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Today's
Stories
January 10,
2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
Walk in Oaxaca
Robert Fantina
Punishing
Deserters: Prosecution or Persecution?
Patrick Cockburn
Why Troop Escalation Won't Bring Peace to Iraq
Col. Dan Smith
Why U.S. Policy is Failing
Ben Tripp
The Politics of Bad Karma
Evelyn Pringle
How the FDA Protects Big Pharma
Ron Jacobs
Coalition of the Lunatics: Trying to Create the Next World War
Mike Ferner
If Not Now, When?
Website of the Day
Revolting Students!
January 9, 2007
R. T. Naylor
The
Somalian Labyrinth
Jonathan Cook
Israel's
Purging of Palestinian Christians
Mike Ely and Linda Flores
The Smithfield Strikers: No Longer
Hidden, No Longer Hiding
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: More Bellicose Than Bush
Norman Solomon
The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse
Sen. Russell
Feingold
An Open Letter to President Bush: So Now You Want to Snoop Through
Our Mail?
Joe Allen
Justice for the Omaha Two: Black Power, Racism and COINTELPRO
in the Heartland
James T. Phillips
"Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate": The Hell
That is Iraq
Brian Concannon
Resolutions for Haiti
Leonard Peltier
When the Truth Doesn't Matter: 30 Years of FBI Harassment and
Misconduct
Website of the Day
Kick Out the Jams, MFers!: Meet the New RRC
January 8,
2007
Werther
Why
We Fight
Jeff Leys
The Occupation Project: a Campaign of Civil Disobedience to End
Iraq War Funding
Paul Craig Roberts
Nuking Iran
Shulamit Aloni
Israeli Apartheid: Sorry, This Road is For Jews Only
Dave Lindorff
The Party of Invertebrates Reverts to Form
Sunsara Taylor
The Democrats' First Day: Same As It Ever Was
Seth Sandronsky
Syndicated Error: George Will and the Minimum Wage
Dr. Susan Block
Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film
Website of the Day
Watch CounterPuncher Sunsara Taylor Take on Bill O'Reilly!
January 6 / 7, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
War and the NYT
Franklin C.
Spinney
Stalingrad
on the Tigris
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Urge to Surge
Ralph Nader
Democrats in the Spotlight
Walden Bello
Globalization in Retreat?
Marleen Martin
The Needle and the Damage Done: Tortured in the Death Chamber
Brian Cloughley
We Do What We Like: Return Our Rapist or Else ...
Uri Avnery
The Kiss of Death
Saul Landau
Fidel Castro in the Fields
Ron Jacobs
From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act: a Legacy of Torture
Joseph Nevins
Crimes Against Humanity from Ford to Saddam
William S. Lind
A State Restored? Somalia and 4GW
Gary Leupp
Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President!
Elisa Salasin
Bringing Life to Numbers
George Ciccariello-Maher
Beyond
Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution
Stefan Wray
Confronting Recruiters: the Story of the Bush Street Raiders
Michael Leonardi
Toward an International Moratorium: Italy's Crusade Against the
Death Penalty
Richard Rhames
Reality TV: Triumph of the Thugs
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Barbara LaMorticella
Two Poems
Website of the Weekend
FBI Witch Hunts
Song of the
Weekend
End Times: a Soundtrack
January 5, 2007
Jorge Mariscal
Growing
the Military: Who Will Serve?
John Walsh
Clash of the Elites: Beltway Insiders vs. Neo-Cons!
Christopher Brauchli
The Great Relaxer: Bush and Federal Regulations
Travis Sharpe
No More New Nukes, Please
Tom Barry
Hawk for Hire: Roger Noriega's New Gig
Linda Schade
/ Kevin Zeese
Americans Voted for Peace: Has the New Congress Already Let Them
Down?
Tiffany Ten Eyck
Workers' Centers and Unions: a New Alliance
Mahmoud El-Yousseph
A Challenge to Pelosi
Lucinda Marshall
3003 Funerals: "And They're Still Burying Ford!"
Website of
the Day
Van the Man: Warm Love
January 4, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
The
Martyrdom of Saddam Hussein
Winslow T.
Wheeler
A Guide to Earmarks: Will the Democrats' Reforms Do Anything
to Curb Pork Barrel Spending?
M. Shahid Alam
Has Regime Change Boomeranged?
Raed Jarrar
So This is Plan B? The US Attack on Saleh Al-Mutlaq's Headquarters
Bert Sacks
Can the US Legally Kill Iraqi Children?: a Challenge to the Supreme
Court
Kathy Rentenbach
Report from Oaxaca
Stephen Fleischman
The Rain of Riches: Bonuses, Then and Now
George Bisharat
Carter's Truths
Peter Rost, MD
Hail the Hangman, Jail the Cameraman!
Evelyn Pringle
Can Eli Lilly be Held Criminally Liable for Zyprexa?
Website of the Day
Courage to Resist
January 3,
2007
Kathy Kelly
Wrapped
Around a Bullet
Paul Craig
Roberts
His Last Hurrah: Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason
William Johnson
No Worker is Illegal: SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change
Its Policy on Immigration
Stan Cox
Under a Brown Cloud: Money vs. the Monsoon
Trita Parsi
A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran
Declan McKenna
Ireland's Slavish Hostility Toward Cuba
Joe Bageant
Dispatch from the Chinese Landfill
Nicola Nasser
Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism
Missy Beattie
Dead Wrong
Website of
the Day
Pharmed Out
January 2, 2007
Michael Watts
Oil
Inferno
Amina Mire
Return of the Warlords: Death and Destruction for Somalis
James Brooks
Pushing the Wedge in Palestine
Alevtina Rea
The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ?
Al Krebs
Global Food Security: a Call to Action
Peter Rost
Invitation to a Hanging: the Saddam Hussein Execution Video
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
A Deadly December
John Stanton
Appetites for Destruction
Website of the Day
Out Now: Petition
January 1,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Iron
Man, Tin God: the Meaning of Saddam Hussein
Uri Avnery
What
Makes Sammy Run?
Joshua Frank
Eliot Spitzer's Constitutional Hang Up: Architect of New York's
Patriot Act
December 30
/ 31, 2006
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
2006,
Hard to Call It Vintage, But 2007 Could Finally Be Bobby Byrd's
Year
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
2006: a Nation Soaked in Blood Tears Itself Apart
Paul Wolf
Dying for Our Sins: A Lawyer for Saddam Describes How His Execution
on the First of Eid May Transform Him Into a Martyr
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Executing
Saddam, Protecting the Rackets
Tariq Ali
Saddam
at the End of a Rope
Paul Craig Roberts
The New Dark Age: Official Lies, Dogma and Unaccountable Power
Douglas Valentine
At the End of My Rope: Hanging With Saddam
Brian M. Downing
The New Iraq Policy: Escalation
Michael Donnelly
Injustice in Black and White: the Duke Non-Rape Case
Stephen Lendman
Did Sharon Order the Assassination of Arafat? The Revelations
of Uri Dan
Fred Gardner
Comes Now the Ghost of "Decrim:" Nixon and Marijuana
Bailly / Caudron / Lambert
Who Owns Ikea?: the Opaque Legacy of Ingvar Kamprad
Ralph Nader
The Prospects for Progressive Politics
Nick Dearden
The War on Terror Hits Africa
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
The Third Degree: an Interview with AC Thompson on the Origins
of the CIA's Secret Rendition Flights
Missy Beattie
In Harm's Way: How Our National Coward Describes War
Ron Jacobs
Sigh of the Oppressed: Religion and Politics
Dan La Botz
Defend Illegal Immigrants: Help Them! Harbor Them!
Andrew Wimmer
An Act of Contrition: the Peace Movement in 2007
Dr. Carol Wolman, MD
Psychiatrist: Impeach Bush for Good of Country
Martha Rosenberg
New Year's Resolutions for Big Pharma
Dick J. Reavis
News Before It Happens: Bush's 2007 MLK Day Speech
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Listening to James Brown and His Followers
Poets' Basement
Grima, Curtis, Davies, Orloski and Engel
Website of
the Weekend
Charlie Fowler's Photolog: a Life at Altitude
Music Video of the Weekend
"We're Winning the War on Drugs!"
December 29, 2006
Bill Quigley
A
Tale of Two Sisters: Why is HUD Spending Tens of Millions in
Katrina Money to Bulldoze 4,534 Public Housing Apartments in
New Orleans?
Norman Finkelstein
The Dershowitz Treatment
John Borowski
Curb Your Environmentalism: Laurie David and Me
Abid Mustafa
The Re-Talibanization of Afghanistan
Greg Moses
World Responds to Palestinian Family's Jailing Despite Media
Blackout
Uri Cohen
Stand Up for Herod: a Seasonal Story of Ancient Palestine
Bailly / Caudron
/ Lambert
The
Secrets in Ikea's Closet
Website of
the Day
Justice for New Orleans
December 28,
2006
Norman Finkelstein
The
Ludicrous Attacks on Jimmy Carter's Book
Anthony Cowell
Highway Robbery: Privatizing New Jersey's Toll Roads
John Ross
Gateway to the Next Mexican Revolution?
Hilaria Cruz
I'm Going to Stay Right Here: Story of a Oaxacan Prisoner
Greg Moses
Palestinian Immigrant Jailings in Texas
Brittany Bond
The Blood Trail of Luis Posada Carriles, Washington's Preferred
Terrorist
Website of
the Day
Godfather of Soul and Father of Funk
December 27,
2006
Alexander Cockburn
Farewell
to Our Greatest President: Adieu, Gerald Ford
Faruq Ziada
Is
There a Sunni Majority in Iraq?
Christopher Brauchli
Burning EPA's Books: What They Don't Want You to Read Might Save
Your Life
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Journey to Vietnam: Dare We Not Say Genocide?
Nikolas Kozloff
Saving
Caracas
Mark Schneider
Why Hope? Reasons for Optimism
December 26, 2006
Peter Stone
Brown
James
Brown: Please Don't Go
Tito Tricot
Chile: the Ghosts of Torture
Gary Leupp
Cowboys Differ on Iran Attack: Cheney/Bush vs. the Baker Commission
John V. Walsh
Dershowitz vs. Carter in Beantown: Peace Movement AWOL, Again
Reza Fiyouzat
Red Christmas: Why Santa Was Hot in China This Year
Ron Jacobs
The Golem: a Conversation with Marc Estrin
Website of
the Day
JB:
Prisoner of Love
December 25, 2006
Saul Landau
A
Jeep Trip with Fidel
Lang / McGovern
To
Surge or Not to Surge?
Michael Dickinson
Should Stupid Thoughts Be Crimes?: Deny Santa If You Will, But
...
Website of
the Day
James Brown, RIP
December 23 / 24, 2006
Marjorie Cohn
What's
Going On?
Jeffrey L.
Gould
The Capital of Salvadoran Memory: El Mozote After 25 Years
Diane Christian
The Rape of Iraq
William Loren
Katz
From the Raid on "Fort Negro" to Iraq: Lessons from
the First US Invasion
Greg Moses
This War Can't be Made Right by Winning
M. Shahid Alam
An Islamic Civil War: Chaos by Design?
Fred Gardner
Exposé as Inoculant: HRT, Zyprexa, Lilly and the Press
Dave Lindorff
Crime of the Century
Azmi Bishara
Ways of Denial
Ralph Nader
The BCS: a Monopoly on College Football
Seth Sandronsky
Fiscally Imperiled Social Security?
William Hughes
Cop Assaults Activists at Lockheed Protest
Ron Jacobs
Making Stones Weep
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to on New Year's Eve
December 22,
2006
David Rosen
Bush's
Foreign Sex Policy: Imperialism's Second Front
Christopher
Brauchli
When the Secret is the Question: Secret Prisons, Top Secret Interrogations
John Ross
Flashlights
in the Tunnel of Hate
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Political
Sell-Outs in Black and White
Rahul Mahajan
Dennis Kucinich: Maverick or Stalking Horse?
Arthur Neslen
Provoking Civil War in the Occupied Territories
Peter Rost, MD
The Secrets of His Success: Fired Pfizer CEO Walks Away with
$198 Million
Website of
the Day
10 Ways to Change the World in 2007
December 21, 2006
Rosa Mariam
Elizalde
An
Interview with Gore Vidal: "I am Jealous of Cuba"
Arundhati Roy
Breaking the News
Brian Cloughley
Poppies Rising: Afghanistan's Drug Catastrophe
Daniel White
Jimmy Carter in Austin: Time to Come Clean on the Shoot Down
of That Itavia DC-9
John V. Whitbeck
On Israel's Right to Exist
Sam Smith
Still Smearing Ralph Nader for 2000
Paris Reidhead
GM Ice Cream: Something's Fishy in Your Good Humor Bar
Kevin Wehr
Denying Disaster: Katrina and the Case for Impeachment
Website of the Day
Pesticides and Amphibians: a Vital New Database
December 20, 2006
Gabriel Kolko
Rumsfeld
and the American Way of War
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The Pentagon Measures the Chaos in Iraq
Tariq Ali
The War is Lost
Saree Makdisi
Israel, Apartheid and Jimmy Carter
Bruce Jackson
Saying "Oh!": John Mohawk and the Power to Make Peace
Dave Lindorff
Democrats Walk Into a Bush Trap on Iraq
Leslie Radford
The Winter Harvest of the South Central Farmers
Dave Jansson
Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Secessionists Confront the
Empire
Johnny Barber
Jesus is a Terrorist
Website of
the Day
Is It for Freedom?
December 19, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
Democrats
Prepare to Fund Longer War
Jonathan Cook
End
of the Strongmen
Greg Moses
Globalized Gulag: Palestinian Refugees and Children Held in Hutto,
TX Jail
Sean Penn
Georgie,
There's a Crowd Downstairs
Dave Lindorff
Innocents Abroad: Cracking Down on Gitmo Detainees Despite Overwhelming
Evidence Most Are Not Terrorists
Ralph Nader
Going
Postal
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Pink Tide?
Carlos Villarreal
The
Well is Poisoned: Victory Requires an Immediate Pull-Out
Website of
the Day
Chuck Spinney on the Pentagon
December 18, 2006
Luis J. Rodriguez
En
Lak Ech: Chicanos, Mayans and Mel Gibson
Norman Solomon
Washington Refuses to End the War: Powell, Baker, Hamilton--Thanks
for Nothing!
Uri Avnery
Lebanon: War Without a Plan
Ron Jacobs
More Troops, More Body Bags
Phil Gasper
Afghanistan: Bush's Other War Unravels
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Iran's Elections: The World Isn't Florida and Bush Isn't Its
Supreme Leader
William Blum
The United States of Punishment
Jim Goodman
So What's the Big Deal If Wal-Mart Makes a Mistake?
James Brooks
Talking Surge: Let's Kill Some More Before We Go
Maria C. Khoury
Walking Into the Art World: Designing a Palestinian Academy for
the Arts
Website of the Day
Got Powell
December 16 / 17, 2006
Weekend Edition
Vijay Prashad
A
Perilous Way to Socialism
Saul Landau
Filming Fidel
Anthony Arnove
The US Occupation of Iraq: Act III of a Tragedy of Many Parts
Paul Cantor
The Puppet and the Puppeteer: Pinochet and Kissinger
Annie Nocenti
Baluchistan's Fight: The Khan of Kalat Gathers the Tribes
Nicole Colson
Hard Times on the Killing Floor: Smithfield's Rotten Record
Stephen Gowans
Tehran's Holocaust Conference
Jordan Flaherty
A Catastrophic Failure: Foundations, Nonprofits and the Second
Looting of New Orleans
Fred Gardner
Dustin Costa Faces 15 to Life
P. Sainath
There's No Such Thing as a Free Cow
Seth Sandronsky
The Democrats and Social Security: Watch What the Party Says
and Does
Nadia Hijab
An AIPAC Shot Across Baker's Bow?
Deb Reich
Dear Santa, (Or Someone): Greetings from the Occupied Holy Lands
Susie Day
Cops Shoot Another Rich White Man!
Albert Wan
Why Does It Take 50 Bullets?
Missy Beattie
Will the Next Leader Stand Up? Please!
Martha Rosenberg
Kicking the Wyeth Habit Saves Women's Lives
Lee Ballinger
The Devil's Highway: Clinton, Border Checkpoints and the Deaths
of the Yuma 14
Michael Dickinson
Kingdom of Fear
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Live/Evil: Listening to Miles Davis
Poets' Basement
Davies, Buknatski and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine"
December 15,
2006
Eliza Ernshire
Palestinian
"Civil War" and the Israeli Chocolate Ration
Virginia Tilley
What
Are You Going to Do Now, Israel?
Mike Ferner
Roll Call for the Choir: If They Vote for War, Occupy 'Em!
John Ross
Mad Mel's Mayan Apocalypse
Fred Wilhelms
The Flip Side of Ahmet Ertegun: Where Did You Get Those Shoes?
Kevin Zeese
Dennis Kucinich's Strange Mission: Can You Be a Real Anti-War
Candidate in a Pro-War Party?
David Severn
Social Engineering Begins at Home: Jeffrey Skoll, Billionaire
Philantropist
Dave Lindorff
Sen. Tim Johnson Death Watch: Senate Gridlock May Be Best Outcome
Sunsara Taylor
As American as Shopping and Torture
Website of
the Day
June 2, 2004: When Iraq Was There For The Looting
December 14,
2006
Jonathan Cook
The
Recognition Trap
Riz Khan
An Interview with Jimmy Carter
Jason Hribal
Kasatka, the Sea World Orca
Pennick / Gray
The Plight of Black Farmers: Racism in the US Farm Program
Richard Levins
That Embezzled Anti-Castro Money
Pat Williams
The College Crisis: Universal Access, Student Loan Debts and
Pell Grants
Peter Rost, MD
Simply Irresistible: Do Women Prefer Bad Boys?
Website of
the Day
The Sound of Rummy
December 13,
2006
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
is Beyond Repair
Greg Moses
The Dixie Chicks Come Home to Roost
Elizabeth Schulte
Hungry for the Holidays
Joshua Frank
Death By Coke
Debra Eschmeyer
Corporations Control Your Dinner
Leon Hadar
Baker's Rescue Mission: Too Little, Too Late
Peter Rost, MD
I've Been a Very Bad Boy
Margaret Knapke
Mow bé and Malachi, Presenté!
Reza Fiyouzat
Are Cows Free?
Fred Wilhelms
A Last Minute Appeal: If You Know One of These Musicians Let
Them Know They Are Owed Money--By Friday!
Website of
the Day
The Crimes of Augusto Pinochet
December 12, 2006
Fernando A.
Torres
The
Last Man of the Junta: an Open Letter to Kissinger from One of
Pinochet's Political Prisoners
Paul Craig
Roberts
America's
Injustice System is Criminal
Stephen Soldz
Abusive Interrogations
Uri Avnery
Baker's Cake
William S. Lind
Knocking Opportunity: From Vulcans to Vultures in Iraq
Missy Beattie
Convicted for Our Convictions: Trespassing for Truth at the UN
Dave Lindorff
The 35-Year Long Scream: Torture, Impeachment and a Vietnam Vet's
Tears
George Pyle
Our Perverse Farm Plan: Where Christmas Comes Every Five Years
Norman Solomon
Is the USA the Center of the World?
Website of
the Day
Citizens' War Tribunal
December 11,
2006
Virginia Tilley
Banning
Mandela
Roger Burbach
The Condor Model: the Atrocities of Pinochet and the US
Col. Douglas MacGregor
There's Only One Option Left: Leave!
Fawwas Traboulsi
Lebanon on the Brink
Ron Jacobs
Death of a Pig: Poetic Justice for Pinochet
Gideon Levy
The Cruel Line into Gaza: Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle
Mary McGrane
Burning Books at Harvard Law
Bernardo Ruiz
The Disappeared of Oaxaca: a Message from One of the Actors in
Apocalypto
Website of the Day
La Cancion de la Unidad
Video of the
Day
Killing
Castro: Congresswoman as Contract Killer?
December 9
/ 10, 2006
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
Liberal
Consensus for More Troops in Iraq
Sen. Gordon Smith
Out of Iraq: Cut and Run or Cut and Walk
Greg Grandin
Jeane
Kirkpatrick, Mid-Wife of the Neo-Cons
Paul Craig Roberts
How Many More Will Die for Bush's Ego?
Col. Dan Smith
The Vietnamization of Iraq: Inside the Military Training Program
Ralph Nader
The Man from NAM: John Engler's Trail of Destruction
Behrooz Ghamari
The Donkey and the Date: Iran's Upcoming Municipal Elections
Rev. Willliam Alberts
Doing Unto Others: Pastor Haggard and President Bush
James T. Phillips
The James Gang: "Did You Kill Her?"
Bennis / Leaver
A Bi-Partisan Occupation
Dave Lindorff
A Congress of Hucksters and Pipsqueaks
Nikolas Kozloff
Robert Gates and Venezuela: Another Saber Rattler in Latin America
Seth Sandronsky
Activating White Racism
Lucinda Marshall
McKinney and Karpinsky: Silenced for Telling the Truth
Mike Whitney
Something's Gotta Give: James Baker vs. the Lobby
John V. Whitbeck
Recommendation No. 80
Faisal Kutty
Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Merely a Western
Construct?
Hugh Sansom
Smearing Jimmy Carter: an Open Letter to the New York Times
Robert Gold
My South American Journey: Impunity in Colombia
Boots Riley
Crash and Burn: an Urgent Message from The Coup
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Engel & Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Alive in Mexico
December 8, 2006
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Study Group's Cautious Appraisal
Leutisha Stills
Just
How Progressive is the Congressional Black Caucus?
Norman Finkelstein
The Media Lynching of Jimmy Carter
Will Youmans
Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington: Brookings Hosts an Ethnic
Cleanser
Peter Rost, MD
What Went Wrong at Pfizer?
Jonathan Demme
My Friend Bruce Langhorne: a Great Musician Needs Your Help!
Ray McGovern
Senate Democrats Give Gates a Free Pass
Lucinda Marshall
What She Wore
Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn
The Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
John Lennon's FBI Files
December 7,
2006
Alex Friedman
Rev.
Phelps' Hate-Fueled Fanatics Find a Home in the Kansas Prison
Industry
Maureen Webb
Risk Scoring and the National Insecurity State
Paul Craig Roberts
Catastrophe Still Awaits
Dave Lindorff
Prosecutor Admits: Mumia Abu-Jamal Had "No True Defense"
Matt Vidal
Drug Pushers, Inc.: Power and Profit in the Legal Drug Trade
Yifat Susskind
Looking for a Few Good Principles: What Should be Done in Iraq
Rodriguez / Jones
NYPD's Death Squads: From Diallo to Sean Bell
Website of
the Day
2006, Remixed
December 6, 2006
Robert Bryce
Omitting
the Obvious with James Baker: From the S&L Crisis to the
Iraq Study Group
William S. Lind
The Boomerang Effect: When Will the First IED Strike Cincy?
Zoe Blunt
The Clearcut Truth About the Great Bear Rainforest
Corporate Crime Reporter
The New Conventional Wisdom: Prosecute Individuals, Not Corporations
Amira Hass
A Regrettable Indifference: Israel's Treatment of Palestinian
Prisoners
Richard W. Behan
The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War
Sophie McNeill
Why Hezbollah is Broadcasting Sunday Mass
December 5, 2006
Virginia Tilley
Apartheid
Israel: a Beacon of Hope?
Sharon Smith
The New Washington Consensus: Blame the Victims in Iraq
Joe Bageant
Somewhere a Banker Smiles
Ron Jacobs
A War Washington Can't Win
Norman Solomon
Media Consensus, Stay in Iraq!
Mike Whitney
Rumsfeld's Final Snowflake: "I Was Just About to Change
Everything ... "
Derrick O'Keefe
Regimes Unchanged: Chavez's Victory Strengthen's Cuba
Julian Assange
The Road to Hanoi
Missy Beattie
Bush, the Unhappy Helmsman
Website of
the Day
Lessons of Suez and Iraq
December 4,
2006
Alexander Cockburn
Gaza
and Darfur
George Ciccariello-Maher
Tears of the Escualidos: Election Diary, Venezuela
Ray McGovern
Lame Ducks, Hold That Nomination!: a CIA Insider's Take on Gates
John Ross
Repression on the Menu in Mexico
Walden Bello
Hurricane Milton: Friedman, Bayonets and Markets
Peter Rost,
MD
Pfizer's Clueless Executives
Stephen Lendman
The Withering of the Bush Dynasty
Gideon Levy
This Ceasefire will Go Up in Flames
Website of the Day
The "Babes" of Hizbullah?
December 2
/ 3, 2006
Weekend Edition
Barucha Calamity
Peller
The
Dirty War of Oaxaca
Paul Craig
Roberts
Is Bush Sane?: When Denial Goes Pathological
Ralph Nader
The Big Boys of Financial Crime
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Committee of Enablers: Is Gates Fit to Serve? Are the Senators?
Amira Hass
The Checkpoint Generation
Maymanah Farhat
Depoliticizing Arab Art: Christie's and the Rush to "Discover"
the Arab World
Dave Lindorff
Fighting the Iraq War--At Home
Fred Gardner
Dr. Jimenez Defends His Practice Methods
Col. Dan Smith
The Semantics of Civil War
Raed Jarrar
Maliki's Monopoly of Power
Seth Sandronsky
US Prison Nation: Locking Up Surplus Labor
K.-Y. Taylor
The Bride Wore Black: the Shooting of Sean Bell and the Resurgence
of American Racism
Yifat Susskind
Greed, Dogma and AIDS
David Rosen
Made in China: the Global Trade in Sex Toys
Ron Jacobs
All Hands on Deck!: the New Pirates of the Caribbean
Nikolas Kozloff
Venezuela Prepares to Vote
Talli Nauman
Fighting La Choya: the Secret Toxic Dump on the Border
Alan Gregory
Shadow Trout: Why Hatchery Fish Aren't Real
Joe Allen
RFK and Hollywood Mythmaking: Emilio Estevez's Beatification
of Bobby Kennedy
St. Clair /
D'Antoni
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Davies, Engel, Ford and Orloski
Website of
the Day
Demo for Oaxaca
December 1,
2006
Greg Grandin
Midnight
in Mexico: Calderón's Inauguration Behind Closed Doors
Linn Washington,
Jr.
The
Mumia Case After 25 Years: Still More Keystone Kops Antics
George Ciccariello-Maher
Sleeping with the Enemy: At Home with the Anti-Chavistas
Brian J. Foley
Taking Responsibility for Iraq
Dave Zirin
Rebel Athletes: Organizing the Jocks for Justice
Joshua Frank
The Montana Formula: Jon Tester's Neopopulism
Chris Floyd
Hideous Kinky: Thomas Friedman Comes Undone
Ingmar Lee
Atomic Porker Strikes Indian Point Nuke Plant
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Dark Fire: the Fall of WTC 7
Website of the Day
No Gun Ri Revisited
Video of the
Day
Drunken Hack Goes Ape at Aussie "Pulitzers"
|
January
10, 2007
A Twelfth Night Tale
A
Walk in Oaxaca
By PETER LINEBAUGH
This is the story of how we took a walk
in Oaxaca and went to the zócalo, or city square, for
a shoe shine.
We were there for Christmas
with friends and a winter holiday. Flying from the Ann Arbor
'peace movement' with its silent [sic] vigils and its Zionist
virus we were aching for a change of scene, weather, and political
outlook. There were three of us, and we were bearing gifts: Michaela,
my partner, carrying medicines, Riley, a sophomore in high school,
our daughter, bringing an abundance of expectancy, and me, historian,
bringing a copy of my study of the commons and Magna Carta. We
wanted somehow to step into another possible world, healthy,
hopeful, and chartered.
Our bags were misplaced or
lost in Texas. Befriending a Mexican American similarly bereft
in the Mexico City airport when he learned where we were going
he praised the food of Oaxaca immediately. And so it was: hot
chocolate, mole, corn bread, tomales, tlayudas. Got to remember
this. Nothing'll get you to Right here! Now! quicker than the
taste buds. Vanilla and chocolate are Oaxaca's gifts to the planet's
aromatic olfactory system. (Only the chapulins, or fried grasshopper
did we save for another time.)
The Christmas crèches
were all over, in the cathedral, in the cafeteria, in the store
window, in an upstairs lobby of the hotel. All over town the
manger was bare: ain't no room at the hotel. Not until Christmas
Eve did they put the baby Jesus in. The three wise men from the
east, including Balthazar, the African king, were often prominent.
Birth was certainly the theme, especially after visiting Frida
Kahlo's museum in Coyoacán. She was looking for a miracle
too, but didn't find it in the medicine offered by the Henry
Ford hospital up in Detroit, which her paintings depict as a
series of ghastly machines. How beautiful is her museum, how
intimate the spaces, and what a great cup of coffee served in
the café! By contrast Trotsky's house around the corner
was all books, dark, serious, and nothing to drink. It spoke
of exile and death of course. Yet he too was engaged in a labor
of birth, to bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the
old!
The Aztecs danced at dusk in
the huge zócalo, or square, of Mexico City, to the four
directions. The skyline was ominous with Church and State, for
it was filled on one side with the National Palace and on the
adjacent side with the immense and brooding façade of
the baroque cathedral. We went to the Templo Mayor, excavated
in 1978, buried almost directly underneath the cathedral, one
pile of rocks on top of another, to learn that it was "the
center of the universe. In the museum we saw statuettes from
long ago supposed to play a role in fecundity and the underworld.
Those fighting for a new birth of social life fled Oaxaca or
were driven into hiding or prison after 'the night of hyenas,'
25 November 2006, when the helicopters, plain clothes police,
and death squads ran rampant.
We climbed for a picnic in
the trees overlooking the valley in which the city of Oaxaca
sprawls and saw that it is surrounded by hills and behind them
mountains, each capped by ancient temples or cities that are
either  excavated, like Monte Albán,
or waiting for excavation. We enjoyed our repast playing hide-and-seek
with the children next to a milpa of 'three sisters', corn, squash,
and beans.
How ashamed I was in my Hollywood
cynicism on first beholding Monte Albán where I exclaimed,
"a lost civilization." Juan Peralta Hernández,
our guide, simply replied, it is not lost, and giggled. He carried
a volume of Subcommandante Marcos's letters under his arm. Truly
the layers of the onion are many, and as the gringo peels away
at the onion, it is not without tears, for in his pride he does
not like to admit that his mind too has been colonized. The Tourist
Bureau provides a brochure available in the empty hotels in which
you can read this example of history inverted: "On July
7, 1563, by an ordinance of the Viceroy Luis de Velasco, the
lands near the Noria and Cinco Señores ranches were given
to the Indian people. Tell this to Juan Peralta Hernández.
We presented gifts to the magnificent
Gustavo Esteva, the non-institutionalized intellectual at the
Universidad de la Tierra. Here's how he explained the situation.
Oaxaca is next to Chiapas. Fifteen indigenous groups with fifteen
different languages inhabit the state of Oaxaca. The indigenous
people of Chiapas are recent denizens of the forests while in
Oaxaca they have been there for centuries. There are three overlapping
communal systems in the municipalities: first, there are the
'usages and customs' of mutual obligations which comprise the
radical democracy (so well described by Doug Lummis); second,
there is the commons of land and water management consisting
formerly of the village ejido and currently of the common lands
of 85% of the state; and third, there is the judicial system
whose principle of administration is not revenge but compensation
and whose operating rule is consolation not punishment. The APPO
had begun discussions on how to extend these principles to the
whole state. Neither money nor the machine is the starting point
of discussion but social relations. He gave us his encouraging
tract Celebration of Zapatismo (Ediciones ¡Basta! 2006).
I read Graham Greene's The
Power and the Glory, the story of a "whisky priest hunted
by the authorities. Full of angst, sin, and the 'god that failed',
its mood of ascetic suffering hardly more reliable than the swollen
tongue of D.H. Lawrence. The racism is not far beneath the surface
in utter detestation of Indians. Oddly, we did meet an Englishman,
in Ocotlán, from an English textile town. He was owner,
foreman, shipping agent of a textile firm, and proudly showed
us his equipment for spinning, carding, and what not. "Just
feel the quality of this roving! he urged us. These were the
machines that started the industrial revolution in England, and
here they were in the state of Oaxaca whirring eternally on,
a young woman standing atop her boxes to tend it the better,
another machine attended to by a boy. Captain Ludd, I thought,
whither art thou?
I was looking for APPO, the
Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca. I wondered about the
folkmotes, I wondered about the jury, I wondered how horizontal
forms of organizing were becoming manifested. I was humbled by
the respect paid to teachers, the maestros. Silence greeted us,
just as freshly painted walls covered the revolutionary graffiti
which only a few weeks earlier had proudly adorned the city walls
with hopeful, generous affirmations.
We arrived in time for La Noche
de Rábanos, or the Night of the Radishes. Walking down
the pedestrian street to the main zócalo lines of riot
police lounged nervously in the shadows. We wiggled through the
mobile obstructions placed by the police. The cathedral stone
from local quarries is green. The plaza was too until Ulises,
the hated governor, tore it up. He uprooted trees too, a type
of laurel, I think, which centuries ago was brought from India,
bay leaves, shade-giving. His corruptions are supposed to be
in sync with attracting tourism. The clamor of the market was
without the jingle of the tourist coin or the whisper of bills
whisked quickly from the wallet. The horrid man made an appearance
earlier in the evening among the radish artists.
We parked ourselves on a bench
to enjoy the night scene. The cast-iron park benches were elaborately
adorned; their comfortable backs pointed to a zenith in a rendering
of the bonnet rouge, that ancient cap of liberty worn by slaves
in ancient Rome on their manumission. In the middle of the square
was a bandstand and in the bandstand a chorus singing out the
familiar carols of Holy Nativity concerning the birth of the
messiah. It struck me as entirely tasteful and pre-Hollywood
and certainly as respectable as any bourgeois, high or low, could
want. On two sides of the zócalo were the tables with
the radish exhibits generally scenes from the holy night. Artists
were busy explaining their artwork to judges and on-lookers or
spraying it with water before the vegetable shriveled up. Surrounded
by the shady figures of state repression, somehow we found ourselves
admiring among all the holy radish figures a radish rendering
of a drunk.
Again, the tourist brochure,
"It is known, through the oral record, that the Dominican
friars and others taught the indigenous Nabori Indian groups
(Zapotec, Mixtec, and Mexica Indians) who served in the citizens'
homes, how to cultivate flowers and vegetables. Brazen, eh? It
is the old story. Were there no flowers and vegetables before
the arrival of the Europeans? If you trust the authority of the
Columbia Encyclopedia that the radish with its pungent root was
indeed brought by Spaniards in the 16th century, you also learn
that they got it from Chinese transplantations.
Returning we passed the cathedral
Santo Domingo and its magnificent façade looking down
upon rows of blue agave plants in the plaza in front cooling
the scene. Across from it is the Instituto de Artes Gráficas,
the beautiful library given to the people by Francisco Toledo.
We availed ourselves of his generosity by consulting a sumptuous,
huge, box-like book containing copies of the unbound studies
of Guernica that Picasso made after May Day 1938. Oh, how May
Day 2006 rang in my ears, ¡Si se puede! We learned that
four million Oaxaqueños live outside the state of Oaxaca,
many in California, many in New York.
Despite the terrible Night
of the Hyenas aspiration showed itself a month later in art,
music, photos, architecture, CDs, and DVDs. An artist named Ima
sold beautiful paintings of the movement of APPO led by the teachers.
We wanted to see the radishes of the APPO. The area across from
Santo Domingo was packed with people of all ages. A balladeer
sung out songs recounting the history of the struggle. A woman
speaking Zapotec read out a speech. Distinguished by their deep
red color and thick skin, some are almost two feet long and can
weigh six and a half pounds. Red radishes were carved into helicopters
at either end of the exhibit area, fantastic examples of craft,
realistic, horrifying and amusing all at once. In the middle
was a radish corpse, made entirely of the white portion of the
root. There it was lying flat, arms splayed, head akimbo, legs
spread-eagled. It was entitled "The Massacre of Oaxaca.
If not parallel to the massacre of the holy innocents, the people
were carving radishes, at the root of things, to remember Herod,
if not the recent out-heroding by the death squads.
Fraught with tension, the atmosphere
gave the foreign tourist a glimpse beneath the repression, and
we could sense the joy of struggle, the determination, and the
dignity. Brad Will was never far from our thoughts. His murder
at the hands of a government assassin last October was a deliberate
insult, a measured provocation, to the planetary movement which
has backed the indigenous struggles for the commons. Partly in
his honor we traveled to Oaxaca not only as tourists but as students,
and not only as students but as pilgrims.
Our friend chose a café
for us one morning to explain the five lessons he learned from
the six months' insurgency. Here I cannot do justice to the subtlety
of his description or the pain of his recollection but I must
mention his points. First, for most people life goes on as usual
during the uprising, only in retrospect do events seem concentrated
as if at the bottom on a test-tube. Second, police are completely
unnecessary, and violent crime fell to its lowest in decades.
Third, armed struggle in the case of mass mobilization plays
into the logic of the state; twice APPO decreed that its supporters
need not wear face masks. Fourth, independent media, particularly
the radio, was essential to communication, to morale, to discussion.
Bertha, the doctor from '68, was the voice of the movement keeping
it calm, determined, non-violent. Fifth, everyone's position
becomes clear as people take a stand.
Returning to Mexico City, the
bus curving double switch-backs over steep gorges in the Sierre
Madre, we found our hotel and repaired to the zócalo on
the last day of a year which had seen such constitutional conflict
played out on that very square. It was dusk, and suddenly a battalion
(or whatever?) of soldiers came running double-time out of the
presidential palace, followed by drums and bugles, to conduct
the ceremony of drawing down the flag. Militarism seemed the
order of the day. The keen observer might discern signs of hope
in those recruits who did not keep time, or whose semi-automatic
weapon hung a few degrees off the regimented oblique line across
the shoulder. Will these boys bring in the flag without a single
strand of the sacred fabric touching the common ground, the dirty
earth?
While that itty-bitty drama
was unfolding I turned to weightier matters. Riley had her hair
braided with threads dyed in a spectrum of pastels by an artist
on the square, I enjoyed chatting with the APPO compesinos in
our respective languages, and Michaela had her rust red walking
boots shined. Flying north amid cancelled flights and delays
we could only dream again that another world is possible starting
with A People's Assembly of the Great Lakes. Our friends with
their photos, painting, music, and cooking gave us a holiday,
and a precious message.
We missed the ahuehuetl tree,
a giant cypress, said to be the oldest living thing in all of
the Americas. Next time. Meanwhile still murmuring in my ear
was the scrap from the unfinished air,
taking a walka
in Oaxaca
to the zócalo
for a shine.
Post Script
Since returning I have received
a message from our friend in Oaxaca who writes,
"On the Three Kings Day
gifting organized by APPO was met by the presence of nearly 500
riot troops ... determined to prevent people from delivering
gifts destined for the children of the movement's prisoners.
This in contrast to the heavily publicized corporate and state
gifting done in the zocalo and other shopping centers. In spite
of it all, thousands brought gifts and stacked them up in the
middle of the road almost forming a mountain beside the helmeted
men."
Meanwhile, here in Ann Arbor
I can say that my brogues have maintained their shine against
the downpour that greeted us 'Liberty Street Agitators,' when
every day of the working week led by Libby Hunter we call for
Troops Home and Impeachment of Bush, rain or shine.
Peter Linebaugh teaches history at the University
of Toledo. He is the author of two of CounterPunch's favorite
books, The
London Hanged and (with Marcus Rediker) The
Many-Headed Hydra: the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic.
His essay on the history of May Day is included in Serpents
in the Garden. He can be reached at: plineba@yahoo.com
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