24 August 2005 | Reuters Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, popular with the poor at home, has offered to help needy Americans with cheap supplies of petrol. “We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States,” the populist leader said at the end of a visit to Communist-run Cuba on Tuesday. Chavez did not say how Venezuela would go about providing petrol to poor communities. Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA owns Citgo, which has 14,000 petrol stations in the United States. The offer may sound attractive to Americans feeling pinched by soaring prices at […]
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Posted Mar 24, 2005 | Rolling Stone by JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER A few weeks ago, the price of oil ratcheted above fifty-five dollars a barrel, which is about twenty dollars a barrel more than a year ago. The next day, the oil story was buried on page six of the New York Times business section. Apparently, the price of oil is not considered significant news, even when it goes up five bucks a barrel in the span of ten days. That same day, the stock market shot up more than a hundred points because, CNN said, government data showed no […]
U.S. checking possibility of pumping oil from northern Iraq to Haifa, via Jordan 7 Aug 2004 | Ha’Aretz by Amiram Cohen The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem. The Prime Minister’s Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a “bonus” the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the […]
John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859: Harvard Classics Volume 25, 1909 P.F. Collier & Son).
Our selections come from Book IV, Chapters 2 and 9 of Adam Smith’s 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. Edwin Cannan (The Modern Library, New York, 1937), 649 – 51.
Richard Schiffman | The Atlantic Monthly Apr 18 2013 Sometimes financial crises can force lifestyle changes for the better. When Cuba’s benefactor, the Soviet Union, closed up shop in the early 1990s, it sent the Caribbean nation into an economic tailspin from which it would not recover for over half a decade. The biggest impact came from the loss of cheap petroleum from Russia. Gasoline quickly became unobtainable by ordinary citizens in Cuba, and mechanized agriculture and food distribution systems all but collapsed. The island’s woes were compounded by the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which intensified the U.S. trade embargo […]
Marx wrote The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts between April and August 1844.
Here’s how I re-started making bread, maybe around 2005-6. Yes, it’s a bread machine recipe; but for me at that time, the machine made the difference between baking and not. As of the beginning of the year, I’ve converted to pretty much all oven-baked, “Kneadless Artisan” bread. Mmmm… (But people still remember and request this Bredan; so here’s how to make your own with a cheapo thrift-store bread machine.) The base Active dry yeast: 1.5 Tbs + a little Bread flour: 3 c Granulated sugar: 2 Tbs Salt: 1.25 tsp + a little Non-fat dry milk (optional): 2 Tbs Butter […]
by Dmitry Orlov – 14 February 2009 The following talk was given on February 13, 2009, at Cowell Theatre in Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, to an audience of 550 people. Audio and video of the talk will be available on Long Now Foundation web site. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for showing up. It’s certainly nice to travel all the way across the North American continent and have a few people come to see you, even if the occasion isn’t a happy one. You are here to listen to me talk about social collapse and the various […]
Brendan Lalor. Southern Journal of Philosophy 36, 215-232, 1998. Abstract. There is a clash between (i) the intuition that the states of a randomly materialized double of me, Swampman, would have intentional content, and (ii) the best teleosemantical accounts of the metaphysical constitution of content. I argue for a position which is sufficiently liberal about content constitution to allow that Swampman’s states immanently become contentful, but conservative enough to honor what’s essential to good teleosemantics – namely, respect for the following etiological constraint: Content must supervene on structures for whose continued presence there is a function-bestowing causal reason. 1. Swampman […]
[P]rices for corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, rice and other grains began shooting through the roof… food [is] becoming the new gold…. For the 1 billion living on less than a dollar a day, it is a matter of survival. In a mud hut on the Sahara’s edge, Manthita Sou, a 43-year-old widow in the Mauritanian desert village of Maghleg, is confronting wheat prices that are up 67 percent on local markets in the past year. Her solution: stop eating bread…. The root cause of price surges varies from crop to crop. But the crisis is being driven in part by […]
24 May 2006 | TurhtOut.org by Dean Baker The New York Times had an article today that inadvertently revealed a huge amount about how wages are set in the US economy (“US Plan to Lure Nurses May Hurt Poor Nations,” 5-24-06; A1). We all know the official story – wages are supposed to be set by the market, our old friends supply and demand. When certain skills are in short supply, the wages for workers with these skills are bid up. This leads more people to acquire the skills and may also reduce the demand. Eventually, supply increases and demand […]
November/December 2004 | Mother Jones by Bill McKibben With no help from the Bush administration — but plenty from Europe, Japan, New York, and California — solar power is edging into the mainstream. If you’re like most Americans, you’ve spent your life invisibly attached to an electric meter. When you wake up and switch on the light, you nudge it forward a little faster. When you toast bread, watch TV, open the fridge, flick on the computer, you push its pace. For all practical purposes, it only goes one way. But in the last few years, a small but quickly […]
[ The Rev. Pat Robertson — a man whose confusion and influence together make him a threat to justice, democracy, and intelligent discourse — has done it again. This time he is calling for the assassination of a democratically elected leader who dares threaten U.S. hemispheric hegemony. What’s interesting is that Robertson has no problem supporting violent dictators (see below) and investment under repressive regimes (see below) in order to make a buck. ] 22 August 2005 | Media Matters for America Pat Robertson, host of Christian Broadcasting Network’s The 700 Club and founder of the Christian Coalition of America, […]
Venezuela’s Chavez Runs Up Debt Shunting Oil Wealth to the Poor 16 June 2005 | Bloomberg Venezuelan housewife Sabrina Munoz saves as much as a third on the price of flour, meat and beans by shopping at Mercal, a government-owned supermarket near her Caracas home overlooked by hillside shanties. She thanks President Hugo Chávez. “Mercal is an example of the good Chavez does,” says Munoz, 50, a mother of four. “He’s such a humanitarian.” Backed by a quadrupling of oil prices since he took office in early 1999, Chavez, 50, has boosted spending on food subsidies, education and health care […]
11 May 2005 | The Nation by GREG PALAST George Bush has someone new to hate. Only twenty-four hours after Ecuador’s new president took his oath of office, he was hit by a diplomatic cruise missile fired all the way from Lithuania by Condoleezza Rice, then wandering about Eastern Europe spreading “democracy.” Condi called for “a constitutional process to get to elections,” which came as a bit of a shock to the man who’d already been constitutionally elected, Alfredo Palacio. What had Palacio done to get our Secretary of State’s political knickers in a twist? It’s the oil–and the bonds. […]
[ From the piece: “The China price.” They are the three scariest words in U.S. industry. In general, it means 30% to 50% less than what you can possibly make something for in the U.S. In the worst cases, it means below your cost of materials. Makers of apparel, footware, electric appliances, and plastics products, which have been shutting U.S. factories for decades, know well the futility of trying to match the China price. It has been a big factor in the loss of 2.7 million manufacturing jobs since 2000. Meanwhile, America’s deficit with China keeps soaring to new records. […]
11/30/2004 | Business Weekly by JIANG JINGJING The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, says its inventory of stock produced in China is expected to hit US$18 billion this year, keeping the annual growth rate of over 20 per cent consistent over two years. The trend is expected to continue, company officials revealed. “We expect our procurement stock from China to continue to grow at a similar rate in line with Wal-Mart’s growth worldwide, if not faster,” said Lee Scott, the president and CEO (chief executive officer) of Wal-Mart.
The New Southern Democrats November 24, 2004 | AlterNet by Traci Hukill Fed up with the neoliberal policies advocated by Washington and the IMF, Latin America is turning to the left. The question now is, can it last? In “The Motorcycle Diaries,” director Walter Salles’ tribute to Che Guevara, the hero speeds up the spine of the Andes clinging to his buddy on the back of a wheezing Norton. The year is 1952 and it is dawning on the young Che that the gorgeous vistas of his beloved Latin America conceal a corrosive cancer of greed and oppression. He dedicates […]
November 16, 2004 | Columbus Dispatch by Joe Blundo The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The re-election of President Bush is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they’ll soon be required to hunt, pray and agree with Bill O’Reilly. Canadian border farmers say it’s not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.
[ Palast argues that Ohio Republicans, simultaneously in charge of both the Bush-Cheney get-out-the-vote drive and the state’s vote-counting rules, doggedly and systematically insured the spoilage pile would be as high as the White House. And the color of most of those who cast the spoiled votes is Black. –BL ]November 12, 2004 | In These Times Most voters in Ohio chose Kerry. Here’s how the votes vanished. by Greg Palast This February, Ken Blackwell, Ohio’s Secretary of State, told his State Senate President, “The possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state?s primary voting device invites a […]
26 October 2004 | World Socialist Web Site by Patrick Martin The shortage of flu vaccine has become a major social issue in the United States, with thousands of elderly people?those most at risk of life-threatening complications from influenza?lining up to receive vaccinations at the limited number of clinics and hospitals that have a supply. The total number of vaccines available in the US is estimated at barely 60 million, compared to the 90 million people in the categories most at risk, such as the elderly, small children, pregnant women and people with respiratory ailments. Nearly half the total supply, […]
11 Oct. 2004 | World Socialist Web Site by Joseph Kay and Samuel Davidson With US Airways? decision to file for bankruptcy on September 12, the crisis in the US airline industry has reached a new stage. The seventh-largest airline in the country now joins United Airlines, the second-largest, in Chapter 11 court proceedings. The country’s third-largest carrier, Delta Airlines, is threatening to declare bankruptcy as well.
10 October 2004 | New York Times by BENEDICT CAREY In 2001, two researchers and a Columbia University fertility expert published a startling finding in a respected medical journal: women undergoing fertility treatment who had been prayed for by Christian groups were twice as likely to have a successful pregnancy as those who had not. Three years later, after one of the researchers pleaded guilty to conspiracy in an unrelated business fraud, Columbia is investigating the study and the journal reportedly pulled the paper from its Web site. No evidence of manipulation has yet surfaced, and the study’s authors stand […]
August 2004 | MuseLetter No. 149 by Richard Heinberg To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. –Thomas Jefferson For decades the US dollar has served as the world’s default currency. The phrase "sound as a dollar" has expressed the faith and confidence of generations, not only of Americans, but people worldwide. That situation is coming to end, and the consequences will be far-reaching. A Brief History of Money In order to understand why this sea change is about to […]
[ I ran another great piece on the pillaging of Iraq in June. Here’s Naomi Klein from the article below: In June, Bremer [former leader of the U.S. occupation of Iraq] flew to an economic summit in Jordan and announced that these firms would be privatized immediately. “Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands,” he said, “is essential for Iraq’s economic recovery.” It would be the largest state liquidation sale since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But Bremer’s economic engineering had only just begun. In September, to entice foreign investors to come to Iraq, he enacted a radical set […]
30 Sept. 2004 | EnvironmentalDefense.org NY – Environmental Defense president Fred Krupp praised the Russian Government’s decision today to submit the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change to the Russian Duma for ratification. “It’s the first clear sign since May that Russia is committed to taking the steps to usher in the age of carbon limits and climate stabilization. Sadly this leaves the U.S. isolated in its refusal to join the international effort to reduce greenhouse gas pollution,” said Krupp. “Russian ratification will bring into force a landmark international treaty under which for the first time nations will work together to […]
29 September 2004 | The Independent Pregnant chads, vanishing voters… the election fiasco of 2000 made the Sunshine State a laughing stock. More importantly, it put George Bush in the White House. You’d think they’d want to get it right this time. But no, as Andrew Gumbel discovers, the democratic process is more flawed than ever …
[ From the piece: If you want to build a bomb, you simply sign the treaties, join the IAEA, then use your entitlements to do what they were designed to prevent. –BL ]
21 September 2004 | New York Times by JAMES GLANZ BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 20 – Iraqi officials in charge of rebuilding their country’s shattered and decrepit infrastructure are warning that the Bush administration’s plan to divert $3.46 billion from water, sewage, electricity and other reconstruction projects to security could leave many people without the crucial services that generally form the backbone of a stable and functioning democracy. Under the plan, which was proposed last week and would require approval by Congress, the money would pay for training and equipping tens of thousands of additional police officers, border patrol agents and […]
[ Well put, Batch. –BL ] 18 Sept. 2004 by Nathaniel Batchelder, Oklahoma City Peace House EVERYTHING AT STAKE: People I admire most include Ralph Nader and folks committed to the Greens. Because I and they are aligned on so many issues, I pray they consider the high regard underlying my words: Elections are not ?OPINION SURVEYS? to separate the righteous from the less. Elections determine WHO will sit in the seats of power for 2, 4, or 6 years, thus WHO we get to LOBBY for all the things we believe in. The voter?s choice is ALWAYS: someone better or […]
September 6, 2004 | WorkingForChange.com & Morphizm.Com by Greg Palast In celebration of the working person’s holiday, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has announced the Bush Administration’s plan to end the 60-year-old law which requires employers to pay time-and-a-half for overtime. I’m sure you already knew that — if you happened to have run across page 15,576 of last year’s Federal Register. According to the Register, where the Bush Administration likes to place its little gifts to major campaign donors, 2.7 million workers will lose their overtime pay for a “benefit” of $1.53 billion. I put “benefit” in quotes because, […]
1 September 2004 | New York Times by PAUL MELLER and ELIZABETH BECKER BRUSSELS, Aug. 31 – The World Trade Organization on Tuesday authorized the European Union and seven other leading American trading partners to impose more than $150 million in retaliatory sanctions on exports from the United States. The ruling comes after Congress refused for two years to repeal a tariff subsidy for American companies that the W.T.O. found to be in violation of global trade laws. The decision by the trade organization, based in Geneva, is the latest example of several cases where Washington has been found to […]
[ Oil reserves elsewhere are not what they once were … It is not easy and it is not cheap, and through most of the 1980’s and 1990’s, it was not attractive to pursue, because there was plenty of crude oil available from more convenient sources and the market price was too low to reward large-scale tar sands development. –BL ]31 August 2004 | New York Times by SIMON ROMERO
[ From one conscientious objector, Camilo Mejia: ?I cannot say that I [went to war] to help the Iraqi people. I cannot say that it was to make America and the world safer. I cannot say that it was for democracy. I cannot say that it was to prevent terrorism. I could not find a single good reason for having been there and having shot at people and having been shot at.” … ?But if I’m going to commit to killing people, there had better be a good reason. Not for the right of someone to drive an SUV with […]
[ Manning insightfully connects meat protein output to fossil fuel input, wheat to imperialism. The underlining is mine. Thanks to Matt Miller for forwarding the article. –BL ] February 1, 2003 | Harper’s Magazine by Richard Manning The secret of great wealth with no obvious source is some forgotten crime, forgotten because it was done neatly. –Balzac The journalist’s rule says: follow the money. This rule, however, is not really axiomatic but derivative, in that money, as even our vice president will tell you, is really a way of tracking energy. We’ll follow the energy.
excerpted from August 30, 2004 | The American Conservative by Eric S. Margolis …. President George W. Bush’s crusade against Iraq … managed to convoke only an embarrassingly skimpy assemblage of vassal states, but the invasion proved a smashing military success, if a subsequent disaster. Now, over a year later, many of America’s 32 allies, tributaries, supplicants, and camp followers that sent a total of 22,000 troops to Iraq are wishing they had never become involved and are seeking escape or giving thanks they are well out of the growing carnage in Mesopotamia.
[ From the article: Today, mountaintop removal is booming again, and the practice of dumping mining debris into streambeds is explicitly protected, thanks to a small wording change to federal environmental regulations. U.S. officials simply reclassified the debris from objectionable “waste” to legally acceptable “fill.” –BL ] Appalachia Is Paying Price for White House Rule Change August 17, 2004 | Washington Post by Joby Warrick BECKLEY, W.Va. — The coal industry chafes at the name — “mountaintop removal” — but it aptly describes the novel mining method that became popular in this part of Appalachia in the late 1980s. Miners target […]
DuPont, Now in the Frying Pan 8 August 2004 | New York Times by AMY CORTESE TEFLON has been hugely successful for DuPont, which over the last half-century has made the material almost ubiquitous, putting it not just on frying pans but also on carpets, fast-food packaging, clothing, eyeglasses and electrical wires – even the fabric roofs covering football stadiums. Now DuPont has to worry that Teflon and the materials used to make it have perhaps become a bit too ubiquitous. Teflon constituents have found their way into rivers, soil, wild animals and humans, the company, government environmental officials and […]
[ Petersen’s piece below contains a piecing-together of bin Laden’s argument against the U.S., and justification for violence against U.S. civilians. On the one hand, post-9/11 blind rage, or overgeneralized hatred, may still prevent many Americans from considering such arguments. On the other hand, in light of the increasing popularity of bin Ladenesque arguments among Middle Easterners and others, it’s not clear there is any path to lasting peace other than by means of some degree of mutual understanding. Notes: some of bin Laden’s Fatwahs referenced below can be found on the mideastweb.org site. The underlining below is mine. –BL ] […]
Bush accused of pressuring countries to stop producing generic drugs 24 July 2004 | BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) by Fiona Fleck Geneva — The United States has come under fire for pressuring developing countries to give up their right to produce cheap, generic anti-AIDS medicines in return for bilateral trade agreements that strengthen protection of costlier, brand name drugs. Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz joined advocacy groups Oxfam and M?decins Sans Fronti?res this month in criticising Washington for bowing to industry pressure by pursuing a policy the groups say could prevent millions of AIDS patients in poor countries from […]
July 15, 2004 | New York Review of Books by Marcia Angell 1. Every day Americans are subjected to a barrage of advertising by the pharmaceutical industry. Mixed in with the pitches for a particular drug—usually featuring beautiful people enjoying themselves in the great outdoors—is a more general message. Boiled down to its essentials, it is this: “Yes, prescription drugs are expensive, but that shows how valuable they are. Besides, our research and development costs are enormous, and we need to cover them somehow. As ‘research-based’ companies, we turn out a steady stream of innovative medicines that lengthen life, enhance […]
[ I learned of this important paper through InformationClearingHouse.info. –BL ] Testimony to the World Tribunal on Iraq, International Forum on Globalization, New York, May 8, 2004 by Antonia Juhasz The Bush Administration is using the military invasion and occupation of Iraq to advance a corporate globalization agenda that is illegal under international law, has not been chosen by the Iraqi people and may ultimately prove to be even more devastating than twelve years of economic sanctions, two U.S.-led wars and one occupation. The Administration’s ultimate goal is to take the agenda to the entire region. In direct conflict with its […]
3 June 2004 | USA Today by Paul Wiseman To an astonishing degree, the sexes are going their opposite ways in Japan. Young women are revolting against the traditional role of obedient housewife, opting instead to live at home and shop and socialize with girlfriends. Startled men are retreating into solitary ways. Check-ins at the country’s famed ‘love hotels’ are even falling. As birthrates slip, a social crisis looms.
Republicans defeat effort to subpoena Justice documents on torture 17 June 2004 | Knight Ridder Newspapers by SUMANA CHATTERJEE WASHINGTON – (KRT) – Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday defeated a Democratic-sponsored effort to subpoena documents on torture and interrogation practices from the Justice Department. [“23 documents, including an Aug. 1, 2002, memo that argued that the president wasn’t bound by U.S. and international prohibitions against torture. Attorney General John Ashcroft refused last week to surrender the memo to the committee.” –BL] The 10 to 9 vote reflected the mounting partisan rancor over the abuse of Iraqi detainees […]
[ From the BBC article below: “If the real figures were to come out there would be panic on the stock markets, in the end that would suit no one.” George Monbiot’s piece in the June 8 Guardian fills in important context: The world’s problem is as follows. We now consume six barrels of oil for every new barrel we discover. Major oil finds (of over 500m barrels) peaked in 1964. In 2000, there were 13 such discoveries, in 2001 six, in 2002 two and in 2003 none. Three major new projects will come onstream in 2007 and three in […]
[ From the article: The 21 Gaza settlements are home to some 2,000 families, or about 7,000 people… Withdrawing from Gaza will cost some NIS 6.5 billion – NIS 4.5 billion [= between $1.44 billion and about $1 billion –BL] to compensate the settlers who are evacuated, plus another NIS 2 billion in security outlays, experts say…. American aid is expected to cover only half the costs. –BL ] Settlers to be compensated according to family, house size 8 June 2004 | Haaretz by Moti Bassok
[ While the problem of homeless veterans pre-dates the current Administration, there is a particularly cruel distance between Bush’s rhetoric of support for the troops and our vets and the reality. –BL ] From the Ranks to the Street Nearly a fourth of the homeless are veterans. Reasons vary, but many fail to adjust to life’s randomness after the order of military service. May 29, 2004 | Los Angeles Times by Jocelyn Y. Stewart After the homecomings are over and the yellow ribbons packed away, many who once served in America’s armed forces may end up sleeping on sidewalks. This is […]
[ Environmental author Bill McKibben argues that global population may peak within a generation: We’ve increased the population fourfold in that 150 years; the amount of food we grow has gone up faster still; the size of our economy has quite simply exploded. But now — now may be the special time. So special that in the Western world we might each of us consider, among many other things, having only one child — that is, reproducing at a rate as low as that at which human beings have ever voluntarily reproduced. Is this really necessary? Are we finally running […]
Iran: Fifty years later August 18, 2003 by George Will Tehran, Iran, Aug. 19 — Iranians loyal to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, including Tehran civilians, soldiers and rural tribesmen, swept Premier Mohammed Mossadegh out of power today in a revolution and apparently had seized at least temporary control of the country. —New York Times, Aug. 20, 1953 WASHINGTON — This anniversary reminds us that America is not new to the business of regime change. Fifty years ago U.S. and British intelligence services — the principal U.S. operative was Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy’s grandson — had a remarkably easy time overthrowing Iran’s […]
[ Joe Bageant provides an informative and chilling glimpse into the minds of the underestimated American Christian fundamentalists scarcely understood by most intellectual lefties influenced by the likes of Chomsky and Zinn. –BL ] 18 May 2004 | DissidentVoice.org by Joe Bageant Not long ago I pulled my car up alongside a tiny wooden church in the woods, a stark white frame box my family built in 1840. And as always, an honest-to-god chill went through me, for the ancestral ghosts presumably hovering over the graves there. From the wide open front door the Pentecostal preacher?s message echoed from within the […]
26 Jan. 2004 | Current Concerns (English edition of Zeit Fragen) by F. William Engdahl Today, much of the world is convinced the Bush Administration did not wage war against Iraq and Saddam Hussein because of threat from weapons of mass destruction, nor from terror dangers. Still a puzzle, however, is why Washington would risk so much in terms of relations with its allies and the entire world, to occupy Iraq. There is compelling evidence that oil and geopolitics lie at the heart of the still-hidden reasons for the military action in Iraq. It is increasingly clear that the US […]
[ This Business Week cover story helps explode the myth that the poor are lazy do-nothings and, through anecdote and statistics, conveys the real hurdles that people near and below the poverty line face. Excerpts: Today more than 28 million people, about a quarter of the workforce between the ages of 18 and 64, earn less than $9.04 an hour, which translates into a full-time salary of $18,800 a year — the income that marks the federal poverty line for a family of four…. But most poor workers tend to marry people with similar backgrounds, leaving both to juggle jobs […]
One incident. Forty dead. Two stories. What really happened? 21 May 2004 | The Independent by Justin Huggler in Baghdad A tiny bundle of blankets is unwrapped; inside is the body of a baby, its limbs smeared with dried blood. Then the mourners peel back the blanket further to reveal a second dead baby. Another blanket is opened; inside are the bodies of a mother and child. The child, six or seven years old, is lying against his or her mother, as if seeking comfort. But the child has no head.
[ Chip Ward, ecological writer and activist and Assistant Director of the Salt Lake City Public Library System, presents a positive ecological vision of the future. As Tom Engelhardt points out, “this piece is … a set of Cliff Notes for the new book [Chip has] just published, Hope’s Horizon: Three Visions for Healing the American Land.” Thanks to Popi and Tom Natsoulas for passing this piece along. –BL ] May 13, 2004 | TomDispatch.com by Chip Ward Imagine America in 2104. From the air, what you see is a largely unbroken, green, and fluid realm with graceful and permeable natural […]
09 May 2004 | Al-Jazeera Hugo Chávez: The US is inciting people to kill Fidel Castro Venezuela’s president has condemned the United States as a “terrorist state” for toughening sanctions against Cuba. Hugo Chávez vowed on Sunday that his government would increase its trade and cooperation with the Communist island. In a television broadcast, the left-wing leader attacked Washington’s measures announced on Thursday which seek to reduce still further the flow of dollars to cash-strapped Cuba. The policy includes an increase in support for internal opponents of President Fidel Castro. “That’s called state terrorism, inciting people to kill President Castro, […]
The Oil Crunch May 7, 2004 | New York Times by PAUL KRUGMAN Before the start of the Iraq war his media empire did so much to promote, Rupert Murdoch explained the payoff: “The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil.” Crude oil prices in New York rose to almost $40 a barrel yesterday, a 13-year high. Those who expected big economic benefits from the war were, of course, utterly wrong about how things would go in Iraq. But the disastrous occupation […]
3 May 2004 | World Socialist Web Site by James Conachy Operating behind a veil of state and corporate secrecy, dozens of private security firms with intimate connections to the American political establishment are playing a crucial role in the US occupation of Iraq. The wholesale contracting of military work to these companies is one of the most outrageous forms of war profiteering taking place under the auspices of the Bush administration. Modern-day mercenaries are amassing vast fortunes assisting the US ruling elite to establish a puppet regime in Iraq, repress the Iraqi people and plunder the country’s resources. Security […]
Friday, March 19, 2004, Knight-Ridder by William Douglas WASHINGTON – Enactment of a sweeping Medicare reform law last year was supposed to be the crowning achievement of President Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” as he readied himself for re-election. By providing a federally subsidized prescription-drug benefit for senior citizens, albeit a limited one, administration officials felt they usurped a major issue from the Democrats and cut into Democratic support among seniors age 65 and over – an especially important voting bloc in key battleground states such as Florida. But less than four months after he signed it into law on Dec. 8, […]
[ One of the themes in the commentary below is that the question, “is the United States more concerned with its interests in the region than maintaining the continuity of democratic rule?” emerges time and time again as the U.S. backs coups in Latin America. –doclalor ] The military appear to have come to Chavez’s aid Sunday, 14 April, 2002, 16:45 GMT 17:45 UK; BBC News By the BBC’s Tom Gibb There will be relief in most of Latin America that President Hugo Chávez is back in power in Venezuela, with many seeing this as important for the development of […]
The Flight to India The jobs Britain stole from the Asian subcontinent 300 years ago are now returning. Is this a good thing or a bad one? By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 21st October 2003 If you live in a rich nation in the English-speaking world, and most of your work involves a computer or a telephone, don't expect to have a job in five years' time. Almost every large company which relies upon remote transactions is starting to dump its workers and hire a cheaper labour force overseas. All those concerned about economic justice and the distribution […]
[ As the presidential election approaches, it's worth remembering what happened last time. This is a nice piece on an issue which we have been too willing to forget: How cheating illegitimately landed George W. Bush a job as Acting President. Liam Scheff here interviews Greg Palast, author of the acclaimed The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. WARNING: The content of this interview may shock some, but it is pretty widely known in other parts of the developed world, and was even given brief (if late) treatment by some mainstream U.S. media, including the Washington Post. For a nice example of […]
10 January 1999 | The New York Times by EDWARD WYATT BALTIMORE, Md. — Perhaps it is the references to the fiction of Jorge Luis Borges, the late Argentine author whose metaphysical imagery he uses to illustrate a point about price-to-earnings ratios. Or maybe it is the nods to the philosophy of William James, whose theories are called upon to justify why America Online is a value stock. Certainly some hint is in the “thought experiments” that he calls upon his staff to perform. Spend even a few minutes talking with William H. Miller III and it becomes clear that […]