin Massacre
March 8,
2007
Elaine Cassel
The
Tragic Case of Jose Padilla
Yifat Susskind
Iraq's Other War: Violence Against Women Under US Occupation
Corporate Crime Reporter
Politics and the Prosecutors
Col. Dan Smith
The Sins of Walter Reed
William S. Lind
The Washington Dodgers
Mark Engler
Bush's Latin American Spring Break
Roger Burbach
With Negroponte as Tour Director, Bush's Trip Destined to Fail
Dana Cloud
Return of the Campus Witch Hunts: David Horowitz and the Thought
Police
Isabella Kenfield
Brazil's Ethanol Pland: Breeding Rural Poverty and Environmental
Degradation
Lucinda Marshall
We Stand with the Women of the World
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction (Part
3)
Website of
the Day
Filibuster for Peace
March 7, 2007
Christopher Ketcham
What Did Israel Know in Advance
of the 9/11 Attacks?
Christopher
Ketcham
The
Kuala Lumpur Deceit: a CIA Cover Up
Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey
St. Clair
Ketcham's Story: Coming in From the Cold
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Mismeasuring the Defense Budget
Sean Donahue
Free Scooter Libby!
Dave Lindorff
The Fall Guy Has Fallen
Evelyn Pringle
Psychosis and Mania: ADHD Drug Warnings Come Too Late for Many
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction
Website of the Day
Debating Iraq: Gaffney Against the World!
March 6,
2007
Gary Leupp
Meet
Eliot Cohen: "As Extremist a Neocon and Warmonger as It
Gets"
Uri Avnery
Esterina Tartman: The Big Mouth of Israeli Fascism
Patrick Cockburn
The War on Terror is a Bust: Bush is Now Al Qaeda's Top Recruiter
Saul Landau
World
in Crisis, Candidates in Denial
Corporate Crime Reporter
John Edwards' Big Lie
Ron Jacobs
The Legacy of Lordstown: The Union Makes Us Strong!
Mike Roselle
Judi Bari: Ten Years Gone
P. Sainath
Neoliberalism and the Ideology of the Cancer Cell
Joshua Frank
Dump the Dems, Unite Against the War
Aniket Alam
Women's Day, Lenin and a Riot in Copenhagen
Dave Zirin
Resurrecting Don Barksdale: Basketball's Forgotten Pioneer
Website of
the Day
Physicians for a National Health Program
March 5,
2007
Greg Moses
Holding
Suzi Hazahza for Profit
Patrick Cockburn
Exodus of Iraq's Ancient Minorities
James Petras
Bush vs. Chavez
Frida Berrigan
US Nuclear Hypocrisy and Iran
Marjorie Cohn
Conscientious Objector Faces Court-Martial:
the Case of Augustín Aguayo
Douglas Kammen
and S.W. Hayati
The Rice Crisis in East Timor
Sen. Barack Obama
On Israel and AIPAC: "We Must Preserve Our Total Commitment
to Our Unique Defense Relationship with Israel"
Michael Young
Sy Hersh and Iran: the Dark Side of Spun a Lot?
Dave Lindorff
It's the People of Washington vs. Pelosi, et al
Sonja Karkar
Raiding Nablus: Israel's Hot Winter Offensive
Website of the Day
How Obama Learned to Love Israel
March 3
/ 4, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
Persecution of Sami Al-Arian
Corporate Crime
Reporter
"No Fingernails, No Good:" Al-Arian Prosecutor's Anti-Muslim
Bias
Jeffrey St. Clair
Glory Boy and the Snail Darter: Al Gore, the Origins of a Hypocrite
Patrick Cockburn
War Reporting in Iraq: Only Locals Need Apply
Ralph Nader
Hillary, Inc.: Sen. Clinton and Corporate America
M. Shahid Alam
American Mamlukes
Gilad Atzmon
From Esther to AIPAC
Fred Gardner
It's Official!: Cannabis Reduces Pain
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Fourth World War Started in Venezuela
Rock &
Rap Confidential
Do the James Brown!: "No One Could Speak More Authoritatively
for Blacks"
Gillian Russom
The Court Martial of Agustín Aguayo
Michael McPhearson
My Small Act of Civil Disobedience
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats and the Peace Movement: Who Owns Whom?
Sunsara Taylor
Four Years of an Unjust War
Wendy Thompson
Re-Organizing the UAW
Kenneth Rexroth
Gibbon's "Decline and Fall"
Missy Beattie
Regarding Cheney
Don Monkerud
Jesus Turned Away at US Border
Tina Louise
Stuffed with Terror, Starved of Dreams
Poets' Basement
Richards, Landau and Davies
Website of the Weekend
John Prine: Flag Decal
March 2,
2007
Roger Morris
Cheney's
Bagram Ghosts
Phil Gasper
Prisoners of Ideology
Mike Roselle
Buffalo Gore: The Blood-Stained Snow of Yellowstone
Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scam
John V. Walsh
Who is He This Time?: Kerry's Strange Call to Filibuster the
War
Sherwood Ross
Bush and Walter Reed Hospital: Praise the Care, Slash the Budget
China Hand
Who Let North Korea Get the Bomb?
David Rosen
To Cut or Not to Cut?: the Politics of Circumcision in America
Chris Genovali
Connecting the Dots
Peter Harley
The Wall, Apartheid and Mandela
Website of the Day
Courage to Resist
March 1,
2007
Laura Carlsen
Return
to Sender: Migrants as Globalization's Junk Mail
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men
Ray McGovern
How Far is Iran from the Bomb? Who the Hell Knows?
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Theater of the Absurd
Najum Mustaq
America's Musharraf Dilemma
Brent Bowden
The War on Terror and the Terror of War
Tina Richards
Demoralizing the Troops? The Mother of an Iraq War Vet Responds
Ethan Nadelman
Mexico and the Drug War
Mike Stark
"Tough on Crime" is the Problem, Not a Solution
Wadner Pierre
/ Jeb Sprague
Haiti's Poor Under a State of Siege by UN
Mike Whitney
Market Meltdown: the Dead Hand of Greenspan
Website of
the Day
Dylan Hears a Who
|
Weekend
Edition
April 21 / 22, 2007
The Indian Predicament
SEZS: Behind the Curtain
By ASEEM SHRIVASTAVA
"Few cities anywhere have
created wealth faster than Shenzhen, but the costs of its phenomenal
success stare out from every corner: environmental destruction,
soaring crime rates and the disillusionment and degradation of
its vast force of migrant workers"
--"Chinese Success Story
Chokes on Its Own Growth"
The New York
Times, December 19,
2006.
Within the short span of a few decades
China has become the envy of the world. Corporate managers across
the globe lose sleep worrying about "the China price".
Real wages and working conditions rivaling those of industrializing,
pauperizing Britain two centuries ago have enabled the country
to leave far behind any global competitor who has to worry about
such inconvenient matters as labor laws and environmental regulations.
Thus has accelerated the inter-national race to the bottom that
has generated fear since the early days of this phase of corporate
globalization. The labor force in the global economy doubled
overnight in the early 1990s (from 1400 to 2900 million) when
China, India and the Eastern Bloc nations joined it after the
fall of the Berlin Wall, under Bush I's "New World Order."
If real wages and the share of wages in national income have
fallen sharply in recent times, and if inequalities have risen
dramatically at the same time, the answer to the riddle lies
in this quiet accretion, cashed in on by China-based corporations
who have set the pace. The logic of capital has inveigled the
entire world into a race of totalitarianisms--which inevitably
enrich the few and pauperize the many in every country.
Democracy is a nuisance for
capitalism. The success of China should demonstrate even to the
most ardent of liberals that capitalism works most efficiently
under despotic conditions. If capitalism coexisted with democracy
in the Western world for some decades, the rise of China shows
it up for what it was: a coincidence of history brought into
relief by the fight for freedom and human rights by large sections
of the working population of the West since the early days of
19th century British Chartism. The gains of working classes were
consolidated by the institutionalization of the welfare state
since Bismarck's Germany first brought in social legislation
in the 1880s. They took a big step forward with the implementation
of Roosevelt's New Deal in the US in the 1940s. Much of this
was made possible, needless to say, by the spoils of war and
imperialism, which enabled Western elites to maintain labor aristocracies
within their own geographical boundaries. A prosperous domestic
social peace was arranged on the ample backs of Third World super-exploitation
of labor--and maintained internationally through arm-twisting
"multi-lateral" agencies like the IMF, the World Bank,
GATT and the WTO. And when they failed to work covert or military
operations were always on the cards to ensure the desired outcome
for Western elites (a practice that continues unabated).
One of the big historical gains
of working classes in the West was universal adult suffrage--the
cornerstone of modern democracies. By 1964--thanks mainly to
the heroic efforts of the Civil Rights Movement under Martin
Luther King--even the United States had it. After a while it
became all but natural for commentators across the political
spectrum to associate capitalism, in some umbilical way, with
democracy and freedom. "History suggests that capitalism
is a necessary condition for political freedom," the anointed
public intellectual of the day, conservative economist Milton
Friedman declared in 1962.
What history is revealing now
is something altogether different: that far from being the precondition
for political freedom, capitalism may be the growing thorn in
the flesh of democracy, a thorn that democracy nourishes in the
very core of its body-politic, a juggernaut of tyranny, remorselessly
hungry for power both within and outside the country, without
which its appetite for profits, growth and expansion cannot be
met. As capital has had to bare its fangs, the dove of freedom
and democracy has flown out of the window.
The Indian
predicament
It is in this global context
that India is having to chart its economic course.
In order to stand any chance
of success in a global field where China sets the bottom-line
and the long-understood practices of ruthless capitalist competition
hold sway, Indian policy-makers have no option but to fall in
line with the heartless rules of the game. It is vain to expect
our leaders to then champion democracy--except when they are
in the opposition just before elections. To subscribe exclusively
to the growth imperative is to be necessarily forced to sideline
all other social or political goals and sign on to the charter
of (global) corporate tyranny. The private interest--the hunt
for ever higher profits, justified by the promise to grow, invest
and employ--is the public interest. No need to distinguish
between the two any more. Thus, unsurprisingly, as the unfolding
logic of capital has revealed its despotic character, even liberalism
has lurched feebly towards a quiet grave.
The situation is further worsened
by the fact that India's policy-making elite since 1991 has all
but willingly had its hands tied by its acquiescence in the plans
of global capital. Policy-making has been conducted under the
close scrutiny of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. This involves
many things. To please the IMF, social spending has had to be
slashed and the government openly expresses guilt in performing
economic functions which it is constitutionally bound to carry
out. To keep the World Bank happy the government has to open
the door to "development" projects of doubtful social
value and destructive environmental effects. To find the ear
of the WTO it has had to sell the rural poor down the river,
allow subsidized Western imports of foodgrains, remove price
supports for farmers and dismantle the public distribution system,
thus (especially given the collapse of rural public investment
in infrastructure, one of the consequences of IMF-diktat) making
it ever more likely that more and more people will find agriculture
an unviable option over a period of time--and will be willing
to sell their land to corporations or the government.
This has meant that the government
has effectively receded from any promise of economic welfare
or development, indeed from any economic participation, which
does not place corporate interests at the very centre of the
public agenda. According to The Times of India there is
public money to help Tata in its purchase of Corus, but none
to expand the employment guarantee scheme.
The meaning
of the Indian SEZ phenomenon
"When I expand, it is
always in a capital-intensive, and not in a labor-intensive direction."
- Dinesh Hinduja, to Edward
Luce of The Financial Times.
It takes only a little imagination
to sense the despair among Indian policy-makers today. They have
had to actually believe their own rhetoric--meant otherwise exclusively
for public consumption. Thus, despite mounting facts to the
contrary, it has become a virtual article of faith--with them
as much as with the politicians and the media--that trickle-down
economics actually works: that the only way to achieve economic
development is via corporate-led industrial growth which will
generate employment. Never mind that the modern sectors of the
economy are destroying jobs.
That employment in India was
growing more rapidly in the 1980s, when the economy was growing
much more slowly than it is today, is of little account. That
the entire private organized sector of the economy has generated
fewer than a million jobs during the past 16 years (and still
employs less than 9 million people), when over 12 million people
are getting added to the Indian workforce every year should
make our policy-makers worried whether we will be a sustainable
society at all in the future--whether we will not dissipate ourselves
in a welter of frustrated social violence, the kind that Star
TV had the misfortune of experiencing in Mumbai the other day.
None of this seems to alarm them.
And yet, how could it not?
22-year-olds fed on the dreams of unabashed consumerism are not
going to sit idly and watch the rich race past in their speeding
cars. Thus, it was not surprising when an ex-Union Minister was
so taken by a 2000 visit to Shenzhen, China, where a Special
Economic Zone has generated huge amounts of unprecedented wealth
during the past generation. 20-30% has been the annual rate of
growth, sustained over a quarter century. Over 10 million people
have found employment in an area the size of Jaipur. The city
has generated 14% of China's exports. Who wouldn't want to be
like it?
Or is it? Listen to The
New York Times correspondent after he returned from a field
visit:
"among Chinese economic
planners, Shenzhen's recipe is increasingly seen as all but irrelevant:
too harsh, too wasteful, too polluted, too dependent on the churning,
ceaseless turnover of migrant labor. "This path is now a
dead end," said Zhao Xiao, an economist and former adviser
to the Chinese State CouncilAfter cataloguing the city's problems,
he said, "Governments can't count on the beauty of investment
covering up 100 other kinds of ugliness." As the limits
of the Shenzhen model have grown more and more apparent, other
cities in China's relatively developed east are increasingly
trying to differentiate themselves, emphasizing better working
and living conditions for factory workers or paying more attention
to the environment. "Some inland cities have started to
provide migrants social security, including pension and other
insurance," said Wang Chunguang, an expert in class mobility
at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. "In
Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, residency controls are loosening
up and education for migrant children is getting more attention.""
The province of Guangdong,
where Shenzhen is located, recorded 10,000 protests last year--in
what is known to the world as a totalitarian society. It appears
that in China at least, SEZ is an idea whose time has lapsed.
So why is it that in India it is an idea whose time has arrived?
The answers are to be found
in the peculiarities of the Indian situation and the utterly
odd world in which our corporate and policy-making elites find
themselves today. The economy has been growing at a internationally
impressive 8-9% for about 5 years now. Indian corporations have
become globally mobile units, locating themselves in Eastern
Europe and China, Bolivia and Equatorial Guinea, acquiring companies
in Europe and North America, mines and oilfields in Africa, Latin
America and Australia.
However, there is immense corporate
frustration--still--right here at home in India. Some of the
cheapest labor in the world is at their command. And yet, because
of the inconvenience of democracy they can't be hired and fired
in sync with the impulses of the business cycle, as it happens
in China. Some of the most readily accessible natural resources
are at their disposal. Except that there is the nuisance of bureaucracy
in the shape of clearance of industrial projects by pollution
control boards and the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.
They have firm control over the hearts and minds of politicians.
But, from their point of view, there are still too many taxes
to be paid. There is infrastructure in the country, but it is
either in the city and already burdened or it is near fertile
agricultural land (and must be somehow acquired: the reason that
the conflict between agriculture and industry is arising in SEZ
land acquisition in the first place). And so on.
SEZs offer a relief from this
entire nettle of hurdles. All that can't be attempted in the
civilized world outside will be the norm in SEZs. American corporations
routinely abuse labor and the environment in Shenzhen in ways
unacceptable to the Western world (though no one seems to mind
the cheap shoes and clothing). In India, SEZs will provide a
profitable refuge from the Indian Constitution, an effective
waiver from democracy. The Development Commissioner and the SEZ
Authority will have overwhelming powers, making local, provincial,
national and international laws all but irrelevant. "Little
Chinas" and Shenzhens can be developed. Soon, after their
nominal success (inevitable, given the enormous range of concessions)
is visible to all, the clamor for more such spots would be heard.
And will be heeded. Unlike in China. Nandigrams and Kalinganagars
will happen from time to time, but so long as they don't all
happen simultaneously, and too close to an election, one could
"move forward" in a stop-go pattern to accommodate
the formal requirements of an electoral democracy.
This is the plan.
What else does it mean? Recent
concessions (like the liberalization of foreign direct investment
in real estate), the rush of builders and developers to acquire
SEZ land, the fact that only 50% of the area under an SEZ has
to be dedicated to processing (whose definition is stretched
liberally to include everything from mining to agriculture),
the fact that industrialists are all too often being granted
land well in excess of their production requirements (whether
Tata in Singur or Reliance in Dadri) all point in the direction
of an engineered real estate boom through SEZ growth. Huge amounts
of capital are pouring into the real estate market, both from
within India and abroad. Returns of 30, 40, even 100 per cent
in many segments of the market are becoming common--making Indian
real estate markets one of the most attractive places anywhere
to invest for global finance capital.
And the political implications
of SEZs? Far-reaching and monstrous. A real-time pilot experiment
in corporate totalitarianism is being launched through the high
offices of the nation-state which, if successful, will reduce
the latter to a mere clearance window between the corporate superstate
in Washington and the emerging archipelago of fiscally autonomous
post-modern city-states strewn across the country. As flags are
raise once again in rajwadas and princely states, the
long |
