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Today's
Stories
July 27, 2009
Ishmael Reed
Gates: Post-Race Scholar Yells Racism
July 24-26, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
"A Damned Murder, Inc."
Clifton Ross
Surreal Honduras
Patrick Cockburn
Party of "Change" Challenges Old Guard in Kurdistan
William Polk
Report Card on Obama From a New Frontiersman
David Sterritt
Screening the Politics Out of the Iraq War
Ray McGovern
Hooded in Bush's Hood
David Lindorff
Cops Gone Wild
Hannah Mermelstein
"The War is With the Arabs"
Carl Ginsburg
The Actually Existing Health Care System
Helen Redmond
The Selling of Single-Payer Features
John Ross
The Song of the Guerrilla
Bill Simpich
Fair Play for Cuba and the Cuban Revolution
Mark Weisbrot
Learning From China on How to Beat the Recession
Lee Sustar
U.S. Labor in Crisis
David Macaray
Union Workers Forced to Accept Massive Cuts
Felipe Matsunaga
Obama's Slow (and Familiar) Dance With Cuba
Sara Mann
Why Health Care Will Kill My TV
Martha Rosenberg
Which is Worse? Germs in Our Food or the Antibiotics That Kill Them?
Missy Beattie
Cha-ching Culture
David Ker Thomson
Empty Nest: a Natural History of Now
Ron Jacobs
United4Iran, a Footnote
Stephen Martin
The Crying of Lots 1 Thru 50
David Yearsley
Psst, I Show You a Feelthy Gluck
Gilad Atzmon
Bruno: a Glimpse Into Zionism?
Kim Nicolini
Guilty Laughter in the Dark: Seeing Brüno Twice
Poets' Basement
Kakak and McLellan
Website of the Weekend
Dead Prez: Summertime
July 23, 2009
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Masters of Perfidy: AIG and the System
Saul Landau /
Nelson Valdés
Hypocrisy and the Honduran Coup: Term Limits Only Apply When Governments Help People
Jonathan Cook
The Reality of Israel's "Open" Jerusalem
Nadia Hijab
Israeli Warships in the Red Sea
Dave Lindorff
Living in a Police State: the Gates Incident
Laura Carlsen
21st Century Coups d'Etat
Steve Breyman
Bankers Beware?
Ellen Brown
How California Could Turn Its IOUs Into Dollars
Norman Solomon
Spinning Health Care
Jorge Mariscal
Youth Activists Demand Military-Free Schools
Website of the Day
Copy-Editing Sarah Palin
July 22, 2009
Bernard Chazelle
How to Argue Against Torture
Nikolas Kozloff
The Coup and the U.S. Airbase in Honduras
Carl Ginsburg
The Recovery, Phase Two
Clifton Ross
Back to the Future? Return to El Salvador
Anthony DiMaggio
Health Care, Media and the Case for Socialized Medicine
Michael Donnelly
The Whoppers Behind WOPR
Nadia Hijab
Memoirs of a Lost Arab World
Dedrick Muhammad
Structural Inequality: News Not Fit to Print?
Charles Thomson
Cronyism at the Tate
Alan Farago
Ted Williams and the Florida Keys
Website of the Day
Himmelstein: Howard Dean is a Liar
July 21, 2009
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Iranian Election and Its Aftermath
Uri Avnery
Breaking the Silence on Israeli War Crimes
Dean Baker
Séance on Wall Street
Jonathan Cook
Team Twitter: Israel's Internet War
Dave Lindorff
Saving Private Bergdahl
Andy Worthington
Interrogating the Uighurs
David Macaray
Heat, Dust and OSHA
Carl Finamore
The Deferential Party
Harvey Wasserman
Cronkite and Three Mile Island
Walter Brasch
The Marie Antoinettes of Health Care
Website of the Day
Linebaugh: Magna Carta and the Commons
July 20, 2009
Pam Martens
Judicial Apartheid
Nikolas Kozloff
Honduras and the Big Stick: Obama's Bullish Behavoir in Latin America
Paul Craig Roberts
Threatening Iran
Deepak Tripathi
Obama's Policy on China and Iran
Ira Glunts
Netanyahu's Time Bomb: Building in the Vineyard of the Mufti
P. Sainath
Put Your Money Down, Boys
Binoy Kampmark
The Moon Landing and the Cold War
Stephen Fleischman
The First Anchorman
Norman Solomon
Cronkite and Vietnam: Beyond the Hype
Andy Worthington
Predictable Chaos as Gitmo Trials Resume
Ron Jacobs
Out of the Haze, Into the Darkness:
Recalling 1979
Website of the Day
Why Publishing Can't be Saved (as it is)
July 17-19, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
"Watch What We Do, Not What We Say"
Nikolas Kozloff
Chiquita in Latin America: From Arbenz to Zelaya
Joanne Mariner
CIA Apples: Bad at the Top of the Tree
Joe Bageant
America's White Underclass
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Road Signs: Wiping Arabic Names Off the Map
Saul Landau
Why So Much Sympathy for Madoff's Dupes and So Little for the Poor?
John Ross
Jurassic Fallout in Mexico
Sue Sturgis
Senator Sessions, Race and Impartiality
Anita Sinha /
Daniel Farbman
The Ricci Case and the Myth of Special Treatment
Peter Morici
Obama's Donut Economics
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Whither Pakistan? A Five-Year Forecast
Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the Language of Power
Greg Moses
The Real Demand Crisis
Kia Mistilis
The Niger Delta Crisis
Missy Beattie
The Placebo President
David Ker Thomson
How Not to See: Things to Tell Your Eyeballs
James G. Abourezk
Evil Spirits: the Booze Strip in Indian Country
Paul Richards
Why Does Jon Tester Want to Log Wild Montana?
Dave Lindorff
Dark Days for Working People (With Three Small Rays of Light)
Marc Levy
Just Like Hanoi Jane
Matt Siegfried
The Good War Goes Hot
Stephen Martin
Panopticon Blues
Ben Sonnenberg
Sembène's Faat Kiné
David Macaray
Casablanca: When Melodrama Trumped History
Charles R. Larson
A Pakistani, Victorian Novel Celebrating Women
David Yearsley
That's Women for You: Abbas Kiarostami's Così
Lorenzo Wolff
Death Rattle and Roll: the Sound From England's Gutters
Poets' Basement
Payne, Anderson and Williams
Website of the Weekend
Hitler Learns of Sarah Palin's Resignation
July 16, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
What Economy?
Afshin Rattansi Iranian Planes and the Hidden Toll of Economic Sanctions
Gregory V. Button
The Search for Environmental Justice in Perry County, Alabama
Evan Knappenberger
Profile of a Deserter
Michelle Bollinger
Why is Leonard Peltier Still in Prison?
Russell Mokhiber
White House to ABC News:
No Obama Single-Payer Doc
Belén Fernández
Iranian Penetration, Oh My!
Alice Walker
What is Torture Like? A Letter to Obama
Nicholas Dearden
Paying the Climate Debt: the G-8's Troubling Model
Albert Osueke
Sotomayor and the Identity Mountain
Website of the Day
Sotomayor for the Prosecution
July 15, 2009
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Assassination Bureau
Vijay Prashad
A Political Recession
Dean Baker
Stimulus Arithmetic
Ray McGovern
Cheney Sweating Bullets
Jonathan Cook
Jenin's Model of "Economic Peace"
David Rosen
Shouts From the Gallery: the Sotomayor Hearings and the Culture Wars
Eric Walberg
Uighurs vs. Afghans: a Study in Contrast
Greg Moses
Three Dimensions of a Complete Stimulus Plan
Sousan Hammad
Decolonizing Israel
Binoy Kampmark
The Trial of Charles Taylor
Tracy McLellan
The Story of My Arrest
Website of the Day
11 Days in Saudi Gitmo
July 14, 2009
Eamonn McCann
The Emperors of Bombast: Bono, U2 and the Crisis of World Capitalism
Joanne Mariner
Obama's New Euphemism
Franklin Spinney
The Taliban Rope-a-Dope
Steve Heilig
Walking Mount Tam: an Interview with Gary Snyder
Ali Abunimah
Hamas' Choice
Dave Lindorff
The End of "Nice" Health Care Reform
Nikolas Kozloff
The Politics of Destabilization: McCain and Honduras
Ellen Brown
From Golden State to Subprime State
Alice Slater
How US Missile Defense Plans Sabotaged Nuclear Disarmament Talks With Russia
Ron Jacobs
Protest U.S. Aggression
Joe Allen
The Fight to Save James Hickman in Jim Crow-Style Chicago
Website of the Day
Mel Brooks Does the French Revolution
July 13, 2009
Uri Avnery
The Essence of the Regime
Mike Whitney
The Deflating Economy
P. Sainath
How the World Depression Hits Orissa
Gareth Porter
A US / Iraq Conflict on Iran
Paul Moore
Rap in the Streets, Rap in the Suites
Tim Wise
Off the Deep End: Private Clubs, Public Prejudice
Andy Worthington Former Insider Shatters Credibility of Military Commissions
David Macaray
Cartoon Voices:
Serf's Up in Hollywood
Cal Winslow
The Healthcare Worker War
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Spring in the Time of Obama
Website of the Day
Washington's Deep Game with China
July 10-12, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Biden Problem
José Pertierra
The Cuban Five: a Cold War Case in a Post-Cold War World
John Ross
After the Honduran Coup
Conn Hallinan
The Settlements and the Quartet
Nikolas Kozloff
C Street Band: Sex Scandals, Moral Hypocrisy and the Far Right Agenda in Latin America
Clifton Ross /
Marcy Rein
U.S. and Honduras:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Good Neighbor
Carl Ginsburg
Summers' Clouded Crystal Ball
Michael Neumann
Say It Loud, Say It Proud: There is No God!
Gilad Atzmon
The Left and Islam:
Thinking Outside of the Secular Box
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Parable of the Golden Parachute
Ellen Hodgson Brown
California Dreamin': How the State Can Beat Its Budget Woes
Jim Goodman
Rural America Needs More Than Listening Sessions
Christopher Bickerton
Europe's New Politics of Hard Times
Wendell Potter
Health Care Industry Adopts Tobacco Lobby's Tactics
Dave Lindorff
CIA Lies: Why Isn't Congress in Open Revolt?
David Ker Thomson
Switchbacking Toward Bastille Day
Anthony DiMaggio
The Michael Jackson Feeding Frenzy
Raymond Lawrence
Michael Jackson as Sexual Pervert: the Calumnies of Peter King
Walid El Houri
Neda and Marwa: a Tale of Two Murdered Women
Stephanie Westbrook
Yes, We Camp
Roger Gaess
The Shades of Highgate Cemetery
David Yearsley
Tara, America's Dream House
Kim Nicolini
Caution: Men at Work, Robbing Banks
Poets' Basement
Five Poems From the Japanese
Website of the Weekend
Free Tiga and Hugh!
July 9, 2009
Ronnie Cummings
How Industry Giants are Undermining the Organic Foods Movement
Jonathan Cook
Two-State Solution, Israeli-Style
Nikolas Kozloff
Honduran Destablization, Inc.: Otto Reich and the International Republican Institute
James Bovard
McNamara's Other Body Count
Norman Solomon Afghanistan: the Escalation Scam
Allan Nairn
Indonesia Gets to Pick Its Killer
Andy Worthington
Revamping the Military Commissions
Tomas Borge
The Sadsack Soldiers of Honduras
Nadia Hijab
Palestinian Titanic
Paul Krassner
How Jeff Goldblum Didn't Die
Website of the Day
Dave Lindorff Wants Your Money--Will Give Good Reports
July 8, 2009
Saul Landau
In Amazonia
Dean Baker
The Green Shoots are Dead: Why the Economy Needs a Third Stimulus
Winslow T. Wheeler
Gates, Congress and the F-22
Eric Walberg
Obama in Russia
Ray McGovern
Is Texas Harboring a Torture Decider?
David Rosen
When Sadism Goes Systematic: Prison Rape as Policy
Dr. Mona El Farra
Gaza From a Distance
Ron Jacobs
McNamara and the Post: When Idiocy and Hubris Merge
Benjamin Dangl
High Stakes in Honduras
Alan Farago
How I Almost Pitched McNamara Into the Sea
Website of the Day
Ayatollah So
July 7, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank
Uri Avnery
Israeli Court Rebukes Military
Brian M. Downing
Crossing the Helmand
Gary Leupp
Biden, Israel and Iran
Gregory A. Burris
My Brush With Homeland Security
David Macaray
When in Doubt, Blame a Labor Union
Laura Flanders
Obama Hushes Health Care Advocates
Alan Farago
Princple Over Principal
Greg Moses
Texas Patels Take Over Dallas Bank
Dan Bacher
Three Big Lies About the Peripheral Canal
Website of the Day
Tragedy at Toncontin
July 6, 2009
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Hussein's FBI Interviews
Diana Johnstone
Zionist Fanatics Practice Serial Vandalism in Paris
Nikolas Kozloff
Honduran Coup to Venezuelan Coup: Same Old Globalizers and Torture School Grads
Gary Leupp
Operation Khanjar Begins
Jonathan Cook
Israel Calls on Ultra-Orthodox Jews to Stop "Arab Takeover"
Tim Wise
Of Fireworks and False Memories
Franklin Lamb
Cynthia McKinney and the Kidnapping of the Spirit of Humanity
Charles R. Larson
Sarah Palin, Plain and Tall
Carlos Benemann
California's Bingo Bondage: Getting Paid in IOUs
Shepherd Bliss
The Soulless Machine: Caught in the Cellphone Snare
Jerry Kroth
Stuart Levey and World War III
Karyn Strickler
A Fell-Swoop Moment Missed
Website of the Day
The Rise in Military-Backed Public Schools
July 3-5, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Gob Smacked
Eamonn Fingleton
Detroit's Collapse: the Untold Story
Jeffrey St. Clair
Is the Bald Eagle Really Back?
Mike Whitney
Running on Empty
Pam Martens
The Parable of Michael Jackson's Debts
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Counter-Revolution Will Not be Tweeted
Paul Craig Roberts
The Big Whorehouse on the Potomac
Patrick Cockburn
The Haggling Over Iraqi Oil
Anthony DiMaggio
A Perilous Path: Iraq and the Language of De-Escalation
Roger Burbach
Honduran Coup: Target Left?
John Ross
Left's Grip on Mexico City Slips
Nikolas Kozloff
Meet Jim Demint: Coup Apologist
Gareth Porter
The Iran Canard
Andy Worthington
Finally, a Trial Date in the African Embassy Bombings Case
Saul Landau
Bad Times, Worse Habits
David Macaray
How We Spend Our Money
Adam Federman
The Recovery That Wasn't
Jane Slaughter Labor's Vague Rally for Health Care
Russell Mokhiber Black Caucus Muzzled on Israeli Kidnapping of McKinney
Robert Jensen
Beyond Independence
Robert Bryce
Hey, Paul Krugman, Here are 2.4 Billion More Climate Traitors
Belén Fernandez
The Situation in Honduras
Missy Comley Beattie
Would Jesus Pack Heat?
C. G. Estabrook
La Cina e Vicina
Stephen Martin
The Fog of Economic War
Charles R. Larson
Adichie on Her Own
Lorenzo Wolff
A Voice Like a Newsreel: the Soul of James Carr and the Civil Rights Movement
Kim Nicolini
The System That Hijacked New York
Poets' Basement
Farrelly, Kazak and Stadler
Website of the Weekend
Paul Krassner v. Larry King
July 2, 2009
Andrew Cockburn
The Wall Street White House
Nikolas Kozloff
Spinning the Honduran Coup
Wendell Potter
Obama's False Friends of Health Care Reform
Ellen Hodgson Brown
California's Empty Wallet
Christian Christensen Iran: Networked Dissent?
Patrick Irelan
Lost in Patagonia
Binoy Kampmark Returning Iraq
Nicola Nasser
Ethnic Cleansing as State Policy
Brian Tokar
Climate Bill:
Cap(italize) and Trade(Off)
Dan Bacher
Panama Canal North?
Website of the Day
Scheuer on Immigration: "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States."
July 1, 2009
Vijay Prashad
Iran and Us
Alberto Vallente Thorensen
Why Zelaya's Actions Were Legal
Paul Craig Roberts
Pirates of the Mediterranean
Robert Weissman
150 Years
Manuel García, Jr.
The New Crisis in Aviation
Victor Figueroa-Clark / Pablo Navarrete
Honduras, a Coup With No Future
Norman Solomon
The NYT and Troop Deaths:
Abstract Quality Journalism
Franklin Lamb
Remembering Amnon Kapeliouk
Martha Rosenberg
When Doctors Boo
Diane Rejman
Mothers and Military Lies
Website of the Day
The Color of the Race Problem is White
June 30, 2009
Michael Hudson
Debt Deflation Arrives
Esam Al-Amin
Iran and Washington's Hidden Hand
Benjamin Dangl
Showdown in Honduras
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Doctors Collude in Torture
Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah After the Elections
George Wuerthner
Beetle Hysteria ... Again: the Truth About Bugs, Fires and Ecosystems
Todd Gordon
Acceptable Versus Unacceptable Repression
Ron Jacobs
Mark Sanford, Sexual Liberation and LGBT Equality
Kenneth Libby
Conditions for Citizenship
Julian Vigo
Feeling Michael Jackson
Website of the Day
Inside the Mega-Churches
June 29, 2009
Ishmael Reed
The Persecution of Michael Jackson
Nikolas Kozloff
The Coup in Honduras: Obama's Real Message to Latin America?
Clifton Ross
Coups and Constitutions: From Bolivia to Honduras
Patrick Cockburn
Why Iraq is Now the Most Corrupt Country on the Planet
Uri Avnery
Between Tel Aviv and Tehran
Conn Hallinan
Dealing With North Korea: Why Threats and Sanctions Will Backfire
James G. Abourezk
Where the Money Isn't Going
Ralph Nader
The Holes in Obama's Financial Regulation Plan
Carol Miller
Why Fiscal Conservatives Should Love Medicare-for-All
Greg Moses
Jobs First
Website of the Day
Key Leaders of Honduran Coup Trained in the US
June 26-28, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
The Hate Crimes Bill: How Not to Remember Matthew Shepard
Jeffrey St. Clair
Meet the Retreads: Obama's Used Green Team
Doug Peacock
Elk River: History and the Yellowstone
Daniel Wolff
The Night Before:
a Glimpse of the Lenape
Mike Whitney
What the Big Banks Have Won
John Ross
The New York Times and Stolen Elections
David Rosen
Cry, Hypocrite, Cry: the Tradition of Sex Scandals and American Politicians
Emily Ratner
Thoughts on Manhood From the Rafah Tunnel
Gareth Porter
Airstrike Report Belies "Blame Taliban" Line
Farid Marjai
Green, But Not Velvet
Nadia Hijab
The Rift in Iran: Memo to the "Do Something" Brigade
Paul Craig Roberts
Gun Control: What's the Agenda?
Fred Gardner
FDR's Real Defining Moment: Ending Prohibition
Carl Ginsburg
Obama's Father's Day
Paul Watson
Fear and Loathing in Madeira
David Ker Thomson
Nothing
Farzana Versey
The Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson as Tramp
Geoff Berne
Obama and Charter Schools: The Showdown at Schottenstein
Todd Alan Price
Ohio: Birthplace of Charter Education ... and Opposition to It
Ramzy Baroud
People for Sale in a Hungry World
Jeff Sher
Health Care Showdown
Dr. Carol Paris Despite My Arrest by Max Baucus, I Will Continue to Advocate for Quality Health Care for All
Walter Brasch Adultery as Family Value?
Glen Johnson
The Village and the Wall
Charlotte Laws
Hold the MSG!
Charles R. Larson
Dickens in Morocco, Sort Of
Kim Nicolini
The Erasure of Art
David Yearsley
Yankee Prof Takes on Dallas
Lorenzo Wolff
When the Songs Remain the Same
Poets' Basement
Larson, Davies, McLellan and Gardner
Website of the Weekend
Kayakers vs. Shell Oil
June 25, 2009
Kathy Kelly
Now We See You, Now We Don't
Jack Bratich
You Provide the Tweets, We'll Provide the Info War: the Media and the Iranian Protests
Wendell Potter
The Health Insurance Industry v. Health Care Reform: a Former Insurance Industry Insider Tells All
Charles R. Larson
Don't Cry for Him, Argentina! GOP Sex Scandal of the Week
Alan Farago
The Tears of Mark Sanford
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Firms Accused of Profiting Off Holocaust
Gareth Porter
Khobar Bombings:
Telltale Signs of Saudi Fraud
Bitta Mostofi /
Bill Quigley
"You Will Not Get Past Us"
David Macaray
Six Ways to Reinvigorate Labor
Mark Schuller
Haiti's Elections: "Beat the Dog Too Hard"
Website of the Day
Worst Slide Story
June 24, 2009
Andrew Cockburn
How the U.S. Has Secretly Backed Pakistan's Nuclear Program From Day One
Dean Baker
Making Financial Regulation Work
Andy Worthington
The Story of Abdul Rahim al-Ginco
James Bovard
Obama and the Torturers
Diana Gibson /
Ray McGovern
Torture Eats the Soul
P. Sainath
The Age of the Everyday Billionaire
Gareth Porter
Investigating the Khobar Tower Bombing: Why Was Al Qaeda Excluded From the Suspects List?
Robert Alvarez
The Department of Energy's Nuclear Albatross
Dave Lindorff
Medicare for All
Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi
Website of the Day
Protest as Terrorism
June 23, 2009
David Price
Obama's Classroom Spies
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Reels Toward a New Era
James Ridgeway /
Jean Casella
Bi-Partisan Bull on Health Care: Three Ex-Senators Get It Up for the Health Care Industry
Dave Lindorff
Using the Economic Crisis to Attack Workers
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
Puerto Rico: Biotech Island
Gary Leupp
Dennis Ross Moves to the White House
Brian M. Downing
The Erosion of the Mullahs' Monolith
Robert Bryce
Are Theocracies Doomed?
Nicholas Dearden
The G8 is Dead
Yousef Munayyer
Seeing Through Israeli Delay Tactics
Website of the Day
The Great White Father of America
June 22, 2009
Michael Hudson
Obama's (Latest) Surrender to Wall Street
Esam Al-Amin
What Actually Happened in the Iranian Presidential Election? A Hard Look at the Numbers
Chris Floyd
Dexter's Legions in Afghanistan
Jack Z. Bratich
The Fog Machine: Iran, Social Networks and Genetically Modified Grassroots Organizations
Atash Yaghmaian
We Children of the Revolution
Laura Carlsen
Victory in the Amazon
Paul Craig Roberts
The U.S. Regime-Change Recipe for Iran
Vijay Prashad
Gun v. Butter: Now You are Only Poor
Fred Gardner
Charles Lynch Gets a Year and a Day (No Thanks to Eric Holder)
Andy Thayer
The Blank Check: How We Got the Obama-DOMA Debacle
David Macaray
Unions and the Newspaper Crisis
Website of the Day
The Most Spied Upon Town in America?
June 19 - 21, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
I Become an American
Jeffrey St. Clair
Firebrand: Rod Coronado's Flame War
Patrick Cockburn
Who Will Control Iraq's Oil?
Al Giordano
What the Left Should be Learning From Iran
Henry A. Giroux
The Iranian Uprisings and the Challenge of the New Media
Anthony DiMaggio
The Electoral Façade
Paul Craig Roberts
Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution?"
John Ross
46 Dead Mexican Toddlers: Sacrificed on the Altar of Neoliberalism
Gareth Porter
Spinning Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan
Carl Ginsburg
Obama's Bix Fix: Placating the Bankers, Again
Tommi Avicolli Mecca
40 Years After Stonewall:
From Smash the Church to Going to the Chapel
Joe Bageant
Workers' Rights: No Balls, No Gains
Serge Halimi
Protectionism: We've Been Here Before
P. Sainath
Price of Rice, Price of Power in India
Jim Goodman
The Claim Deniers: Why the Health Insurance Industry Doesn't Deserve Our Trust
Dave Lindorff
Obama's Health Care Waterloo
Rannie Amiri
Bush Jumps Over Maine, Carter Lands in Gaza
Robert Fantina
Iran, Obama and McCain
Harvey Wasserman
Big Nuke's Radioactive Hoax in Impoverished Ohio
Walter Brasch
They Got Away With Murder: 12 Angry White People
David Ker Thomson
This Moment's Bill of Rights
Charles R. Larson
No Voice: Telling Her Mother's Story
David Yearsley
Escape From the Torture Chamber
Kim Nicolini
When the Closet is the Culprit
Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini and the Art of Ambiguity
Poets' Basement
Beatty and Kowitt
Website of the Weekend
Grown in Yellowstone, Slaughtered in Montana
|
July 27, 2009
Haiti Mobilizes for Change
Lavalas and Haiti's Student Union Unite
By KIM IVES
Thousands of demonstrators marched through Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince on July 15 to mark the 56th birthday of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The demonstration, which was called by and adhered to by two rival factions of the Lavalas Family party (FL), was considered a great display of unity by its organizers.
At 9 a.m. the crowds gathered at the gate in front of Aristide's still gutted home in Tabarre. It was decorated with flowers and large photographs of the party's leader, who remains in exile in South Africa over five years after the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d'état against him.
The multitude then moved, like a great river, towards the capital.
Lavalas leaders said that the demonstration was a birthday present for Aristide. "Long live the return of President Aristide!" read some of the posters in the march. " Down with the MINUSTAH [UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti, the military occupation force]! Release of all political prisoners! Reinstatement of all fired State employees! Down with the neo-liberal plan!"
Demonstrators also bitterly denounced President René Préval for betraying their expectations that he would help return Aristide to Haiti and fight neoliberal austerity and privatization. Tens of thousands of Lavalas partisans voted for Préval in 2006, helping him win the presidency.
"Our political organization will defeat all those who are working for its demise," declared Dr. Maryse Narcisse, one of the members of the FL's Executive Committee at the close of the demonstration at the Place of the Constitution on the Champ de Mars, the capital's central square.
Narcisse also criticized Préval for seeking to amend Haiti's 1987 Constitution while at the same time violating its laws. "Lavalas remains true to its dream of a better Haiti, where all citizens can have access to education, health, housing, and employment," she concluded. "Realization of this dream goes hand in hand with the return of President Aristide to Haiti."
Also participating in the demonstration was the singer and activist Annette Auguste, known as So An. She was also named to the FL's Executive Committee but presently does not sit with its other three members, Narcisse, Lionel Etienne and Jacques Mathelier. Her faction of the party has proposed some reforms which has caused controversy within the party.
"I am a dedicated Lavalassian," So An told Haiti Liberté. " President Aristide Lavalas is not more Lavalas than me. President Aristide might turn his back on me, but I will never turn my back on him." She declared her full support for Aristide's return and said that the July 15 demonstration was a living testimony to the FL's strength, power, and vitality.
"This event is great proof that the Lavalas would have won the [April 19 and June 21] senatorial elections boycotted by the national majority," she said. " That is why Lavalas was excluded from those elections. The objectively manifest goal is to destroy the Lavalas."
At the Place of the Constitution, Lavalas activists like René Civil and Lavarice Gaudin criticized the government of Préval and his prime minister Michele Pierre-Louis for pursuing policies condemned by Haiti's masses. They demanded the immediate and unconditional return of Aristide to Haiti.
Meanwhile, the Lavalas base organizations which made July 15 a success have called another major mobilization for Tuesday, July 28, the 94th anniversary of the first U.S. Marine occupation of Haiti in 1915.
The popular organizations have planned the demonstrations with some of Haiti's student organizers, marking the first time that the demands of the Lavalas mass movement and those of the student protests, which have raged at the State University in recent months, will be united.
The demands for July 28th are: 1) MINUSTAH's departure; 2) Aristide's return; 3) Apply the Parliament's vote for a 200 gourde a day [$5.05] minimum wage; 4) Reform at the State University; 5) Justice for Roudy, the man shot dead by MINUSTAH soldiers at the Port-au-Prince Cathedral on June 18; 6) Liberation of all political prisoners, above all Ronald Dauphin; 7) Down with the neoliberal plan.
Among the groups calling the July 28 demonstration are the Cité Soleil Action Coalition of the Lavalas Family Base (ABA SATAN), the Assembly of Organizations for Change (ROC), the Network of Multiplying National Organs of the Lavalas Family (RONMFL), the Network of Organizations of the West Zone (ROZO), the National Organization for the Equitable Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ONAPROEDEF), Alternative for Haiti's National Liberation(ALEH), the Force of Principled Organizations for a National Alternative (FOKAN), Movement to Bury Repression (MARE), Group of Popular Initiative, the student group KOMAP/FRAE, and the International Support Haiti Network (ISHN).
"L'union fait la force" (Unity makes strength) says the motto on Haiti's flag. Organizers of the July 28 march hope that the merging of the Lavalas mass movement with the anti-imperialist student movement will lift Haiti's struggle for justice, democracy and sovereignty to a new level.
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