Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with Chris Cook- CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.
The mission of Pacific Free Press is simple: to dig out nuggets of truth from
the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried
public discourse today. Pacific Free Press provides a new venue for
disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.
The Road that No-One Wanted; The Road that Never Should Have Been
by 'T Soeur I write this as the grand arbutus forests are crashing down the steep slopes all around us. It is Langford. In the midst of self-proclaiming "Mass Wasting" (just a development strategy - a style) one lost ravine, almost a canyon, deserves mention.
"The Powers that Be" once again acted in defiance of the wishes of long-standing residents along this "so-called" roadway just off Florence Lake Road. Many have lived there for decades on the shores of Florence Lake. And, they clearly expressed their opposition to development; to roads and driveways, and to wide paved cement "trails" in the ravine just behind them and immediately adjacent to their properties.
I have just figured out why Republigoats are so eager to establish a "guest worker" program in the United States of America. It is because they believe that money grows on trees, and they are concerned that they will need someone to harvest it for them.
I tuned in to C-Span Radio on the internets yesterday. I got in just in time to listen to them debating "PAYGO." PAYGO, according to the C-Span Congressional Glossary, "compels new spending or tax changes to not add to the federal deficit. New proposals must either be 'budget neutral' or offset with savings derived from existing funds."
The first time I heard the concept of "pay as you go" referred to as the odd D.C. contraction "PAYGO," it fell out of the current president's hula-jawed mouth. It made me laugh very hard. Only later did I learn that PAYGO is actually Washingtonese.
The interesting thing about this afternoon's debate on this portion of House rules was how shocking and foreign the concept of "paying for things with money you actually have" is to Republigoats. Republigoat after Republigoat stood up and warned that, if this crazy lunatic plan of the Democrats was approved—get ready for this—it might lead to tax increases.
Here's Republigoat Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana: "...I will oppose this element of the rules package having to do with the 'pay-as-you-go' provisions, which, while they sound in a common sense way attractive, this particular version, I believe, is lacking for three reasons. I believe it is a weak and watered-down version of PAYGO proposals of the past, including Democratic Party proposals of the past. Number two, it doesn't reduce current spending levels or require a reduction of current spending levels. And number three, it is, as so many of my colleagues have said, a means of justifying tax increases on working families, small businesses, and family farms. In a very real sense, the American people ought to know that this proposal translates to, 'You pay as Congress goes on spending.'"
3. The War Is Stupid (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Aaron B. Pryor
by Aaron B. Pryor
A few years ago, I felt that I needed a simple phrase that would distill everything I needed to know about the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States into one simple sentence. The phrase came to me as if it dropped out of the sky and bonked me in the noggin.
The war is stupid.
It is. Every piece of it, any piece of it, the very idea of it, its aims, its implementation, its offered justifications, its every single solitary failure, stupid is, stupid does, stupid.
In discussing Iraq, I often find myself quoting a little movie that made a bit of a stir in 1983, "War Games," a film that was likely the beginning of my unexplainable crush on Ally Sheedy, a film where the mega-computer Joshua about to end the world concludes prophetically that the only winning move is not to play. This is indeed the case regarding Iraq. Every time I hear a Republigoat whine that the Democrats don't have any good answers, my reply is that it's because there are no good answers, because the only good answer was used up in March 2003, the one where we don't invade Iraq.
The news was mixed to good to what the hell for those of us who plug in daily to the Air America Radio network, good because the troubled little network has a backer, mixed because Al Franken is hanging up his microphone — perhaps to chase bigger and better things — and to what the hell because Franken's departure leads to the rocket promotion of a bearded professor of a man called Thom Hartmann.
For those of you living in a cave, provided that the cave has food, heat, cable, and every other amenity besides a satellite radio receiver or a high-speed Internet connection, the announcement came down at noon today, as Franken himself announced that the Greens of New York would be purchasing the property and that he, Al Franken, would leave the microphone Feb. 14. He did not provide the two of this one-two punch and tell us if he intended to run against Norm Coleman in Minnie Soda.
It is, surely, a relief to know that the Air America Radio has a backer and that it will survive. It would have been a profound shame to have lost this, once the pluckiest presence in the genre, indeed, that which formed the genre, which previously had consisted of Hurricane Randi in the Sunshine State, Alan Colmes at the improbably Fox "News," Big Ed, and the chronic SFX-abusing Stephanie Miller. Before the Air America, there was some scratching at the gate but no leaping over and no explosive smashing through. Say what you will of the network's reliance on brand and big name dropping. It got them through the door, and it was Franken — whose "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot" was so groundbreaking it's difficult to remember that it was — who led the crush.
So realize how much oxygen Franken's departure will suck out and how, once again, the Air America seems rather unprepared for the transition.
This rant is for Molly Ivins, one on my short list of people I always wanted to be like when I grew up. Hell, I still do. God bless her.
As a sometimes fan of the Adult Swim television program called "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and as a never ever fan of the current administration and the "war" on "terror," I adore the recent news from Boston.
That Lite-Brite-like frames portraying Ignignokt and Err flipping the bird could lead to such absurd depths, it has many tasty levels to it. It's like when some conservatives took Stephen Colbert seriously. It's like when Ashcroft erected the big curtain to cover up a boobie. What it's like is, that only a narc would discover a graphic of the Mooninite Marauders and conclude that it's terrorism.
The only reason it isn't as absurd on its face as it could be is that it stands in comparison next to the larger effort that spawned it, the phrase that forces me to break out the scare quotes, the "war" on "terror."
America, I think, was too quick to swallow this monstrous absurdity. We've declared war on poverty, on cancer, and on drugs, but each of those declarations comes with an implied understanding that these "wars" on inantimate objects and concepts are somewhat hyperbolic. The current president has actually declared "war" on a tactic, a war that's unwinnable on its face since you lose so long as there's a boy and a bomb and a dream anywhere in the world and since success can only be gauged by what doesn't happen.
On October 17th, with Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, and Donald Rumsfeld standing behind him, George W. Bush solemnly announced, “in memory of the victims of September 11th, it is my honor to sign the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law.”
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
“In memory of the victims of September 11th,” Bush passed a law that Robyn Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times calls “an obscenity against liberty and decency” and that the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calls “unconstitutional and un-American.” A fitting tribute indeed for the victims whose names have been manipulated by this administration to justify everything from invading Iraq, to the USA PATRIOT Act, to torture, to tax cuts. This “honor” to the victims of September 11th is a national disgrace for which the Bush administration, both houses of Congress, and the media are to blame.
While the White House struggles to convince the nation that the MCA is perfectly legal and essential in order for the CIA to continue “one of the most successful intelligence efforts in American history,” the true implications of this act must be made clear. Out of the many dubious clauses in the act, the most egregious is the one that eliminates the writ of habeas corpus (the right to challenge the legality of one’s imprisonment), a fundamental right that dates back to the Magna Carta. In his First Inaugural Address in 1801, Thomas Jefferson said, “Freedom of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus I deem [one of the] essential principles of our government." Ironically, the Supreme Court case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which held that Bush’s original military tribunals were illegal and made the Congressionally approved MCA necessary, would never have occurred if the MCA had been in effect, as it was petitioned by a detainee.
Over the past several years, people who care about what is
happening in the world and who feel compelled to tell the truth about it have
had a tremendous realization: we have
the means of production to make media.This realization has spurred a media revolution in which the traditional
model of passively consuming the news through a corporate filter has given way
to a new model of active citizenship and aggressive truth-telling.
It is a clear sign of the democratization of the media when
the Internet, once the headquarters of only the political fringe, provides such
a strong progressive community that the “Net-Roots” can influence an election
on any scale. For a long time, it was
only the independent and alternative media that questioned the policies of this
government, while the mainstream media became either dormant or complicit.
Of the many atrocities and crimes committed by the United States in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, the military’s use of Agent Orange has left the most destructive legacy, resulting in the ongoing suffering of Vietnamese citizens and U.S. veterans. This is what was done.
“…This is the crime of which I accuse my country…and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it…But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.”
James Baldwin, Letter to my Nephew on the 100th Anniversary of the Emancipation
War is Hell, but, for many, so is the aftermath, the ensuing “peace” that emerges out of war’s dust and ashes. Long after the last bullet tears through the flesh of the last soldier, the Hell of pain, suffering, and trauma remains. Though military operations in the Vietnam War have been over for decades, the war continues to rage each day in the form of children born with severe deformities, desiccated land that was once rich and arable, and veterans on both sides of the conflict who frequently develop new symptoms and are constantly plagued by old ones.The devastating effects of Agent Orange, a defoliant used to thin out the Vietnam jungle and destroy enemy crops, are a blemish on the U.S. national record and a glaring reminder of American foreign policy that has little respect for life and law. Decades later, the lethal effects linger, but there has been no justice.
In late 1961, despite strident objections from the State Department over the potential effects on civilians, the use of “burn down” herbicides in Vietnam was authorized by President Kennedy as part of “Operation Hades,” which would soon become “Operation Ranch Hand.” These defoliation and crop destruction efforts continued at a moderate pace until the war escalated in the mid-1960s. By early 1965, a new herbicide called “Agent Orange” was introduced.
Of the many atrocities and crimes committed by the United States in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, the military’s use of Agent Orange has left the most destructive legacy, resulting in the ongoing suffering of both Vietnamese citizens and U.S. veterans, for whom there has been little justice or reconciliation. This is what must be done.
The devastating effects of Agent Orange are a blemish on the U.S. national record and an obstacle impeding true reconciliation between the U.S. government and both Vietnamese and American victims of the toxic herbicide (for information about Agent Orange and its effects, see “Part 1: What Was Done” [link to Part 1]). For this reason, issues of international law, justice, and corporate and governmental responsibility must be addressed clearly and directly. Those who are currently suffering from the poisonous effects of Agent Orange, though, have found that the struggle for justice can be as toxic.
The Finkelstein Principle
by Abukar Arman Like all other actions, speaking the truth has its reaction and indeed price. A few months ago, I was honored to join two Middle East experts — Professor John Mueller and Professor John Quigley — in a panel discussion on Jimmy Carter’s “controversial” book, 'Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.'
As I, a small-time writer, was frantically searching for material to make me sound halfway intelligent, I came across numerous articles, essays, and reviews that offered little or no refutation of the content of the book and instead focused on the author’s alleged “anti-Semitic” motive.
Leading that ad hominem campaign was none other than Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard. No surprise there, as the long time civil-libertarian has lately turned into a blatant advocate of legalizing torture, executing collective punishment, and sustaining the brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people.
Too Big To Fail?
by William Greider The fall of Citigroup is a resonant political event -- akin to the Republican Party's failure to win reform of Social Security -- only this time the bell tolls for the Democratic Party.
The creation of Citigroup as an all-purpose financial supermarket and too-big-to-fail banking marvel was very much the accomplishment of Clinton Democrats.
They enacted the law in the late 1990s that authorized this megabank monstrosity, with coaching from Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, and of course Sanford Weill, the creative genius who built Citi.
What if there is no Conspiracy?
by Richard Bulliet For over a century, the wise heads who populate every Middle Eastern teahouse, university podium, and diplomatic reception have agreed on one simple truth: foreign agents acting in the interest of imperialist powers -- today it’s the United States -- dictate every political event from Casablanca to Islamabad. Ayatollah Khomeini was an American puppet. So was Saddam Hussein. Osama bin Laden? A tool of the CIA, the same CIA that duped poor old Saddam into invading Kuwait. The Saud family are tools of the Bush family. Or vice versa. Needless to add, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were staged by Israelis, or perhaps by a rogue element within America’s military-industrial complex.
Red Mosque: Endgame for Musharraf?
by Graham Usher Last week Pakistani army commandos seized Islamabad's Red Mosque compound to force the surrender of several hundred clerics, militants and students holed up inside. More than a hundred were killed, including the mosque's charismatic tribune, Abdul Rashid Ghazi.
Thirteen hundred surrendered, including the mosque's chief cleric and Ghazi's brother, Abdul Aziz. It was the deadliest battle in Pakistan since the country's military ruler, President-General Pervez Musharraf, declared war on "extremism and terrorism" after the 9/11 attacks on America.
What does the storming of the Red Mosque signify? For some it marks the rupture of that nexus of relations between the army and Islamist parties, the so-called "military-mullah alliance" that has ruled Pakistan for thirty years. Others say it is no more than a tactical feint by Musharraf brought on by the provocations of Ghazi and Aziz and pressure from the Americans. For them the alliance remains in place.
Olympic Dreams and Nightmares
by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
When people ask if the Olympics will change China, I say the
tense is misleading. The Games already have changed it.
To prepare for
2008, Beijing's urban landscape has been transformed, as old
neighborhoods have been destroyed, giant new sports arenas built and
big countdown clocks set up to tick off the moments until the opening
ceremonies start on August 8, 2008 -- at eight seconds after 8:08 pm,
no less.
Poor Pervez Musharraf! He is not very popular, and is under pressure from just about everybody.
Yet he labors on, seeking to maintain his equilibrium, and his power, while sitting on top of a seething volcano. He has in fact done better than one might have thought possible.
To start the story at the beginning, we have to remember the origins of the state of Pakistan.
Republican Machine Continues Deceptions on Afghanistan
by John Nichols The Republican National Committee (RNC) has for some time now made itself the mouthpiece for extreme pro-war rhetoric, despite the fact that substantial numbers of Republicans -- some of whom sit in Congress -- oppose the Bush-Cheney administration's misguided approach to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
In this context, the RNC spends most of its time attacking Democrats who express sentiments no more radical than those mentioned by mainstream Republicans. The current target of the RNC's comically over-the-top wrath is U.S. Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat who is a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Blackwater: Hired Guns, Above the Law
by Jeremy Scahill
My name is Jeremy Scahill. I am an investigative reporter for The Nation magazine and the author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
I have spent the better part of the past several years researching the phenomenon of privatized warfare and the increasing involvement of the private sector in the support and waging of US wars. During the course of my investigations, I have interviewed scores of sources, filed many Freedom of Information Act requests, obtained government contracts and private company documents of firms operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Happy Birthday, Saudi Arabia
by Mona Eltahawy A Saudi woman friend who needed corrective eye surgery visited a doctor in her country a few years ago to see if she qualified for the procedure. As he performed routine tests my friend reminded him that he hadn’t measured the diameter of her pupils. She’d done her homework and knew what to expect.
The doctor told her it was an unnecessary test for women because it measured the clarity of night vision which was crucial for driving in the dark and since women can’t drive in the kingdom, he performed the test on men only.
Greenspan and the Myth of the True Believer
by Naomi Klein The tall graduate student, visiting the United States from Sweden, would not be satisfied with a quip. He wanted answers.
“They cannot only be driven by greed and power. They must be driven by something higher. What?”
Don’t knock power and greed, I tried to suggest -- they have built empires. But he wanted more.
“What about a belief that they are building a better world?”
Erik Prince, the secretive 38-year-old owner of the leading US mercenary firm, Blackwater USA, has seldom appeared in public. He has never held a press conference and is only known to have given one television interview -- to Fox News shortly after 9/11.
When Congress called him to testify last February, he dispatched his lawyer. But on October 2, Prince found himself in front of a Congressional committee, TV cameras trained on his boyish face. The official focus of the hearing, convened by Henry Waxman’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was on two questions that should have been asked long ago: whether the government’s heavy reliance on private security contractors is serving US interests in Iraq and whether the specific conduct of Blackwater has advanced or impeded US efforts.
The unfolding events in Myanmar have been distracting Chinese
Communist Party leaders from a most urgent business: planning for the
17th Party Congress, which is to convene in two weeks.
This would
normally be a critical period of tense last minute factional jockeying
for appointments of next generation top-tier leaders. But as the world
helplessly watches the military crackdown in Yangon, China’s elders
instead find themselves under pressure by western nations to do
something about stopping suppression in Myanmar, China’s close ally.
Empty Talk at Party Congress
by Peter Kwong Over one thousand foreign journalists from 55 countries have gathered in Beijing this week to report on the 17th Chinese Communist Party Congress. The focus of their interest is whether the current Party Chairman, Hu Jingtao, will succeed in consolidating his power.
This will be revealed when the party announces the names of appointees to the Central Committee, the Military Commission, and other top positions, including the exclusive Standing Committee of the Political Bureau.
Miracle Rockies Downplay Christian Label
by David Zirin Twenty-one wins in twenty-two games. An improbable run to the World Series. One of the hottest streaks to end a season in the history of baseball. And not two pitchers the average fan could even name. Ladies and gents, your Colorado Rockies: a team performing what even an atheist could call a baseball miracle.
And "miracle" is an appropriate term for a team that riled the baseball world last year by claiming that filling the dugout with Christian players would grease the skids to greatness.
If Gore Were Arrested...
by Mark Hertsgaard Fresh from winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his climate change evangelism, Al Gore is apparently considering an invitation from a prominent environmental group to engage in civil disobedience against the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
Rainforest Action Network issued the invitation to the former Vice President, according to RAN executive director Michael Brune. The San Francisco-based group has a twenty-year history of protesting against destructive logging practices and other causes of climate change; it specializes in targeting corporations as much as governments.
Meet Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, a notorious Barnard College professor now up for tenure who:
§ claims the ancient Israelite kingdoms are a "pure political fabrication,"
§ denies the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE and instead blames its destruction on the Jews,
§ does not speak or read Hebrew yet had the temerity to publish a book on Israeli archaeology that demanded such expertise,
§ is so ignorant of her topic that she quotes one archaeologist on how a dig might have damaged the ancient palaces of Solomon--oblivious to the fact that those palaces, if they existed, were far from the site in question.
None of these charges are true. You could look it up. I did, in El-Haj's book Facts on the Ground, about which these charges are made. The statements for which a network of right-wing critics assail her book are not there.
Madame President
by Katrina vanden Heuvel Her husband is a former governor and president who presided over an economic boom. She is a popular center-left senator -- a tough, disciplined and savvy politician who has led voters to think that they will be getting two leaders for the price of one.
No, not Hillary Clinton. She is Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, newly elected president of Argentina.
Kirchner cruised to victory Sunday, becoming the Western
Hemisphere's second female president voted into office in the last two
years. (Michelle Bachelet, the president of Chile, was inaugurated on
March 11, 2006.)
27. Bhutto's Moment (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Agence Global
Benazir Bhutto's Defining Moment
by Graham Usher Karachi - The bloody reception afforded Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan on October 18 demonstrated two facts. One was that -- despite eight years of self-imposed exile, corruption cases against her in three countries, and character assassination by Pakistan's military regime -- the two-time prime minister not only commands the most effective party machine in Pakistan, she alone can inspire and mobilize its poor -- tens of thousands of whom turned out to greet her.
Second, the barbarity of the attempt to kill her pushed to the fore the alliance she has long claimed to be the most lethal threat facing her country: a retrograde militant Islam in coalition with "some" in Pakistan's military establishment.
Courage for a Small Planet
by John Nichols Frances Moore Lappé has, for the better part of four decades, done her very best to guide the United States toward a more rational relationship with the planet and its inhabitants.
It has not been easy work, and the current circumstance would suggest that it has not been nearly so successful as Lappé or the readers of her groundbreaking books would have hoped.
But the truth is that Lappé has succeeded, masterfully.
The Gap: New Frontiers in Child Abuse
by Barbara Ehrenreich It was enough to make you vomit all over your new denim jacket. The Gap has been caught using child labor in an Indian sweatshop, and not just child labor -- child slaves.
As extensively reported on the news, the children, some as young
as ten, were worked sixteen-hour days, fed bowls of mosquito-covered
rice, and forced to sleep on a roof and use over-flowing latrines.
Those who slowed down were beaten with rubber pipes and the ones who
cried had oily cloths stuffed in their mouths.
But let's try
to look at this dispassionately -- not as a human rights issue but as a
PR disaster, ranking right up there with the 1982 discovery of cyanide
in Tylenol capsules. Think of this as a case study in a corporate
Crisis Communication course: How is The Gap handling the problem, and
could it do better?
Michael B. Mukasey Must Be Rejected
by John Nichols George Bush's nominee to replace disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, retired Federal Judge Michael B. Mukasey, must be rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee for the same reason that Gonzales should have been rejected in 2005.
Like Gonzales, Mukasey refuses to accept that the president of the United States must abide by the laws of the land, beginning with the Constitution. In fact, this nominee to replace Gonzales -- the worst Attorney General since Calvin Coolidge forced Harry Micajah Daugherty to quit rather than face impeachment -- actually holds a more extreme position in defense of George Bush's imperial presidency than did Gonzales.
There is much, much to be said about Norman Mailer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and world-class rabble-rouser who died Saturday at age 84.
But the pugilistic pensman would perhaps be most pleased to have it known that he went down swinging. He was chronicler of our politics and protests in the 1960s with two of the era's definitional books -- Armies of the Night (1968) and Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968). He did not rest on his laurels -- though they were legion -- earned for exposing the dark undersides of the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
Pelosi Serves Big Money Over Workers -- and Democrats
by William Greider In terms of economic consequences, the new trade agreement with Peru is trivial. In political terms, however, it delivers an ominous message.
When faced with a choice between money and their own rank-and-file, the Democratic leaders in the House will go with the money, even if it requires them to pass legislation with Republican votes.
Even if a majority of their own caucus is opposed. Even if it means handing the shrinking president, George W. Bush, a rare legislative victory.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi pulled it off last week at considerable cost to her own reputation. How different are the new Democrats in Congress? Not very, it seems.
Blackwater's Blues Brothers?
by Jeremy Scahill Every day, new revelations emerge in the mounting scandal rocking the Bush Administration and the mercenary company Blackwater Worldwide.
Much of the attention focuses on the now infamous shooting spree in Baghdad's Nisour Square on September 16, in which seventeen Iraqi civilians were killed and twenty-four wounded.
FBI investigators are now alleging that fourteen were victims of unjustified and unprovoked shooting -- some were shot while they were fleeing. Investigators also say they found nothing to substantiate Blackwater's claims of being fired on by Iraqis. This comes a month after a US Army investigation determined there was "no enemy activity involved" and labeled the shootings a "criminal event."
But while Blackwater gets hammered in the press, the behind-the-scenes actions of the company's paymaster, the State Department, grow more scandalous by the minute.
Father Andres and the Global Timber Thieves
by James North Father Andres Tamayo now gets company as he drives the church pickup truck around his rugged rural parish here in the frontier region of Olancho - four soldiers in battle dress sit in the back to protect him from being murdered.
Father José Andrés Tamayo Cortez,
Photo courtesy of the
Goldman Environmental Prize
Father Andres is part of a grassroots environmental movement that's trying to stop criminal deforestation, and the local timber barons have already killed some of his friends.
The environmentalists cannot trust the local police, so they, and their allies overseas, pressured the national government into assigning the young soldiers.
Trappings of Democracy in Pakistan
by Graham Usher United States Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte lands in Islamabad this weekend "hopeful that moderate elements [in Pakistan] can join together to have increased dialogue to work through this political situation," said the White House.
It's a tough call. Two weeks after General Pervez Musharraf banged martial law on his country, Washington's other most-favored "moderate element" is barricaded in a Lahore residence behind a thicket of police. "It's over with Musharraf," Benazir Bhutto told a queue of media on a crackly mobile phone from her lavishly furnished cell.
"He has lost the confidence of the people of Pakistan. He is unable to give the nation a fair election. And he is bent on maintaining and sustaining a dictatorship," she said. Asked whether there were "any circumstances" in which she could serve in a future government under his presidency, the two-time prime minister, for once, was categorical. "None," Bhutto said.
George Bush's John Dean?
by John Nichols Scott McClellan's admission that he unintentionally made false statements denying the involvement of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby in the Bush-Cheney administration's plot to discredit former Ambassador Joe Wilson, along with his revelation that Vice President Cheney and President Bush were among those who provided him with the misinformation, sets the former White House press secretary as John Dean to George Bush's Richard Nixon.
It was Dean willingness to reveal the details of what described as "a cancer" on the Nixon presidency that served as a critical turning point in the struggle by a previous Congress to hold the 37th president to account.
Now, McClellan has offered what any honest observer must recognize as the stuff of a similarly significant breakthrough.
Studs's People
by Harry Maurer One day in 1974, I got a call from my agent.
"I've got an idea," she said. "What if you did a book of interviews on unemployment, like Studs Terkel's Working, only with people out of a job?"
So I bought a tape recorder, tried my hand at "oral history" and found I loved the interview crucible, the savor of creating in collaboration as a long conversation clicks.
I traveled around the country, and after some vicissitudes, Not Working was published in 1979. I stole not only Studs's technique and format but also his title. Whereupon he called me up and asked me to appear on his radio show.
Debating for Dummies
by Eric Alterman I've seen debates on TV before, of course, and attended them from journalists' pens and spin rooms. But sitting in the audience of CNN's November 15 Democratic presidential debate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, focused my mind on the egregious manner in which our media dumb down the process by which we pick our Presidents.
It was less a debate than a two-hour advertisement; not only did viewers see CNN = Politics graphics everywhere but unbeknownst to the television audience a network producer ran around the stage, ginning up the crowd like a high school cheerleader.
(This backfired when a group of rowdies -- angered by the inanity of the questions -- shouted down Wolf Blitzer and had to be removed from the auditorium.)
The Squatters Won’t Go Away
by Philippe Revelli From Morro do Osso -- Bone Hill -- in Itapecerica da Serra, on the southwest fringe of greater São Paulo, you can see rows of homes made of black plastic sheeting supported by wood or bamboo poles.
Here and there a column of white smoke rises from a fire on which the morning coffee brews.
Some 3,000 families from the city’s favelas have occupied an area of private land beneath the banner of the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST).
Submissions 
I write this as the grand arbutus forests are crashing down the steep slopes all around us. It is Langford. In the midst of self-proclaiming "Mass Wasting" (just a development strategy - a style) one lost ravine, almost a canyon, deserves mention.
I have just figured out why Republigoats are so eager to establish a "guest worker" program in the United States of America. It is because they believe that money grows on trees, and they are concerned that they will need someone to harvest it for them. 
A few years ago, I felt that I needed a simple phrase that would distill everything I needed to know about the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States into one simple sentence. The phrase came to me as if it dropped out of the sky and bonked me in the noggin. 
The news was mixed to good to what the hell for those of us who plug in daily to the Air America Radio network, good because the troubled little network has a backer, mixed because Al Franken is hanging up his microphone — perhaps to chase bigger and better things — and to what the hell because Franken's departure leads to the rocket promotion of a bearded professor of a man called Thom Hartmann. 
As a sometimes fan of the Adult Swim television program called "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and as a never ever fan of the current administration and the "war" on "terror," I adore the recent news from Boston.
On October 17th, with Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, and Donald Rumsfeld standing behind him, George W. Bush 
by Aaron Sussman 
Like all other actions, speaking the truth has its reaction and indeed price. A few months ago, I was honored to join two Middle East experts — Professor John Mueller and Professor John Quigley — in a panel discussion on Jimmy Carter’s “controversial” book, 'Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.' 
The fall of Citigroup is a resonant political event -- akin to the Republican Party's failure to win reform of Social Security -- only this time the bell tolls for the Democratic Party. 
For over a century, the wise heads who populate every Middle Eastern teahouse, university podium, and diplomatic reception have agreed on one simple truth: foreign agents acting in the interest of imperialist powers -- today it’s the United States -- dictate every political event from Casablanca to Islamabad. Ayatollah Khomeini was an American puppet. So was Saddam Hussein. Osama bin Laden? A tool of the CIA, the same CIA that duped poor old Saddam into invading Kuwait. The Saud family are tools of the Bush family. Or vice versa. Needless to add, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were staged by Israelis, or perhaps by a rogue element within America’s military-industrial complex.
Last week Pakistani army commandos seized Islamabad's Red Mosque compound to force the surrender of several hundred clerics, militants and students holed up inside. More than a hundred were killed, including the mosque's charismatic tribune, Abdul Rashid Ghazi. 
When people ask if the Olympics will change China, I say the
tense is misleading. The Games already have changed it. 
Poor Pervez Musharraf! He is not very popular, and is under pressure from just about everybody. 
The Republican National Committee (RNC) has for some time now made itself the mouthpiece for extreme pro-war rhetoric, despite the fact that substantial numbers of Republicans -- some of whom sit in Congress -- oppose the Bush-Cheney administration's misguided approach to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
My name is Jeremy Scahill. I am an investigative reporter for The Nation magazine and the author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. 
A Saudi woman friend who needed corrective eye surgery visited a doctor in her country a few years ago to see if she qualified for the procedure. As he performed routine tests my friend reminded him that he hadn’t measured the diameter of her pupils. She’d done her homework and knew what to expect. 
The tall graduate student, visiting the United States from Sweden, would not be satisfied with a quip. He wanted answers.
Erik Prince, the secretive 38-year-old owner of the leading US mercenary firm, Blackwater USA, has seldom appeared in public. He has never held a press conference and is only known to have given one television interview -- to Fox News shortly after 9/11. 
The unfolding events in Myanmar have been distracting Chinese
Communist Party leaders from a most urgent business: planning for the
17th Party Congress, which is to convene in two weeks. 
Over one thousand foreign journalists from 55 countries have gathered in Beijing this week to report on the 17th Chinese Communist Party Congress. The focus of their interest is whether the current Party Chairman, Hu Jingtao, will succeed in consolidating his power. 
Twenty-one wins in twenty-two games. An improbable run to the World Series. One of the hottest streaks to end a season in the history of baseball. And not two pitchers the average fan could even name. Ladies and gents, your Colorado Rockies: a team performing what even an atheist could call a baseball miracle. 
Fresh from winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his climate change evangelism, Al Gore is apparently considering an invitation from a prominent environmental group to engage in civil disobedience against the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
Meet Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, a notorious Barnard College professor now up for tenure who: 
Her husband is a former governor and president who presided over an economic boom. She is a popular center-left senator -- a tough, disciplined and savvy politician who has led voters to think that they will be getting two leaders for the price of one. 
Karachi - The bloody reception afforded Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan on October 18 demonstrated two facts. One was that -- despite eight years of self-imposed exile, corruption cases against her in three countries, and character assassination by Pakistan's military regime -- the two-time prime minister not only commands the most effective party machine in Pakistan, she alone can inspire and mobilize its poor -- tens of thousands of whom turned out to greet her.
Frances Moore Lappé has, for the better part of four decades, done her very best to guide the United States toward a more rational relationship with the planet and its inhabitants. 
It was enough to make you vomit all over your new denim jacket. The Gap has been caught using child labor in an Indian sweatshop, and not just child labor -- child slaves.
George Bush's nominee to replace disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, retired Federal Judge Michael B. Mukasey, must be rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee for the same reason that Gonzales should have been rejected in 2005.
There is much, much to be said about Norman Mailer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and world-class rabble-rouser who died Saturday at age 84.
In terms of economic consequences, the new trade agreement with Peru is trivial. In political terms, however, it delivers an ominous message. 
Every day, new revelations emerge in the mounting scandal rocking the Bush Administration and the mercenary company Blackwater Worldwide. 
Father Andres Tamayo now gets company as he drives the church pickup truck around his rugged rural parish here in the frontier region of Olancho - four soldiers in battle dress sit in the back to protect him from being murdered. 
United States Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte lands in Islamabad this weekend "hopeful that moderate elements [in Pakistan] can join together to have increased dialogue to work through this political situation," said the White House.
Scott McClellan's admission that he unintentionally made false statements denying the involvement of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby in the Bush-Cheney administration's plot to discredit former Ambassador Joe Wilson, along with his revelation that Vice President Cheney and President Bush were among those who provided him with the misinformation, sets the former White House press secretary as John Dean to George Bush's Richard Nixon.
One day in 1974, I got a call from my agent.
I've seen debates on TV before, of course, and attended them from journalists' pens and spin rooms. But sitting in the audience of CNN's November 15 Democratic presidential debate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, focused my mind on the egregious manner in which our media dumb down the process by which we pick our Presidents.
From Morro do Osso -- Bone Hill -- in Itapecerica da Serra, on the southwest fringe of greater São Paulo, you can see rows of homes made of black plastic sheeting supported by wood or bamboo poles.