|
 THE REAL FACE OF WAR | By Patrice Greanville
War has been romanticized in innumerable books and movies, and made fortunes for those who exploited the subject well. (Clint Eastwood is still at it, among others, with his latest opus, Flags of Our Fathers). In most movies—at least until recently—soldiers died "beautifully"—no hideous wounds, no real gasping fear in their eyes, they even got to say a few noble words for posterity, proof of a charitable destiny that, despite assigning them death, did not deny them their fifteen seconds of centerstage.[READ MORE]
Reflections on Gore Vidal's Legacy | By Patrice Greanville
Vidal's output is impressive by any measure, but it's probably his "fictional meditations on the history of the United States"—Burr, 1876, Empire, and Lincoln—brimming with more mordant lucidity and accuracy in their pages than anything found in the volumes produced by most professional historians—that have simultaneously put him in the intellectual pantheon of American letters and stirred up the most hostility among the devious custodians of the established order. [READ MORE]
 An interview with Jason Miller | By Carolyn Baker
A few months ago I began receiving emails with a subject line “Submission For Linking” from Jason Miller. I’m not sure how he discovered me or my website, but as I began reading the barrage of articles that Jason sent me for linking, I became increasingly impressed with his blogspot and with the person managing it. Upon noticing that Jason occasionally interviewed other progressive bloggers, I requested that he interview me, and the results have been extraordinary, in part, because of the nature of the questions that Jason asks...[READ MORE]
Of Shameless Devotion to Wealth,
Privilege, and Empire | By Jason Miller
There is something distinctly perverse and morally depraved in celebrating the recent blows to habeas corpus and the Bill of Rights, suggesting the re-implementation of slavery, and stating that the Native American genocide was justified by the end results. Yet Gould did so. And frankly, it is difficult to imagine many of his peers amongst the ruling elite (like Dick Cheney for instance) disagreeing with him, in private at least. [READ MORE]
Look Out, It's a Paper Tiger! |
By Paul A. Donovan
It is widely agreed—and I when I say widely I mean globally—that U.S. presence in the region is only fueling and spreading the insurgency across the Middle East faster than a Californian brush fire in the midst of a summer drought. Furthermore, while the American and Iraqi death tolls are on the rise, fundamentalist terrorist networks are gaining more popular support by the hour, sectarian violence is polarizing and creating an atmosphere of terror all over Iraq, hatred and resentment against Americans is growing throughtout the region, and Iran and Saudi Arabia seem eager to fill the power vacuum created by the war, one which the U.S. cannot successfully fill on its own terms. [READ MORE]
Democrats: End this war Now! | By Maryscott O'Connor
The tragedy of this essay, for me, is that I so desperately wish I could have written it about another nation. Or about extreme world poverty. The list is longer than my arm, of crises on which we ought to be demanding immediate action from those who sit in power, those who hold in their grasp the power to change these wretched realities. To be forced to choose, it's such a horror. [READ MORE]
Book Reviews:
The Zapatistas, by John Ross |
Reviewed by Stephen Lendman
Ross has written eight books of fiction and non-fiction and is one of the few surviving Beat poets with nine chapbooks of poetry in and out of print, the latest of which is due out soon called Bomba. He's also been called a new John Reed (who wrote the classic 10 Days that Shook the World on the Russian Revolution) covering a new Mexican revolution playing out around the country from its most indigenous, impoverished South in Chiapas and Oaxaca to the streets of its capital in Mexico City. [READ MORE]
Hummer & Hummerer | By Doug Moss
Why do so many Americans seem to have this sense of entitlement, this notion that we can do whatever we want as long as we can personally afford it, without regard to our impact on the larger, global village? I cannot understand how anyone who has felt the sting of high gas prices, idled on crowded interstates and watched news reports about global warming, oil shortages and rising asthma levels can drive anything but a fuel-efficient, low-emission vehicle.[READ MORE]
SURVIVING AT THE PLEASURE
OF THE PRESIDENT | Sheila Samples
Bernie reminded me that shortly before the 2000 presidential campaign, when Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, he made a speech to the Institute of Petroleum in London where he complained that oil producers "had to deal with the pesky problem that once you find oil and pump it out of the ground you've got to turn around and find more or go out of business." [READ MORE]
COMMENTARY:
Excerpt from The Birthday Party:
A Memoir of Survival|
By Stanley N. Alpert*
Most of my defendants did not put guns to people’s heads to make them turn over their money. My law enforcement career dealt with contamination of the air, water and land, threatening the basic quality of human life. Industry in America needed to be properly regulated and violators relentlessly pursued by the federal, state and local governments. Otherwise they gave you widgets plus some surprisingly nasty free gifts: asthma, genetic mutations, filthy air, and lakes and oceans where the fish gasped and the humans were required by local authorities to keep their butts out of the water. Black mothers in the Bronx wanted to know why their kids had so much more asthma than the separate but equal children in the Village of Scarsdale, and I wanted to help. [READ MORE]
Man fuel: Is it in you? Of Savage Imperialism, Pigskin Monopolists, and Intellectual Emasculation | By Jason Miller
Like the Roman Emperors, our corporate overlords provide their loyal subjects, with panem et circenses. While hundreds of thousands of human beings (including US Americans) are dying to advance United States geopolitical interests in Central Asia and the Middle East, many US Americans are more concerned with Peyton Manning’s prowess under center, LaDainian Tomlinson’s bushel basketfuls of touchdowns, or T.O.’s latest outrageous escapade. [READ MORE]
Hugo Chavez's
Social Democratic Agenda |
By Stephen Lendman
Hugo Chavez Frias was reelected by an overwhelming nearly two to one margin over his only serious rival on December 3, 2006 giving him a mandate to proceed with his agenda to build a socialist society in the 21st century on a Bolivarian model designed to meet the needs of the current era in Venezuela and Latin America overall. [READ MORE]
Review of Chalmers
Johnson's Nemesis |
By Stephen Lendman
Our democracy and way of life are now threatened because of our single-minded pursuit of empire with a well-entrenched militarism driving it that's become so powerful and pervasive it's now an uncontrollable state within the state. History is clear on this teaching we can choose as could all empires before us. We can keep ours and lose our democracy, but we can't have both. [READ MORE]
Fake Congressional
Opposition to War | By Stephen Lendman
The US electorate sent a clear, unequivocal message in the November mid-term elections. End the Iraq war and bring home the troops. Many supporting war in the 109th Congress lost out to more moderate voices taking over their seats because voters want change and expect new faces to deliver starting with the top issue on voters' minds in recent polls - Iraq. [READ MORE]
GODFATHER GOVERNMENT:
A WAY OF LIFE IS NOT A SCANDAL |
By Carolyn Baker
Historians study not only the past but using their analysis of the past, speculate about how the future might unfold. However, historians are not psychics; we can’t predict the exact occurrence of events with specificity, but we can analyze past and current events and conjecture likely future scenarios based on those events. In 1937, during the German Third Reich, historian Robert Brady wrote The Spirit And Structure Of German Fascism, one of the most incisive books of the twentieth century, now out of print and deemed “irrelevant” to contemporary events by most traditional historians. In his last chapter, “The Looming Shadow Of Fascism Over The World,” Brady hypothesized that corporatist influences would ultimately come to dominate many of the governments of the modern world, including and especially, the United States. [READ MORE]
AN AMERICAN ICON—GORE VIDAL ON ITALY, IRAQ AND WHY HE HATES GEORGE BUSH | By Peter Popham
The old fellow, incredibly, is as movie-star handsome as ever; even the lateral cleft that opens in his right cheek when he smiles or (more commonly) winces at the foulness of the world, only seems to enhance his glamour. The baritone voice remains robust and musical. Gore Vidal is not growing slack or fat or even particularly wrinkled in his old age, but instead seems to be taking on the quality of granite; taking up his place on Mount Rushmore even while still alive. [READ MORE]
Against Empire—
Intervention: Whose gain? Whose pain? | By Michael Parenti|
Today,
the United States is the foremost proponent of recolonization and
leading antagonist of revolutionary change throughout the world.
Emerging from World War II relatively unscathed and superior to all
other industrial countries in wlth, productive capacity, and armed
might, the United States became the prime purveyor and guardian of
global capitalism. Judging by the size of its financial investments and
military force, judging by every imperialist standard except direct
colonization, the U.S. empire is the most formidable in history, far
greater than Great Britain in the nineteenth century or Rome during
antiquity. [READ MORE]
Capitalism as Cancer
| By Charles Sullivan | It is painfully obvious that America is a land
that worships the market economy. Big money is God here. Big money is
all powerful, omnipotent. All solutions, as perceived by the captains
of business, therefore must be market based. Moreover, in the moribund
perceptions of the ruling elite, the market must be totally unfettered.
It must exist beyond the pale of conscience, bearing no responsibility
to the people, or to the earth that sustains it [READ MORE]
Tony Blair's Love Affair with the Mainstream Media [READ MORE]
US AND ITS ALLIES DROOL OVER THE APPROACHING TRANSITION IN CUBA, AFTER FIDEL DEPARTS | Comment by the editors of Monthly Review [10.06]
Six Flags Over Neo-Nuremberg
Bush, Oprah, the San Diego Chicken, and a
Proto-Fascist Panopticon of the Mind
| By Phil Rockstroh | MANY BELIEVE FASCISM will come to the United
States of America resembling contrived spectacles such as The Super
Bowl, The Academy Awards, and American Idol, with the proceedings
intercut with teary, yet ultimately triumphant, Oprahesque tales of how
redemption can be gained through the renunciation of one’s rights,
liberties, as well as, the dutiful turning in of one’s subversive
neighbors.
A PLEA FOR NET NEUTRALITY
By Charles Sullivan | It is important to understand that capitalism
rarely works in the public interest. Profit motive is the driving
force. Any public good that stems from it is purely accidental.
THE STRANGE LANGUAGE OF CAPITALISM
By Charles Sullivan | When George Bush and other capitalists speak of
bringing freedom to the world you must understand that they do not mean
freedom in the sense that most of us understand it. We must realize
that they are speaking from the perverted, oddly-skewed language of
capitalism.
THE SPOTLIGHT MOVES ON
By Doug Moss | Guest Editorial | The outspoken editor and publisher of
E-The Environmental Magazine lays on the line concerning the nature of
the Bush regime. Says Moss, "When Kanye West quipped on national
television last September, as an astonished Mike Meyers looked on, that
George Bush “doesn’t care about black people,” he was only partly
right. George Bush doesn’t care about white people, either. In fact,
George Bush only cares about rich people..."
OUR CONTINUING HOLY CRUSADE
By Ernest Stewart. As usual, Ernie lets'em have it, and in spades. If
more of our benighted citizenry heard the facts in this unadulterated
manner, cutting through all the hypocrisy and dissembling with simple,
unassailable truths, maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't be witnessing the
unravelling of this great republic.
PENTAGOONS
By Ernest Stewart The author puts the spotlight on the secretive
Pentagon subculture of war-plotting and foregin adventurism on behalf
of American capitalism, which has acquired viral dimensions during the
Bush regime's tenure.
The Latin American Crucible PROGRESSIVE CUBA-BASHING
By Richard Levins. Cuba is not a dictatorial regime. There is a whole
complex of elected assemblies at all levels, mass organizations of
labor, women, and farmers, and all sorts of NGOs that make Cuban
socialism what it is (more on this below). It is facile and
disingenuous to brand this profoundly participatory political system as
"dictatorial."
ART, TRUTH AND POLITICS
By Harold Pinter. I spoke earlier about 'a tapestry of lies' which
surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a
'totalitarian dungeon'. This was taken generally by the media, and
certainly by the British government, as accurate and fair comment. But
there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista
government. There was no record of torture. There was no record of
systematic or official military brutality. No priests were ever
murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the
government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian
dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala.
A "LOYAL OPPOSITION" WON'T END THE WAR.
By Jeremy Scahill. The refrain of the Democrats about being misled into
supporting the invasion of Iraq has become really tired. And someone
other than the White House smearmongers needs to say it: The Democrats
cannot be allowed to use faulty intelligence as a crutch to hold up
their unforgivable support for the Iraq invasion.
BOBCATS IN THE BRAVE NEW WORLD ORDER
By Sheila Samples. Goodness gracious! Henny Penny! Since defense
secretary Donald Rumsfeld and vice president Dick Cheney teamed up to
lead the charge to create a New World Order, the whole universe has
become untidy. Very untidy. My friend Bernie says Dick and Rummy's big
plan to take over the world by waging continuous war is kinda like
baptizing a bobcat -- ain't gonna happen.
MEET THE JOVIAL FACE OF FASCISM
By Patrice Greanville. For anyone with half a brain American
televangelists are creatures well noted for their reactionary views and
appalling hypocrisy. Their existence in our midst, indeed their very
success in so many latitudes, attests to the stubborn stupidity of so
many people. Now Pat Robertson's latest outburst—surely widely shared
among conservatives despite their protestations to the
contrary—provides further proof of what these kind, Christian folks are
really all about.
THE TARGET IS CUBA
By Alan Woods. Nothing would please the world's reactionary mafia with
its capital in Washigton DC than to see the Cuban revolution go down in
flames. The sad thing is to see some felow Latin Americans and
"left-wing" intellectuals here and abroad join ranks in this crusade to
"restore democracy" to the island.
WE NEED TO BE TOLD.
By John Pilger. WHEN JOURNALISTS REPORT PROPAGANDA INSTEAD OF TRUTH,
THE CONSEQUENCES CAN BE CATASTROPHIC, AS ONE LARGELY FORGOTTEN INSTANCE
DEMONSTRATES.
HOW ROTTEN ARE THESE GUYS? By Robert Parry. SPECIAL
The separation of the Bush political machine from organized crime is
often like the thin layer of rock between a seemingly ordinary surface
and volcanic activity rumbling below. Sometimes, the lava spews forth and the illusion of normalcy is shattered. [10.9.05]
CAPITALISM AS CANCER
By Charles Sullivan. As Sullivan's impassioned plea documents, the idea
of capitalism as a cancer on the face of the earth is not just a
metaphor but a "swept-under-the-rug" reality with multifacetic
dimensions. [10.20.05]
IRAQ: THE STATE WE'RE IN By Patrick Cockburn. When
will peace return to Iraq? When will the terrifying cycle of bombings
and suicide attacks abate? When will the people have food and
electricity? When will they be able to walk the streets in safety? When
will our sons and daughters return home? How will it all end? In this
special report from Baghdad, The Independent's Patrick Cockburn exposes
the monumental series of blunders that plunged the nation into chaos -
and explains why the conflict will be longer, bloodier and more
profound in its consequences even than Vietnam. [10.15.05]
WHAT AWAITS SAMIRA?
By Uri Avnery. Uri, a leading m,ember of Gush Shalom, Israel's
uncompromising "Peace Bloc" ruminates on what Iraq to this crossroads
and the prospects for the immediate future. [10.18.05]
THE GOOD AMERICANS: DEMOCRACY'S GRAVEDIGGERS
By Sheila Samples. The one thing -- the only thing -- that George Bush
has ever done successfully is campaign. That boy sure loves to play
dress-up. He's in his element strutting around in various costumes,
while smirking and blinking before carefully vetted audiences whose
members sign loyalty pledges and are conditioned to cheer and wave
their flags as he gives the same smoke-'em-out-and-kill-'em-all stump
speech over and over. And over again. [10.18.05]
STUDIES IN HUMAN PATHOLOGY: THE STRANGE CASE OF TED NUGENT
By Patrice Greanville. Noisily rightwing and a terror on small
creatures he's been massacring all his life with bow and arrow, Ted
Nugent, the ageing heavy metal rock star and a living symbol of
people's stupidity, is still going strong with his legendary brand of
depravity. [10.9.05]
REPOSTED During Suharto's coup in 1965-66 US officials provided Indonesian military with death lists
By The World Socilaist Editorial Board. It is critical that students
and workers engaged in the struggle against the Suharto dictatorship
not fall prey to any illusions in the so-called democratic role of the
US government. The statements by President Clinton and the State
Department urging restraint on the part of the Indonesian military must
be placed in the context of the actual historical role of American
imperialism in the massacre of hundreds of thousands of workers and
peasants that accompanied the 1965-66 military coup which brought
Suharto to power and the more than three decades of US support for his
dictatorship. [10.9.05]
How Washington builds its second line of defense
By Barry Grey. At the same time that the American military has been
training Indonesian commando units, including Suharto's presidential
guard, the State Department has been doling out tens of millions of
dollars to support bourgeois reform groups opposed to the regime. But
any contradiction here is more apparent than real. [10.9.05]
CHRISTIANITY AND THE DEMISE OF AMERICA
By Charles Sullivan. The Christian churches have not delivered on the
Gospel's promise, says the author, contributing powerfully to the chaos
that continues to engulf contemporary society. [10.9.05]
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE INTELLECTUALS: CUBA, THE U.S. AND HUMAN RIGHTS
By James Petras. The role of the intellectuals is to clarify the major
issues and define the major threats to peace, social justice, national
independence and freedom in each historical period as well as to
identify and support the principal defenders of the same principles.
Intellectuals have a responsibility to distinguish between the
defensive measures taken by countries and peoples under imperial attack
and the offensive methods of imperial powers bent on conquest.
[10.9.05]
A HORRID REALITY By
Sheila Samples. "The miserly response to Katrina should serve as a
wake-up call to those Americans who can still think. Fascism is on the
march and, when this administration threw down the gauntlet in New
Orleans, it declared open war on this nation's poorer citizens, most of
whom were Black..." [10.9.05]
THE ANTI-THOMAS FRIEDMAN PAGE
By Mark Rupert. A well deserved drubbing of one of the nation's most
disgusting apologists for empire. As Rupert notes, Friedman has been
among the most outspoken critics of the new social movements which have
arisen to challenge neoliberal globalization, and which had their
coming out party in Seattle in November-December, 1999. In a column
entitled "Senseless in Seattle" (NYT 12/1/1999), Friedman called the
protesters "ridiculous," "crazy," "a Noah's ark of flat-earth
advocates, protectionist trade unions and yuppies looking for their
1960's fix"and similar. [10.8.05]
CONTROVERSY: Edward R. Movie—Good Night, and Good Luck and bad history.
By Jack Shafer, Slate's editor at large. Jack tilts a well-deserved
lance at this hyperinflated and hagiographic take on legendary
broadcaster Ed Murrow, who appears as if he had discovered birtue and
courage all by himself, but misses the mark a bit with his unstinting
praise for today's media scriveners. What do you think? [10.7.05]
THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRATIC POLICE STATE
By John Pilger. "Friendly fascism"—fascism wrapped in democratic
garb—may be closer than we think, argues Pilger in this must-read
piece. [10.4.05]
JOHN STEPPLING ON JIM JARMUSCH'S BROKEN FLOWERS
Our critic pulls no punches in finding Jarmusch's latest opus something
of a pretentious bore. "The same people who think Hal Hartley or Wes
Anderson are really cool, are the ones who think Jarmusch has something
to say. People will go to "art" houses and watch this stuff, and
not the Multi-Plex , and feel satisfied they are serious about culture.
It is a vomitorium of liberal emptiness." [9.29.05]
MANIPULATING THE PUBLIC MIND
By Charles Sullivan. None of the networks even carried excerpts from
the many excellent speeches being given by the likes of Cynthia
McKinney, Cindy Sheehan, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader and other social
justice luminaries. Those speeches—an important component of the
rally—laid bare the callous disregard the nation’s power brokers have
for life and habitat, especially the poor; and particularly the black
poor. [9.28.05]
BEHIND AMERICA'S FACADE
By John Pilger. The Facade was how we described the dividing line
between the America of real life - of a poverty so profound that
slavery was still a presence and of a rapacious state power that waged
war against its own citizens, just as it did against black and
brown-skinned people in faraway countries - and the America that
spawned the greed of corporatism and invented public relations as a
means of social control ("The American Dream" and "The American Way of
Life" began as advertising slogans). [9.19.05]
CJ Digest BLOGOSPSHERE
Vol 1. P1. Sel. from DailyKos on media, class and related. "I Turned
Down US Open Tickets Today" A Wall Street friend from a top investment
bank left a message this morning: he had an extra ticket to the US Open
Tennis matches today. Fancy corporate pavillion, great food, champagne.
I never called him back...[9.19.05]
DOCTRINE OF GOOD INTENTIONS
By Noam Chomsky. IT is no easy task to gain some understanding of human
affairs. In some respects, it is harder than the natural sciences.
Mother Nature doesn't readily provide the answers, but at least she
doesn't go out of her way to set up barriers to understanding. In human
affairs, it is necessary to detect and dismantle barriers erected by
doctrinal systems, which adopt a range of devices that flow very
naturally from concentration of power.
LEVEES MADE OF LIES
By Phil Rockstroh. How did it come to this? How did we come to buy this
worthless plot of swampland known as George Bush's America? Perhaps, at
this point, a brief history lesson, for a nation whose populace
possesses the collective capacity for long-term memory of a Louisiana
gnat flurry on a hot afternoon in high summer, might prove helpful.
Let's begin with the watershed year of 1968. [9.15.05]
SOCIALISM OR BARBARISM By Rob Sewell. Back from the grave? Notices of socialism's death may have been ludicrously premature. [9.16.05]
IT'S HIGH TIME THE GOP WAS CONFINED TO THE DUSTBIN OF HISTORY By Patrice Greanville. Far from an example of civic pulchritude, the GOP is the party that has staged two—count'em, two—coup
attempts on the state during the last 35 years. One under Nixon and one
under Ronnie Reagan—both sacred cows of the unreconstructed
crypto-fascist imperialist Right, which is by all measures the real
driving force inside the GOP. REPOSTED [9.15.05]
SHAMEFUL POLICY CAUSED MANY PETS' DEATH By
Karen Dawn. In France, official policy allows dogs in restaurants. One
cannot imagine it would call for their abandonment during disasters. Do
the French care more about their animals than we do? The photos of
Katrina's aftermath answer that: people on rooftops or wading or
swimming through filthy water, having left every one of their worldly
possessions, but desperately clutching their beloved pets. But U.S.
official policy is out of touch with that reality. In Cuba last
September, more than 1.5 million people were evacuated to higher ground
before a storm. About 20,000 houses were destroyed, and nobody died.
The people were told to take their animals, and veterinarians were
provided. Far from causing chaos, the evacuation of animals prevented
it. The Cuban government did not have to deal with people refusing to
leave their animals and did not have to force them to leave them.
[9.14.05]
THE TRUTH ABOUT CUBA
By Marce Cameron. Castro was a central leader of the movement that
threw out Cuba’s US-backed dictator in 1959, and of the subsequent
socialist revolution that put control of the country into the hands of
its people. Since then, the world’s imperialist powers, chief among
them the US, have tried to destroy the revolutionary government in
Cuba, in order to replace it with one that will understand that the
world’s poor countries should be at the mercy of the world’s richest
corporations. [9.10.05]
BEST FRIENDS NEED SHELTER, TOO By
Karen Dawn. Hurricane Katrina is forcing an outrageously out-of-touch
and incompetent establishment to confront some basic realities defining
life in America. Like the fact that poverty is still a scandal waiting
to be addressed. That race is closely correlated with poverty, and that
many, too many Americans for the bureaucrats' comfort, value their
animals as much as they value their own lives. [9.10.05]
A DIALOGUE ON THEATER AND CONTEMPORARY ARTS (PART ONE)
John Steppling and Guy Zimmerman take no prisoners in their exploration
of what ails the theater in America today, and the ways in which this
is emblematic of a larger illness. [9.5.05]
AFTERMATH OF KATRINA: BUSH TEAM TRIES TO PIN BLAME ON LOCAL OFFICIALS
By Julian Borger, for The Guardian. The wheels of establishment
propaganda are in motion to deflect criticism from the obvious blame
that lies at the doorstep of a bumbling and insensitive White House,
and those it actually represents. [9.5.05]
FROM MITCH TO KATRINA—NATURE IN POLITICS
By Alexander Cockburn. Nature really kicks the door down once in a
while, and lets us know how humans have made a mess of things...[9.5.05]
HOW THE FREE MARKET KILLED NEW ORLEANS
By Michael Parenti. The free market played a crucial role in the
destruction of New Orleans and the death of thousands of its residents.
Armed with advanced warning that a momentous (force 5) hurricane was
going to hit that city and surrounding areas, what did officials do?
They played the free market...[9.3.05]
BUSHITES PLUMB THE BOTTOMLESS BOTTOM
By Madison. A candid look at the true nature of a party that should
have vanished from the scene a long time ago, if people were even
moderately aware of what it truly represents. [9.3.05]
KATRINA PROVIDES TRUE REALITY TV—FOR A FEW PRECIOUS MOMENTS By
Patrice Greanville. The impromptu exchange between CNN's Anderson
Cooper and Democratic Party Sen. Mary Landrieu (LA) is giving left
bloggers a lot of reason for celebration. See what the hoopla is all
about. [9.3.05]
CHRIS FLOYD on KATRINA—THE PERFECT STORM. Another eloquent summary of what went wrong, and the political reasons behind the disaster. [9.2.05]
HURRICANE HUGO (CHAVEZ) HITS THE MONROE DOCTRINE HEAD ON By Tom Barry. Counterpunch syndicate. [9.2.05]
NEWS ORLEANS DISASTER—THE REAL FACE OF "CAPITALISM OF THE 21ST CENTURY" By John Peterson. [9.2.05]
WHY NEW ORLEANS IS IN DEEP WATER
By Molly Ivins. The storm caused part of the damage; the other part was
the inexorable consequence of a political regime whose real interests
do not include protecting the people. [9.1.05]
NATION OF FOOLS By Charles Sullivan. A candid examination of the realities of contemporary democracy, American style. [9.1.05]
ALAN WOODS INTERVIEWS ADAN CHAVEZ A candid exchange between the veteran Trotskyst activist and Pres. Hugo Chavez's older brother. [8.31.05]
WHO IS PAT ROBERTSON?
By Josh Lucker, In Defence of Marxism (U.K.) Lucker adds some
interesting facts to what is already a rich brew of accusations and
denunciations against one of America's most conspicuous hypocrites and
con men. [8.30.05]
LISTEN UP YOU CHRISTO-FASCIST BULLIES
— You Apostles Of Perpetual Psychosis — It's High Time Somebody Called
You Out. By Phil Rockstroh. A well-deserved broadside from our resident
bard, on a mob that, immersed in medievalism, continues to sink this
nation ever deeper in a cesspool lof their own making... [8.25.05]
CINEMA: BATMAN BEGINS,
Reviewed by John Steppling. "Like most comic book superheroes, [Batman]
is, essentially, a vigilante..." So argues Steppling in a provocative
take on the latest blockbuster to hit youthful consciousness, courtesy
of a film industry in a demonstrably advanced state of decadence.
[8.24.05]
CJ Digest: MONTHLY REVIEW/ U.S. Offensive in Latin America: Coups, Retreats, and Radicalization (2002) Reposted.
A solid analysis of the current conditions of class struggle throughout
Latin America, focusing onWashington's tactics and strategies to thwart
and derail popular power. This essay was published in 2002, but the
quickening tempo of developments in the Southern Hemisphere has only
validated its insights and findings. [8.23.05]
INTERVIEWS | THE WHITE HOUSE IS SHAPING PUBLIC OPINION for a Future Confrontation with Iran.
Scott Harris explores the [high] probability of a US attack on Iran
with Norman Solomon, as signs continue to grow in the media that the
public is being manipulated once again to accept yet another
imperialist adventure [8.23.05]
A MIRACLE OF RARE DEVICE—By Uri Avnery. The Removal of Israeli Settlements as seen by a witness of impeccable merit. [8.16.05]
CJ Digest: MONTHLY REVIEW/ THE SOUL OF SOCIALISM
: Connecting with the People’s Values. By Stephen J. Fortunato Jr.
“Theory becomes a material force,” wrote Karl Marx, “once it seizes the
masses.” The obverse is also true: if theory does not “seize the
masses,” it becomes impotent and irrelevant. Today, in the United
States and many other countries, a socialist critique has been excluded
from political and popular debate ..." [8.15.05]
AMERICA HAS LEFT THE BUILDING .. A Conversation About Culture —Part
2 of an exchange to be remembered. By Phil Rockstroh & John
Steppling. A freewheeling, often exhilarating exchange between two
highly perceptive and iconoclastic observers of America's contemporary
predicament...Read at your own risk. [8.3.05]
THE HEROIC MUST BECOME THINKABLE (AGAIN)
By Patrice Greanville. "As Americans we are so conditioned to avoid
pain and inconvenience, so pansified by the endless mendacious
ministrations of the system, especially in the middle classes, and so
unthinkingly devoted first to matters of home and the pacification of
the insatiable "me, me, me" instead of principle..." [7.30.05]
JUDITH MILLER IN JAIL By
Justin Podur .The mainstream media have their martyr, at last. but will
St. Judy atone for their willingness to prostitute themselves?
[7.30.05]
PLANNING THE GAZA GENOCIDE
By Justin Podur . Chosen people, master race...the slippery slope of
fascism by any other name...where does it lead? We can't say we haven't
been warned. [7.30.05]
OF
KARL ROVE, NIXON'S GRAY GHOST, Pinball Proto-Fascism, Muscle Car
Imperialism, And The Gong Show Of The American Political System By Phil Rockstroh [7.30.05]
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005) FILMS Directed by Steven Spielberg; reviewed by John Steppling. "War of the Worlds
is a film without a point. The references to 9/11 are clear enough, but
probably not as important as its essential emptiness. Spielberg, in Minority Report, created a police state gone into hyper-drive..." [7.29.05]
AMERICA HAS LEFT THE BUILDING ..
A Conversation About Culture
By Phil Rockstroh & John Steppling. A freewheeling, often
exhilarating exchange between two highly perceptive and iconoclastic
observers of America's contemporary predicament...Read at your own
risk. [7.28.05]
DISPATCH FROM THE MIDDLE EAST— A Conversation with Ilan Pappe,
by Don Atapattu. Israeli academic Ilan Pappe first came to prominence
in the 1980s as a member of the Israel ‘New Historian’ movement that
chronicled the war crimes and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians
in the first Arab-Israeli War of 1948. The author of several books
critical of ‘heroic’ myths of the Zionist history; he teaches Political
Science at Haifa University, and is the Academic Director of the
Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva. [7.18.05]
MEDICATING THE DEAD ,
by Phil Rockstroh. A passionate salvo against the cynical
medicalization of politics and the persistent, malignant form of
historical "innocence" the nation has long labored under...to the grief
of multitudes at home and abroad. [7.15.05]
GOOD THINGS HAPPENING IN VENEZUELA A much-needed, rectifying analysis from Michael Parenti on the quickly-shifting situation in Venezuela. [7.12.05]
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