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Today's Stories August 29, 2007 Winslow T. Wheeler The Costs of the Afghanistan War August 28, 2007 Uri Avnery The Language of Force Bill Quigley Katrina, Two Years Later Joshua Frank The Fight to Save the Rocky Mountains China Hand "I am Alden Pyle:" Bush's Vietnam Fantasy Firmin DeBrabander Drug Wars: From Afghanistan to Baltimore Charles Peña Nuclear Fear Factor Andy Worthington Good Riddance, Gonzales Ramzy Baroud Abbas and the Abyss Anthony Papa Roger Stone's New Patsy Ashley Smith Drawing the Line at Kennebunkport Website of the Day B is for Bomb August 27, 2007 Jorge Mariscal The General Reports Bill Christison Why the US and Israel Should Lose Middle East Wars Manuel Garcia, Jr. 911 Emergency! Calling Robert Fisk!: You are Now Entering a Black Hole Anthony DiMaggio Chronicle of a Coup Foretold?: Bush, al-Maliki and the Press Bruce A. Roth India and the New Nuclear Era John Walsh Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Roadshow, Part 2 Dave Lindorff Gonzo's Gone Ron Jacobs Taking It to the Streets Binoy Kampmark Poshed Up: Why the Beckhams Should Go Back to Brighty Russell D. Hoffman My Favorite Scientist: John Gofman, Bane of the Nuclear Industry Website of the Day George W. Told the Nation   August 25 / 26, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Don't Carpool with Nouri al-Maliki James Petras The Great Financial Crisis Jeffrey Buchanan / Chris Kromm Where Did the Katrina Money Go? Marjorie Cohn Turning Iraq into Vietnam Rev. William E. Alberts Jesus, the Theological Prisoner of Christianity Robert Fantina Ari Fleischer, Freedom Watch and the Pro-War Lobbyists Brian Concannon Whitewashing the History of Abolition Ralph Nader What Do They Have to Hide? Laura Carlsen Extending NAFTA's Reach Fred Gardner Notes from Hempfest David Michael Green History, the Last Refuge of Scoundrels Stephen Soldz Why Mary Pipher Returned Her APA Award Mike Ferner Combatants for Peace: Former Enemies Find New Way Forward Paul Krassner Mort Sahl's Punchline Ben Tripp Resistance is Impossible--But Not Futile Missy Beattie President Druzilla Website of the Weekend Blue Print for Gulf Renewal   August 24, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts A Hegemonic Hubris Greg Moses A Cruel and Unusual Excuse William Schroder Bush, Vietnam and Iraq Alan Farago The Pain of Paper Millionaires Jackie Corr Uncle Ben Bernacke and the Nanny State Jeff Ballinger Naomi Klein and the Path Not Taken Bill Quigley Pere Jean-Juste Comes Home Dave Zirin Inching Toward Insanity Richard Rhames Deaver and the Making of Reagan Ryan Haygood How Newark Can Mend Website of the Day Lindorff's Iraq Rag   August 23, 2007 Kathy Kelly We Shouldn't be Causing This P. Sainath Meeting the Mahatma Ron Jacobs Bush, Vietnam and 14 More GIs Dead Christopher Brauchli Beyond Kafka: Mistakes, Soreheads and Eavesdropping D.K. Wilson When Sports Journalists Talk Race Joshua Frank The Weeds of Willapa Bay Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger's True Lies About Dams and Canals Brenda Norrell Bush's House of Snakes: Indians, Border Biometrics and Migrating Corporations John Wright The Ongoing Tragedy of Afghanistan David Vest Elvis and Racism, Round 2 Website of the Day Urgent Plea: the Black Agenda Report Needs Your Help!   August 22, 2007 Norman Finkelstein Remembering Raul Hilberg Marc Levy Sleepless in Iraq Lawrence R. Velvel When Courts Bow Down to Secrecy Ray McGovern Bush's Iran War Drums Beating Louder Norman Solomon How to Survive at the Pentagon on $2 Billion a Day John Walsh Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Road Show Michael Dickinson Little Brother is Watching You William S. Lind Operation Kabuki?: the Credibility of David Petraeus Bill Hatch A Short Walk into the Valley of Death Kenneth E. Foster and John Joe Amador How We Will Protest Our Executions David Vest Predictable Parallels: CNN and PBS Website of the Day The Once and Future Steve Perry August 21, 2007 Saul Landau The FBI's New Power Alan Farago Sand Houses and Missing Beaches John Stauber Iraq: the Gift that Keeps on Bleeding Phillip Rizk Gaza and the Jordanian Option Debbie Nathan Giuliani's Garden District Binoy Kampmark The Art of Sinning Martha Rosenberg The Fastow Economy Sunsara Taylor Back to School During Wartime Website of the Day Coffee with the Troops   August 20, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Padilla Jury Opens Pandora's Box Uri Avnery Stumbling Toward Another War Rannie Amiri Nasrallah's Surprise: a Warning from Beirut's No Bluff Zone John Ross The Fine Art of Bad Elections Harvey Wasserman The Senate's Radioactive Rip-Off Robert Billyard Canada's Disgrace: the Cases of Maher Arar and Omar Khadr Dave Lindorff Excuse Us, Nancy Pelosi James Rothenberg Why Your Vote Will Never Matter David "DC" Larson To Smear a King Website of the Day Bird Cinema August 18 / 19, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Exit Karl Rove, Everyone's Useful Demon Saul Landau The FBI in War and Peace Ralph Nader Greed and Folly on Wall Street Patrick Cockburn A Bloody Week in Iraq Robert Fantina Cannon Fodder: Beau Biden and other "Deployable Assets" Robert S. Eshelman Azar's Story: an Iraqi Refugee Living in Syria P. Sainath The Last Battle of Laxmi Panda Dave Lindorff Tossing Fuel on a Fire: US Military Aid to Israel Anthony DiMaggio Iraq, Iran & the Vanishing Context in American News Fred Gardner The Politics of Schizophrenia Ron Jacobs The Virtues of Resistance Tom Turnipseed War Profiteering and Corruption: From Lexington, S.C. to the White House Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: Special Preachers, Priests and Clerics Edition! Ben Tripp I'm So Screwed Andrew Wimmer Living With Grief Nancy Oden Where Inmates Can Grow for Free N.D. Jayaprakash India Backtracks on Disarmament Rick Smith Reflections on Cuba: an Interview with Doug Morris Missy Beattie The Suicide Bomber Poets' Basement Engel, Ford, Orloski and McLellan Website of the Weekend Imperial Storm Troopers in Action August 17, 2007 Joanne Mariner Terrorizing Social Protest Paul Craig Roberts China is not the Problem Shepherd Bliss Returning to the Scene of the Crime: Chile, 30 Years Later Dave Lindorff Convicting Padilla: Bad News for All Americans John Muthyala The Water and the Road: Katrina, Poverty and the American Dream Patrick Cockburn Deepening Divsions in Iraq Sherwood Ross Military Interrogators are Posing as Lawyers at Gitmo Phil Doe The Old West Moves East: the Political Science of Colorado River Water David Michael Green Karl Rove and the Damage Done Website of the Day Gorilla Slaughter: a Personal Account August 16, 2007 Jonathan Cook The Second Lebanon War, a Year Later Christopher Brauchli Babes in Toxic Toyland Norman Solomon Backspin for War Lee Sustar / Orlando Sepuldeva Victory on the Picket Line: How Immigrant Workers Won Their Strike Against Cygnus George Bisharat Boycott Movement Targets Israel Binoy Kampmark Tasteless: Gordon Ramsey and the Death of Gastronomy Evelyn Pringle Protection Racket?: the FDA and Avandia Hugo Blanco The Epic Struggle of Indigenous Andean / Amazonian Website of the Day Burning Man: the Field Recordings   August 15, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts "No American President Can Stand Up to Israel" Michael Neumann In Memoriam: Raul Hilberg Jordan Flaherty The Struggle to Free the Jena Six Sonja Karkar Can You Hear the Cries from Gaza? Felice Pace NPR Watch: Will Linda Gradstein Go to Gaza? Joshua Frank On Censoring Pearl Jam Dave Lindorff Terrorist Nation? Carla Blank Elvis Presley: King or Apprentice? David Vest Guralnick, Elvis and Racism Harvey Wasserman Why the Neocons Won't Miss Karl Rove Peter Rost, M.D. FDA Approved Drug Makes You Hypersexual and a Compulsive Gambler Russell Mokhiber An Arab American's Pocket Political Dictionary Website of the Day Stoners Busted   August 14, 2007 Paul de Rooij Humanitarian Wars and Associated Delusions Winslow T. Wheeler Congress's Busted September: Disingenuous Gestures Amid Catastrophe David Rosen The Case of Genarlow Wilson: Racism, Justice and Age-of-Consent Laws in America Gary Leupp Bush Warns Puppets Not to Praise Iran Clifton Ross Latin America at the Crossroads Muhammad Idress Ahmad The Politics of Democracy Promotion Jacquelyn Godin A Circle of Poison: Pesticides in the Plantations Uri Avnery Oslo Revisited Ramzy Baroud A Palestinian Miracle at the UN? James McEnteer Philistines as Cultural Critics Website of the Day When Cheney Called Iraq a Quagmire   August 13, 2007 Jeremy Scahill The Mercenary Revolution F. William Engdahl The Hidden Agenda Behind Bush's Biofuel Plan Alexander Cockburn The Veldt Will Never Be the Same Kathy Kelly Iraq's Refugees: "et to Work" Chris Floyd No Light, Light Tunnel: the Bipartisan Guarantee of More War in Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Hegemony of the Cockroach William Blum First Pullout, Then Bloodbath? Kenneth Couesbouc The Language of Dominion Rannie Amiri Tancredo's Screedo: a Lethal Mix of Ignorance and Insanity Brenda Norrell Priests Expose Secret Cycle of US Torture Fran Shor All Fall Down Ron Jacobs Dr. Strangelove Meets Dubya's Double Buzz Twofer Website of the Day The Beauty of Defiance   August 11 / 12, 2007 Alexander Cockburn How the Democrats Blew It in Only 8 Months Stan Goff The Cover-Up of Pat Tillman's Death Ralph Nader GM Radio: Payola to Rightwing Talk Shows? Vijay Prashad Destination Darfur: a New Cold War for Oil Greg Moses SubPrime People: Behind the Banking Crisis Alan Farago The Cratering Mortgage Market, WCI Communities and Amb. Al Hoffman Patrick Cockburn The Cracks in Saddam's Dam Ben Tripp On Fleeing the Country Robert Fantina Romney's Dance: The Rightwing Flip-Flop John Ross The Guelaguetza Strategy in Oaxaca Seth Sandronsky Organizing Nurses Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Mitt Romney to Bill Richardson Website of the Weekend Pearl Jam: Censored by ATT   August 10, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts China's Threat to the Dollar is Real Stan Goff How Pat Tillman Died Marjorie Cohn A Blank Check for Domestic Spying Saul Landau In the Age of Immigrant Panic Chris Floyd Goading Xerxes: the Coming Strike on Iran Daniel Ellsberg A Vision for Cindy Sheehan's Campaign Anthony Papa The Upside Down Flag: a Country in Distress Farzana Versey On the Heels of Sir Salman Sgt. Kevin Benderman Freedom or Totalitarianism? Nuri Nuri Memories of T99 Nelson Website of the Day Lessons in Obfuscation from Sen. Larry Craig: How to Talk About Looting the Public Domain   August 9, 2007 Stan Goff The Fog of Fame: Pat Tillman as Everyone's Political Football Paul Craig Roberts In the Hole to China Alan Farago The Terror of the Mortgage Pools William S. Lind The Surge's New Math: One Step Forward, Two Back Doug Giebel Letter from Montana: What the Bushvolk Have Done to America Harvey Wasserman Radioactive Bailout in Advance Jacob Hill The Tail End of Free Trade: NAFTA's Impact on the Manufacturing Sector Raul Zibechi The Dark Side of Agrofuels Dave Zirin The Making of Barry bin Laden Website of the Day "Babies Just Come with the Scenery"   August 8, 2007 Andy Worthington Backing Up Lt. Col. Abraham on Gitmo Abuse Jeff Halper The Catch in Israel's "Generous Offers" at Jericho Greg Moses No Light in August for Texas Refugees: Judge Orders Baby Sent to Palestine Nurit Peled-Elhanan The Murder of Abir Aramin, 9 Years Old Sukant Chandan British Prisons as Islamic Universities Robert Fisk A Lebanese Surprise George H. Strauss The Military Society D.K. Wilson Bonds, the Haters and 756: Why Bob Costas Can't be Trusted Bill Day Leonardo DiCaprio's Baggage: the Perils of Celebrity Environmentalism Tim Campbell Monkey See, Monkey Do Politics Website of the Day Periodic Table of Visualization Methods   August 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Why the Surge Has Failed Andy Worthington Why Do We Need the Democrats?: They Have Failed to Restrain Bush on Gitmo, Iraq and Domestic Spying Kathy Kelly The Little Girl of Hiroshima Stan Cox The Antiwar Majority: Look Quickly, You Might Miss It Sonja Karkar Israel's Settlement Project Sen. Russ Feingold A License to Wiretap--Anyone Alan Farago Dancing in the Light of Florida Norman Solomon Let Us Now Praise an Infamous Woman Binoy Kampmark Giving Good Face: What Jeremy Bentham and Facebook Have in Common Dave Lindorff The Gelding Congress John Stauber Coffee with the Troops at Yearly Kos Website of the Day George Carlin on Education       Subscribe Online

August 29, 2007 Charles Rangel, For One Who Won't Stand Up for Kenneth Foster? By BEN DAVIS Barring a miracle--and miracles are in short order on Texas' death row--Kenneth Foster is likely to die Thursday. The battle around his case has been a heroic one. Kenneth's horrifying story of being condemned to death on a misapplication of an already draconian legal monstrosity--Texas' "Law of Parties," which enshrines guilt by association--as well as his own clear-eyed and articulate work telling his story and speaking out for others, have won him a host of supporters. Foremost, of course, there is his family, including his heartbreakingly articulate daughter Nydesha--who has never touched her father, and now may never do so. There is the Coalition to Save Kenneth Foster, a group of activists who have rallied to his defense. There is also the New York hip-hop collective the Welfare Poets, and Kenneth's wife, the Dutch hip-hop artist Jav'lin, who dedicated the moving song Walk With Me on the Poets' Cruel and Unusual Punishment CD to her husband's struggle to live. Mumia Abul-Jamal, from his own death row confinement, wrote in solidarity, while Amnesty International called the case "a new low for Texas"--and that is low indeed. There are others. Sportswriter Dave Zirin's Jocks 4 Justice, a coalition of socially conscious sports figures like Ruben "Hurricane" Carter, Etan Thomas and Dr. John Carlos, said that Kenneth should live. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa filed an amicus curae brief for Kenneth. And the European Union singled Kenneth's case out as particularly egregious in condemning Texas' 400th execution. (Governor Perry's response was to state that the U.S. had fought a war to be free of European influence, and that "Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.") The major papers in Texas have all come out against the execution. There is even a soul-searching statement from Sean-Paul Kelley, a boyhood friend of Michael LaHood, the murder victim in whose name Kenneth will be strapped to a gurney this Thursday: "the execution of a young man who didn't even kill Mike? That's not justice." Kelley writes. "It's senseless vengeance, a barbarism cloaked in the black robes of justice." With the picture of this broad, international roster of supporters before our eyes, a coalition of activists in New York decided to approach our own formally anti-death-penalty Democratic representative Charles Rangel, co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus. Kenneth's impeding execution is clearly a Civil Rights issue, as is the death penalty in general. It is difficult to imagine a wealthy white 19-year-old receiving the same treatment that Kenneth did. All five--yes, five--of the executions scheduled in Texas for this month are people of color (four are Black, one is Latino). Two weeks ago, Rangel's staff took a draft letter we wrote to Governor Perry on Kenneth's behalf, which we hoped he would sign onto. They pumped us for information about the case; they wanted to know who was on board already. We told them that we wanted Rangel, as a politician with an abolitionist record, to take the lead in making Kenneth's case heard in the halls of power. Then we waited. And as of last week, we were informed that Rangel would not see our letter for "several more days." Given that after Tuesday it did not really matter, since it is was on Tuesday that the Pardons Board was to make its decision whether or not to recommend the case to the Governor (it has been delayed to today, Wednesday), this was the same as shutting the door. So Monday morning, we decided to pay a visit to Charles Rangel. We brought members of Harlem's Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) and supporters of Kenneth. There was Ray Ramirez from the Welfare Poets, and Ronnique Hawkins from the Anti-Lynching Movement, and Michael Letwin, the radical lawyer and former President of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW. There was Jeffrey Deskovic, recently released on DNA evidence after 17 years in jail, and Lawrence Hayes, former Black Panther, New York death row inmate and Campaign founder. There was a man whose son has been a penpal of Kenneth's for years. We were students and activists and independent journalists, former prisoners and family members--those that have the most at stake in fighting the death penalty and criminal injustice. And we were there to ask that our anti-death-penalty representative to take a stand while it still mattered. They didn't want to let us up at first, but at last Rangel's policy advisor came down to meet our community delegation. He sat us around a cafeteria table, and explained to us that Rangel was a very busy man, that he hadn't read the letter and that we hadn't gotten it to him in time. He explained that whether we liked it or not, Kenneth had been convicted by a real law in Texas, and that Rangel had to be careful what he said about that. He seemed to have forgotten--the fight for racial justice in the US meant overturning "real" laws like slavery and Jim Crow. Unjust laws are made to be broken. Rangel, the man said, had a pile of papers on his desk. This representative of our elected official sat at a table with those who'd been railroaded by the criminal injustice system and had their lives destroyed by it and told them that Kenneth's case was not urgent enough. But, they'd "talk to the communications director at the Congressional Black Caucus." They'd "put it in front of Rangel." Kenneth Foster's execution date is Thursday at 6 pm. Meanwhile, a few of us, waiting outside in Adam Clayton Powell Plaza for our press conference to begin, were confronted by security guards for carrying "Save Kenneth" signs. They told us we needed a permit. Not even for holding up the signs. Just for holding them in our hands. A guard in a beret told us we were inciting a disturbance--that is, he seemed to think that the sight that the words "Save Kenneth Foster" and a picture of Kenneth and Nydesha under someone's arm might incite a disturbance. Just another example of post-9/11 paranoia in New York, maybe. But it also shows how the law-and-order agenda has sapped away all our rights, has made acceptable affronts that would have seemed absurd a few years ago, with the death penalty being only the sharpest expression of this. Kenneth himself has written about how his case symbolizes this assault. And Kenneth, through his own activism behind bars, has helped build a movement to shine a light on the injustice--to expose the racism, the bloodlust and the social blindness that our criminal injustice system is built onnot least of all the out-of-control Texas death machine. And it seems that some people would rather not have to be confronted with this. There is a final thought. At the end of the day, Kenneth is being executed for not having predicted a murder that he had no way of predicting, for not having read Mauricio Brown's mind when he exited the car Kenneth has been driving. For not having called out to stop a murder he did not know was going to be committed. He is being killed for not seeing the future, "sentenced to death for leaving his crystal ball at home," as Amnesty puts it. Our representatives, unlike Kenneth, can see the future. They know exactly the hour and the date that the killing of Kenneth Foster will take place. The state of Texas is methodically, inexorably plotting the death of Kenneth Foster, piece by piece, hour by hour. Some politicians have built their careers on promises of racial equality--careers they've too-often put ahead of the lives of individuals like Kenneth when it could make a difference. Texas is bucking a national trend against the death penalty. Texas kills with impunity, at least in part because none of our Democratic elected officials will call out to stop them. This may or may not make them "party" to Kenneth's murder by some obscure legal standard -- the important thing is that the cries for justice have been too infrequent. We know that unjust laws like the "law of parties" are applied only to the voiceless and never to the powerful with their lawyers and policy advisers. But this doesn't change the fact that those with power should speak out when their influence could make the difference. Or that it is long past time to call for a halt to the Civil Rights catastrophe that is the Texas killing machine, the fulcrum of the moral abyss that is the U.S. penal system. And if we cannot count on our elected officials to make this cry for justice heard, it will be up to us, at the grassroots--the kind of people represented so well Monday at Charles Rangel's office--to make it heard. Ben Davis is a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty in New York City. What you can do: Call the Governor and the Texas Board and urge them to grant clemency to Kenneth Foster: Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles: Phone (512)406-5852 Fax (512)467-0945 Gov. Rick Perry Phone (512)463-1782 Fax (512)463-1849 To get involved, go to www.freekenneth.com or email nyc@nodeathpenalty.org Your Ad Here

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