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August 6, 2002
Robert Fisk
The Return
to Afghanistan
Alexander Cockburn
The
Fox in the Pension Fund
August 5, 2002
Rahul Mahajan
Iraq
and the New Great Game
Jordy Cummings
The
Last Frontier of
Israel and Palestine
Bernard Weiner
Inside
Saddam's Diary
Mike Leon
US Mute
to Israeli Brutality
Norman Madarasz
Brazil:
the Most Important Election of 2002?
August 4, 2002
Susan Davis
Fat Americans
August 3, 2002
David Krieger
Nuclear
Apartheid
Gilad Atzmon
The End
of Innocence
Gavin Keeney
Everybody's
a Critic
Alexander Cockburn
Can the Times' Jeff Gerth
Save Dick Cheney?
August 2, 2002
Ralph Nader
The Labor
Party
Chris Floyd
Moral Maze:
Bankruptcy Made Easy
Jeremy Scahill
Saddam,
Chemical Weapons and Donald Rumsfeld
Jeffrey St. Clair
Dark Deeds in the Black Hills:
Daschle Dooms the
Sacred Land of the Sioux
August 1, 2002
Steven Higgs
Activists
Under Siege
Anthony Gancarski
Draft
Picks:
Staffing the Latest War
Zeynep Toufe
Invisible
Children: AIDS,
Africa and Selective Vision
Alexander Cockburn
Drivel and Squawk:
Angelina Jolie, the NYT
and the Attack on McKinney
July 31, 2002
Amelia Peltz
Inside
Ramallah:
How Can the World Witness Such Suffering and Do Nothing?
M. Shahid Alam
The Academic
Boycott of Israel
Bernard Weiner
20 Things
We've Learned Since 9/11
Philip Cryan
Discourse
and War in Colombia
Neve Gordon
A Feast
of Bombs:
Sharon's Endgame for Palestine
Resources:
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About 9/11
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Five
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Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
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Hiroshima
Day
August 6, 2002
And
the Signs Said...
by Philip Farruggio
Just went to view the new "summer blockbuster
movie" "Signs". To me, M. Night Shyamalan, the
director who brought us the excellent film "Sixth Sense"
has created, in all candor, a replica of the standard 1950s sci-fi
B movie.
Film critiques aside, "Signs"
does offer a parody to what's presently threatening the majority
of U.S. families: "Elites". Since these super rich
are so far removed from the other 99 percent, they are truly
"alien" to us. The aliens in the film, sneaking around
using crop signs to signal their ships, reminds one of how the
"1 percent" top dogs in our economy operate. As in
the film, our "aliens" also have to reveal their "signs"
to us--if we dare open our eyes to look.
During the 2001 California "energy
Crisis" Vice President Cheney was placed in charge of the
committee to "save California's consumer" (for whom?).
Their premier recommendation: "build some Nuclear plants"
- strange advice for an earthquake prone state, no? Not really,
when you hear the name Brown and Root Co. (based in Texas) as
the biggest builder of nuclear plants. Guess who they're a subsidiary
of? Halliburton Corp. (presently under dark dark clouds of fiscal
impropriety). Guess who was the former CFO of good ole (boy)
Halliburton? I give you Claude Rains from Casablanca to exclaim:
"I'm shocked to find out it was Dick Cheney!"
Lets move to suggestion #2 from this
"humanitarian" energy committee. They stated we needed
to drill for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Reserve--yet California
does not burn oil in its power plants! Guess what committee member
gave his okay for this Alaskan drilling scenario? None other
than good ole Don Evans, Bush's Secretary of Commerce. What was
Don's private sector job before he "volunteered" to
serve America? Claude: "I'm shocked to find out he was CEO
of Tom Brown, Inc., a billion dollar oil and gas corporation!"
In 1998 Bush Sr. lobbied on behalf of
Mirage Casino Corp. (great name hah?) to have Argentina's President
Carlos Menem grant them a gambling license. Soon after his efforts,
Mirage Corp. "donated" $449,000 to the Republican Party
(just in time to help with Jr's "run for the oval").
Poppa Bush also wrote to the Kuwait oil minister, lobbying on
behalf of Chevron Oil Corp.-- they in turn donated $657,000 to
the Repubs. Senior Strub was retained to speak to the Global
Crossing Corp. board (now under dark clouds of impropriety) and
earned himself $13 million in stock - the company soon after
kicked in approximately one million to the "party of Lincoln".
Boy, those "crop signs" are all over the place.
Finally, the Income Study Project has
found that from 1983-97, 1 percent of Americans owned 85.5 percent
of our wealth. During that period, U.S. personal income zoomed--
yet 4 out of 5 families received a 0percent increase! As far
as the stock market: that same 1 percent of our population owns
$2.9 trillion of the $3.5 trillion invested in U.S. stocks and
bonds. Is this because our working folk are not productive? Well,
since 1983 U.S. workers produce more per hour (up 17 percent)
while earning less in real wages (down 3.1 percent).
Near the end of "Signs" the
family under alien siege are huddled together, securing themselves
in the basement. Outside the locked and bolted door we can hear
the aliens scampering about, banging and thinking of ways to
get at the frightened family.
The film does have a happy ending. Can
we say the same for the 99 percent of us?
Philip Farruggio,
son of a longshoreman, is "Blue Collar Brooklyn" born,
raised and educated (Brooklyn College, Class of '74). A former
progressive talk show host, Philip runs a mfg. rep. business
and writes for many publications. He lives in Port Orange, FL.
You can contact Mr. Farruggio at e-mail: brooklynphilly@aol.com.
Today's Features
Robert Fisk
The Return
to Afghanistan
Alexander Cockburn
The
Fox in the Pension Fund
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