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Last Updated: May 9th, 2008 - 00:50:59 |
Commentary
Another American war -- look out, earth
By Jim Miles
True to the American manner of meeting challenges and
desiring to overcome them, a recent Time magazine cover led off with the
title “How to Win The War On Global Warming” [1]. Accompanying that article,
the UN Secretary-General demonstrated his Washington consensus credentials with
a commentary titled “The Right War.” [2] If the American history of war is to
be considered, earth itself is in trouble.
May 9, 2008, 00:20
Commentary
One Bolivia, white and wealthy
By Jorge Majfud, Ph.D.
The rapid Conquest of Amerindia would have been
impossible without the Mesoamerican and Andean cosmology. Otherwise two mature
empires, with millions of inhabitants and brave armies would never have
succumbed to the madness of a handful of Spaniards. But it was also possible
due to the new adventurer and warrior spirit of the medieval culture of a
Spanish Crown victorious in the Reconquest of Spain, and the new capitalist
spirit of the Renaissance.
May 9, 2008, 00:14
Commentary
People who don’t need 'People'
By Walter Brasch
From a pool of about 7 billion, those
hard-working geniuses at People magazine have managed to find the
hundred most beautiful people in the whole wide world. And -- get ready for the
surprise -- almost every one of those beautiful people are rich American
celebrities.
May 9, 2008, 00:12
Commentary
The winds of Fascism blowing across Europe
By Gaither Stewart
ROME -- I feel sick.
May 8, 2008, 00:18
Commentary
Bloomberg privatizing Union Square?
By Jerry Mazza
The issue at hand is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
turning over (privatizing) Union Square Park’s landmark pavilion into a ritzy
120-person restaurant concession, which would be operated by one of his
millionaire buddies, Danny Meyer. By the way, the beautifully Spanish-tile
roofed, colonnaded pavilion has traditionally been an indoor play-area for the
surrounding neighborhoods’ children, who have no excess of parks.
May 8, 2008, 00:16
Commentary
In Iraq, US is digging in for the long haul
By Linda S. Heard
It doesn’t look as though Americans in Iraq are going
anywhere anytime soon. Officially Iraq’s sovereignty was handed back to its
rightful owners years ago, which means the occupiers remain in the country at
the invitation of the Iraqi government. Okay try not to laugh!
May 8, 2008, 00:10
Commentary
Executive or imperial branch?
By Ivan Eland
More memos recently have surfaced that were written
early in the Bush administration by John C. Yoo from the Justice Department's
Office of Legal Counsel -- the man who gave us the administration's
horrifyingly narrow definition of torture. As difficult as it is to believe,
the recently released memos are even scarier than the original torture memo.
May 8, 2008, 00:08
Commentary
Cover-ups insult our intelligence
By Linda S. Heard
Sami Al Haj, the Al Jazeera cameraman thrown into
Guantanamo six years ago where he remained until last week without charge or
trial, is finally together with his wife and young son following an emotional
reunion in Khartoum. He's only 39 but his friends say he looks like a frail old
man. Al Haj has always protested his innocence. He says he was detained to
punish Al Jazeera for its independent reporting in Iraq and Afghanistan and
claims he was tortured, humiliated, force fed and made to endure insults to his
religion.
May 7, 2008, 00:19
Commentary
Captivity of impression, not freedom of expression
By Ben Tanosborn
In my mind you don’t trot around the world creating
havoc and taking peoples’ lives to defend your “envied freedoms.” For all the
shame we may rightly accumulate as we send young people to die for our elite’s
lust for power and greed, we don’t have to lie to our enlisted military by
mockingly making them martyrs and heroes when, sadly, they are just being
played for chumps.
May 7, 2008, 00:15
Commentary
Ashamed to be American
By Mickey Z.
I was reading Five
Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo, by Murat Kurnaz, when I
came across a passage about Kurnaz being subjected to gruesome electric shock
torture at the hands of America’s brave volunteer warriors. After passing out
and being tossed back in his cell to sleep it off, Kurnaz was soon awakened by
harrowing screams.
May 7, 2008, 00:13
Commentary
AOL subscribers: You can no longer receive e-mails containing the word "Blogspot"
By Jane Stillwater
Guess what, AOL subscribers? AOL has just blocked me from sending you
any e-mails.
May 7, 2008, 00:11
Commentary
Cherie Blair in Bangladesh
By Iftekhar Sayeed
In the The Godfather II, Mrs. Corleone leaves her husband: he was, she observed with
understatement, "evil." If Cherie Blair ever had such misgivings
about her spouse, she has kept them to herself. The fact that she remains
married to a man who, if not by the courts, but in the court of public opinion,
has been named a war criminal, testifies instead to the shared beliefs of a
happily married couple.
May 6, 2008, 00:16
Commentary
Popcorn and champagne: The Trial of Tareq Aziz
By Gabriele Zamparini
Getcha popcorn ready! The Green Zone Puppet Theatre in
Baghdad is putting on a new show, The Trial of Tareq Aziz.
May 6, 2008, 00:10
Commentary
“Beware the terrible simplifiers”
By Bill Moyers
I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam: “Who’s
telling the truth over there?” “Everyone,” he said. “Everyone sees what’s
happening through the lens of their own experience.”
May 5, 2008, 00:15
Commentary
The bomb squads: How to survive a Gaza refugee camp
By Ramzy Baroud
We waited breathless. Breathing heavily was hazardous
under these somewhat exceptional circumstances. The army, my father often
advised, was sensitive to the slightest movements or sounds, including a
whisper, a cough, or God forbid, a sneeze. Thus we sat completely still.
Muneer, my younger brother was entrusted with the mission of peering through
the rusty holes in the front door.
May 5, 2008, 00:13
Commentary
Intelligence agents without borders
By William Blum
When Andreas Papandreou assumed his ministerial duties
in 1964 in the Greek government led by his father, George Papandreou, he was
shocked to discover an intelligence service out of control; a shadow government
with powers beyond the authority of the nation's nominal leaders; a service
more loyal to the CIA than to the Papandreou government.
May 5, 2008, 00:11
Commentary
Not another bilateral deal!
By Linda Heard
What is Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert up to?
Syria has been amenable to peace talks for years, and has been systematically
ignored or rebuffed, so what is prompting Olmert’s apparent change of heart?
May 2, 2008, 00:10
Commentary
Beware: Change is coming!
By Lech Biegalski
Rev. Jeremiah Wright had his “historic” speech at the
fund raising dinner for thousands of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) delegates in Detroit, extensively
publicised and enthusiastically promoted by the flagship of the corporate
media, CNN.
May 2, 2008, 00:08
Commentary
The ‘Invisible Hand’ is picking your pocket
By Jerry Mazza
The
Invisible Hand is a notion brought to us by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations. It poses that, “in a
free market, an individual pursuing his own self-interest tends to also promote
the good of his community,” cough, cough.
May 1, 2008, 00:24
Commentary
Permanent wars for oil and permanent terrorism
By Rodrigue Tremblay
When the Bush-Cheney administration took over in
January 2001, the international price of oil was about $22 a barrel. Now,
nearly eight years later, the price of oil is hovering around $120 a barrel, a
more than 500 percent increase.
May 1, 2008, 00:16
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