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Today's Stories September 21, 2007 Karim Makdisi Letter from Lebanon September 20, 2007 Kathleen Christison Whatever Happened to Palestine? Zoltan Grossman An Endless Occupation? Paul Craig Roberts As the Empire Slips: Greenspan and the Economy of Greed Stan Cox and Wes Jackson Carbon-Free and Still Wrecking the Planet Russell Mokhiber AARP to Kucinich: Drop Dead Charles Modiano Jim Crow's Children: the Jena 6, Shaquanda Cotton and Blog Power Raymond J. Lawrence Bush's Worrisome Use of Religion Brendan Cooney Body-Snatched Nation Website of the Day Mind Control for Breakfast   September 19, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By? Paul Krassner The Power of Laughter Sgt. Martin Smith The New Private Warriors: Blackwater in Iraq Seth Sandronsky Living in a Dilapidated Market: To Rent or Own? Claud Cockburn Looking back at the Great Crash Victoria Buch Israel's Agenda for Ethnic Cleansing and Transfer Robert Weissman Oil Warriors: From Greenspan to Kissinger Mike Ferner Can We Talk? Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger's $9 Billion Boondoggle for Big Water Website of the Day Housing Cost Calculator   September 18, 2007 Mike Whitney U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel Alan Farago Interviewing Alan Greenspan: How 60 Minutes Blew It John Ross America's Great Wall: Where Will the Workers Go When They Finish It? Ron Jacobs Nooses Hung From Jena, La. to College Park, Md. Alex Doherty Britain's 9/11 "Truth Movement": Who's Responsible? September 17, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Erwin Chemerinsky and the Post-9/11 Attack on Academic Freedom Paul Craig Roberts Conservatism Isn't What It Used to Be Ricardo Alarcón The Return of C. Wright Mills Amid the Dawn of a New Era Marc Levy Fake Vets Chasing Fame Eva Liddell In 1969 We Already Knew What 2007 Would Look Like Website of the Day Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by Frank Capra, and written by Theodor Geisel Sept. 15-16, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The General Came to Washington Vicente Navarro How the U.S. Schemed Against Spain's Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy Mike Whitney Plummeting Dollar, Credit Crunch Herman Mindshaftgap Has There Ever Been a Surge? If so, Has it a Future? Ellen Cantarow Girls! Music! Palestine! Jordan Flaherty K-Ville: Fox's New Paean to the N.O.P.D. Zachary Hurwitz Julio Cusurichi on Amazonian Development September 14, 2007 Debbie Nathan New York Times reporter was a member of an illegal underage porn site, claims he was only "posing as online predator" Franklin Lamb Sabra-Shatilla, 25 Years Later Patrick Cockburn Greet Bush and Die: The Killing of Abu Risha Farzana Versey The World's Richest Muslim Tycoon Alan Farago This is Florida, Epicenter of the Housing Bust and of Public Corruption Hank Edson Bill's New Book is Giving Me a Headache September 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Petraeus Confided Presidential Ambitions to Iraqi Official Scott Vest, former Air Force Captain at Minot The Barksdale Nukes Andy Worthington Guantánamo: "Ghost" Prisoners Speak At Last Michael Baney Mr. Fixit of Quake-Stricken Peru Has Death Squad Past Dr. Susan Block Is U.S. Run by Secret Homintern? September 12, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts American Economy: RIP Stan Goff The Petraeus Report William Blum When Soldiers Mutiny...Only Those Fighting the War Can End It. Manuel Garcia Forgetting 9/11 Debbie Nathan Why One Sex Survey Didn't Make the Big Time September 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Fakery of General Petraeus Iain Boal Specters of Malthus: Scarcity, Poverty, Apocalypse Michael Dickinson Osama on 9/11 Guerry Hoddersen Free Speech is Not Given, but Taken Bill Hatch Irish Politics in Old Time California Gary Leupp The Legacy of Luciano Pavarotti Website of the Day Elisa Salasin's "My September 11th" September 10, 2007 Uri Avnery A Big Victory Against the Wall Patrick Cockburn Petraeus's Closet Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen Screwing Up In Iraq David Michael Green Why Fred Thompson is Uniquely Qualified to be the GOP's Nominee Pius Adesanmi A Solidarity Letter to a Victim of Michael Vick Betty Schneider How to Deal With Sex Offenders   September 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Will the US Really Bomb Iran? Saul Landau The Irrational Drama of a Declining Empire Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Hurricane Katrina and Bush's Wars Ray McGovern Petraeus, the Westmoreland of Iraq Matthew Abraham Finkelstein's Legacy at DePaul Alan Farago The Governor and the Growth Machine Christopher Brauchli Grand Old Party Animals Rannie Amiri Battle of the Camps Fred Gardner Will Snoops Get Stopped? James L. Secor B-52 Flexing Nuclear Muscles: H-Bombs Over Barksdale Missy Comley Beattie Choices: Shall We Stay or Shall We Go Now? Ben Tripp Still in the Clover Francis Boyle The University of Illinois' Little Red Sambo Show Joe Allen and Paul D'Amato Jason Bourne vs. James Bond Website of the Weekend Drilling Wyoming: the View from Above September 7, 2007 Robert Fantina Those Iraq Reports: Bush vs. Reality John Ross Coca-Cola's Raid on a Sacred Mountain James Brooks The Occupation Within Russell Mokhiber Robert Reich and the Elimination of Corporate Criminal Liability Joshua Frank The Green Implosion Continues: Cyberlynching John Murphy John Walsh On the Green Party Mark Brenner New York Taxi Workers Strike Over Tracking Devices Mike Ferner "I Will Salute No More Forever" Website of the Day Help Save Osny Zachary's Life   September 6, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Bush, Iran and Israel's Hidden Hand Allan J. Lichtman When General Petraeus Speaks, Don't Listen ... Norman Solomon The Secret Addiction of Thomas Friedman Yifat Susskind Hurricane Felix's First Responders: Courage and Tragedy on the Miskito Coast Catherine Fenton Why I Am Going to the Protest Laura Santina Can the War Machine be Contained? Farzana Versey Fission Kashmir Yves Engler Haiti: Where a Wage of $2 a Day is Too Much for the Lords of Industry to Pay Kelly Overton Bang Bang; Shoot Shoot: Is Hunting Racist? Michael Simmons One Jew's Views: The Strange Genius of Drew Friedman and Kominsky Crumb Website of the Day Dams and Genocide in Guatemala     September 5, 2007 Stan Goff The End Begins Michael Dickinson Working for Mother Teresa: Memoirs of a Rebellious Volunteer Matthew Abraham Standing Firm with Norman Finkelstein and DePaul's Heroic Students: a Defining Moment Patrick Cockburn The Basra Debacle Dave Lindorff Beware the Wounded Beast Paul Craig Roberts Who Are the Fanatics? Clifton Ross Ecuador and the Struggle for Latin American Unity Elizabeth Schulte Katrina's Forgotten Refugees Joseph Grosso Labor Day in New York City Ben Terrall Where's Nancy? On Trying to Protest Pelosi in San Francisco Website of the Day A Guide to Narco Dollars   September 4, 2007 Jean Bricmont Why Bush Can Get Away with Attacking Iran Patrick Cockburn Cut and Run in Iraq Ron Jacobs The Haditha Massacre: Spinning a War Crime Tom Kerr Buried Alive on San Quentin's Death Row Gary Leupp The Case of Jose Maria Sison Sonja Karkar The Weeping Olive Trees of Palestine Heather Gray The Best and Worst of America: 9/11, Joseph Lowery and the Lethal Silence of Billy Graham Fidel Castro The Super-Revolutionaries Jackie Corr Home Depot Comes to Butte--Begging Bowl in Hand Sunsara Taylor Katrina and the Progress of the System Website of the Day Colombia Journal   September 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Brits Flee from Basra Eamon McCann Qana, Derry: The Dead Lie in Familiar Shapes Joshua Frank The End of the Green Party? Chris Floyd Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph Marjorie Cohn A Look at Bush's Iran War Plans Walter Brasch The News Drones: How Fake Photos Helped Lead the US to War in Iraq Matt Reichel Redefining the American Dream Website of the Day Don't Get Fooled Again   September 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Entrapment Snares Larry Craig Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo Saul Landau The Tragic Ordeal of the Cuban Five David Keen An Occident Waiting to Happen: Intellectuals and the War on Terror Patrick Cockburn The Collapse of Iraq's Health Care Services Diana Johnstone Back in Uncle Sam's Pocket George Longstreth, MD & Karen Longstreth, RN The Sorrows of Occupation: Life in the West Bank Linda M. Woolf A Sad Day for Psychologists--a Sadder Day for Human Rights Ralph Nader Wrapping the World with Advertising Fred Gardner The Trial of Mollie Fry, MD Ben Tripp Enquiry in America Today David Michael Green American Indigestion: Why Bush Governs from the Gut Missy Comley Beattie Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: What the GOP Hasn't Learned About Tolerance Michael Dickinson Who's Cheating: Remembering Princess Diana Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Larry Craig to Wesley Clark Ron Jacobs A Sports Nation of Millions Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Mickey Z         Subscribe Online

September 21, 2007 Where Impeachment is Taken Seriously ... By Everyone But Nancy Pelosi The Streets of San Francisco By BEN TERRALL On January 6, 2007, two days after Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, about 1,000 activists laid down on San Francisco's Ocean Beach to spell out the word "IMPEACH!" in 100-foot letters. Photos of the clear message to Pelosi taken from a helicopter appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, and on websites around the world (for photos and footage, see www.beachimpeach.org). On April 28, five days after Representative Dennis Kucinich filed articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney, the second "Beach Impeach" event spelled out the words "IMPEACH NOW!" In the neighborhood of 1,500 people participated in that event, which also involved standing in formation to spell out "PEACE NOW!" When by mid-summer Pelosi was still disinterested taking action against Cheney or Bush, Brad Newsham, the principal organizer of the first two events, was ready for a third. On September 15, he struck again on Crissy Field near San Francisco's Marina district. Newsham wrote in a September 7 email: "Today I managed to speak to the senior staff member in Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco office, and through him I invited Ms. Pelosi to occupy the fourth seat in our helicopter. After all, there is going to be a crowd of impeachment-impassioned folks right there in her constituency, and maybe this would be a perfect time for her to at least have a bird's eye view of them. When he said that Rep. Pelosi was not available that day, I invited him, the senior staff member himself, but he quickly said he was not available either -- in fact no one from Pelosi's office would be available that day. 'So is this a dead end?' I asked. 'Yes.' End of curt, even icy, conversation." As with the first two beach mobilizations, at the September 15 protest volunteers circulated with postcards and pens to generate constituent messages to Pelosi, while a photographer circled in a helicopter overhead. I spoke to San Francisco resident Valerie Coshnear at the event's end, who told me, "The last two times I did the Impeach-on-the-beach-thing, I did it with "E"s. I did not have to become any other letter. Just get up and down and do the wave thing, touch the sea wall, do the boogey woogey." Warming to the topic, Ms. Coshnear went on, "This time I wanted more of a challenge. I decided to be in the "M" in IMPEACH, which required moving to make up the the "N" in " REASON:" and "TREASON!" [the second two words spelled out]. It was a wonderful letter to be in because previously I could only say "I think therefore I "M", but today I was lying with over a thousand people in the grass at Crissy Field, tendrils of fog stretching from the tip of the Golden Gate swirling overhead. In our 100 foot letter alone, several hundred people who don't buy the lies of those unconscionable traitors and warmongers in the White House, could lay down their bodies and say as one mammoth letter "We think, and are willing to move, therefore we 'M.'" Other participants seemed equally giddy with enthusiasm, and Brad Newsham, who directed the sitting-to-standing human wave activities from a step ladder, was jubilant afterward. (It was also the cabdriver/writer/activist's birthday, and the assembled protestors serenaded him with "Happy Birthday to You" several times.) Like many of those I spoke to at Crissy Field, Newsham was pleased that anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan recently threw her hat into the ring to run against Pelosi. Sheehan committed to running against the veteran politician because of the Speaker's refusal to push impeachment. "Cindy is a Voice of the People ­ the freshest one I've heard recently," he told me. "She strikes me as uniquely un-bought, and seems fueled not by ambition but by the pain of having her son ripped away from her by a band of criminals. Imagine a House of Representatives full of people like Cindy -- like us -- instead of the elite who have eternally toyed with us." Sheehan's son Casey was killed in Iraq, which led her to camp out near President Bush's vacation ranch in Crawford, Texas, to send an unwavering anti-war message to Bush and the entire world. Sheehan's statement upon launching her candidacy clearly showed she was out to rock the boat: "An electorate disgusted with the policies of the Bush regime put the Democrats in the majority in Congress in November '06. We voted for change, however, Congress, under the Speakership of Ms. Pelosi has done nothing but protect the status quo of the corporate elite and, in fact, since she has been the Speaker, the situation in the Middle East has grown far worse, with Congress' help, and recently more of our essential freedoms were given to BushCo by Congress. That is not what we elected them to do!" In a commentary largely supportive of Sheehan's initiative, Nation Magazine political corresponent John Nichols noted, "Pelosi has all the advantages of incumbency -- and more. Closely tied for decades to the Democratic political establishment of San Francisco, Pelosi and her campaign team know just about everything there is to know about winning elections there. And, as the Speaker of the House, she has the ability to deliver both on the practical and egotistical needs of the city by the bay. Additionally, she has the ability to raise and spend more money than any opponent." But given that 58% of San Franciscans voting in November 2006 endorsed Proposition J, which called for impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney, on one of the most important issues of the day Sheehan is clearly more in line with the majority of Pelosi's constituents than the Speaker. It should be an interesting campaign. Ben Terrall is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. He can be reached at bterrall@igc.org Your Ad Here

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