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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! Obama's Money Cartel Pam Martens exposes the slimy underside of the campaign for "hope" and "change". Obama says lobbyists "haven't funded my campaign". A lie, Martens writes in this explosive issue of CounterPunch. Five top contributors to Obama are registered lobbyists and he fronts for the most vicious players on Wall Street. Read how he helped pass the law for which Big Business had been scheming for a decade. PLUS Alexander Cockburn on the adventures of an Indian sociologist in Chicago's Projects. PLUS an eyewitness report from Jack Brown on how Egyptians greeted the people of Gaza. PLUS the truth about John McCain: "war hero" and "maverick" or mean-spirited fraud? Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great holiday presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !

Today's Stories March 1 / 2, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts The Political Trial of Don Siegelman Kathleen and Bill Christison Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism Nelson P Valdés Cuba After Fidel Ron Jacobs Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge Robert Weissman Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy   February 29, 2008 Matt Gonzalez The Obama Craze Jonathan Cook Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel Joshua Frank Obama and Israel Anthony DiMaggio The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback of American Law Linn Washington, Jr. Cop Abuse in America Binoy Kampmark Hubris and Nemesis Robert Bryce Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy Use Sonja Karkar Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel Dave Lindorff A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush? Website of the Day Olduvai George   February 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn "Iraq" Falls Apart Fred Gardner The Birth of NAFTA Michael Levitin The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning William S. Lind The Fake State of Kosovo David Macaray A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor Stephen Fleischman Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod? George Wuerthner The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron Laura Carlsen The North American Union Farce Carl Finamore Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off Michael Dickinson The Day I Bombed the House of Commons Website of the Day Plane Stupid   February 27, 2008 David Rosen Playing the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political Dirty Tricks Vijay Prashad Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War Harvey Wasserman Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink? Andy Worthington Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns, Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense Wajahat Ali Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's Military Economy Peter Morici The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal Stephen Philion Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement Michael Donnelly Obama by Unanimous Decision Erica Rosenberg / Janine Blaeloch After the Land Deals: Will There be Any Wilderness Left to Protect? Website of the Day Dress Blues   February 26, 2008 Debbie Nathan Confessions of a Gitmo Guard Alan Dershowitz v. Frank Menetrez On Finkelstein Harvey Wasserman How Ohio Got Nuked Michael Colby Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals Gary Leupp Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade David Orchard The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan Martha Rosenberg The Big HRT Fran Shor The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow Serge Halimi The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan for the French Left Global Balkans Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans: an Interview with Tariq Ali Website of the Day Texistentialism   February 25, 2008 Roger Morris A Death in Damascus Anthony DiMaggio Military Bases, the Media and the Democrats Ralph Nader Why I'm Running Patrick Cockburn Iraq Broils Paul Craig Roberts Kosovo and the Empire Crazies Peter Morici Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms Dave Lindorff General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That Minot Nuke Incident Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film Heather Gray James Orange, Civil Rights Legend Robert Weitzel Accomodating Torture John Halle Kucinich Goes Down Website of the Day Do the Trunk Monkey! February 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain Paul Craig Roberts Obama and Global Trade Wajahat Ali Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon on the 9/11 Commission Ralph Nader Neutering the FDA Jürgen Vsych "What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?" Fidel Castro Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo David Macaray Unions Under Assault Jeremy Scahill The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence David Krieger Stanley Sheinbaum Caging the Cold War Monster Ron Jacobs Building for the Future Michael Garrity The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies Brian McKenna Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down Missy Beattie Over the Hill with John McCain Fred Gardner American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly) Boris Kagarlitsky The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement Mike Ferner Kick That Barrel Dan Bacher On the Trail with the Border Angels Christopher Ketcham Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread Poets' Basement Davies and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Obama Mariachi   February 22, 2008 Mike Whitney The Bonfire of Capital Jason Hribal Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet Liaquat Ali Khan Arresting Musharraf Joshua Frank That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child Dave Lindorff Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for Her! Liliana Segura When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion Robert Fantina Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen? Yifat Susskind The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women Norm Kent Pushing 60 with Pot Website of the Day Bush Gets Down in Liberia February 21, 2008 Saul Landau Fidel Steps Aside Elizabeth Schulte Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed Helen Redmond Health Care as a Human Right Benjamin Dangl Undermining Bolivia Michael Levitin Kosovo's Dilemma Liam Leonard Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle Patrick Irelan Land and Food in Venezuela Linn Cohen-Cole Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto Michael Simmons Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music CounterPunch News Service A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs Website of the Day Cop Abuse in Shreveport   February 20, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Lies and Spies Paul Krassner My Brief Encounter with Fidel Castro Fawzia Afzal-Khan The Pakistani Elections Farzana Versey The Great Dictator: Musharraf, Peace and the Autumn of the Patriarch Allan Nairn Dying for a Second Round: Israel's New Plan to Attack Lebanon John V. Whitbeck If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine? Niranjan Ramakrishnan A Balcony Seat to Our Own Balkanization? Steve Eckardt Cuba Sans Fidel: No News is Big News Lee Sustar Union-Busting at Freightliner Mike Ferner How Sick of It are You? Website of the Day The US Military Index   February 19, 2008 Uri Avnery Blood and Champagne Paul Craig Roberts Paying Insurgents Not to Fight Gary Leupp The Independence of Kosovo Fidel Castro The Moment Has Come David Macaray Management's Dirty Little Secret Reza Fiyouzat Buck the Circus! The Left and the Elections Valerie Morse The New Zealand Terror Raids: Land of the Long White Lie Walter Brasch Bush on Safari Website of the Day Don't Think Twice, It's Alright   February 18, 2008 Wajahat Ali Free Pakistan: an Interview with Imran Khan Diana Johnstone NATO's Kosovo Colony Paul Craig Roberts What Do We Stand For? Andy Worthington Gitmo: "We're Making This Up as We Go Along" Debbie Nathan Bernie Ward's Sex Tapes Anthony DiMaggio Following the Money Trail: the Democratic Party and the Business of Elections Bill Simpich Ten Years Ago, People Power Stopped Clinton in Iraq Eva Liddell A Short History of Super-Delegates: Hope, Yes! But Pay in Cash Christopher Brauchli The President Who Couldn't Keep His Word: Short-Changing Veterans Stephen Soldz Wikileaks is Under Attack! Johann Rossouw The Ouster of Thabo Mbeki: South Africa and the Costs of Neoliberalism Website of the Day Sick of It Day!   February 16 / 17, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Tower, Lower Manhattan Ralph Nader We the Corporations ... David Macaray The Big Buy Out: Did GM Drive Another Nail in Labor's Coffin? William J. Peace Wheelchair Dumping Ron Jacobs War on the Psyche: Shellshock and Redemption Diane Christian War Corrupts Alan Maass Oil, Blood and Greed: Taking Upton Sinclair to the Big Screen (and Beyond) Ramzy Baroud Iraq and the US Elections Michael Donnelly Genitalia First! Old Guard Feminists Play the XX Card Cpt. Paul Watson The Art of Finding Whalers James L. Secor China Diary: Spring Festival and New Year 2008 Eve Bachrach Bush Returns to Africa Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez's Anti-Imperialist Army Stephen Gowans Steven Spielberg, Faux-Humanitarian Missy Beattie To Vote or Not to Vote? David Michael Green Warming Slowly to Obama Wajahat Ali Attack of the Info-tainment Circus Poets' Basement Gibbons, Willson, Mickey Z., Orloski and Reuther Website of the Day Yellowstone's Bison Need Your Help--NOW!     February 15, 2008 George Szamuely The Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo Patrick Cockburn Ground-Truthing the Surge: Is the US Really Bringing Stability to Baghdad? Wajahat Ali Pakistan is Burning: an Interview with Steve Coll on the Taliban, Bin Laden and the Bush Administration Mike Whitney Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Economic Hindenberg Alan Farago God and the Democrats Chris Genovali Alberta's Black Gold Rush Jacob Hornberger Courting Injustice: Scalia on Torture Dave Lindorff Snoops Always Ring Twice: Bush's Protect America Bill Bull Website of the Day Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams     February 14, 2008 Kathleen and Bill Christison Palestine in the Mind of America Mike Whitney Swan Song for NATO Clancy Sigal Strike Notes from a Screenwriter George Wuerthner A Bloody Sham: the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter Peter Morici Is Bernanke Headed for the Exit? John Ross Drug War Mayhem Boils Over from Border to Border Allan Nairn Mafia Rules in the Middle East: If You're Big Enough, You Can Whack Anyone Rannie Amiri Lebanon's Warmongers Niranjan Ramakrishnan The New Tractatus: Where Wittgenstein Meets Feinstein Donna Volatile Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It Seth Sandronsky The Student Squeeze: Fighting California's Tuition Hikes Website of the Day Conventions: the Land Around Us   February 13, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Meet John McCain: Mr. Big Stick in Latin America Alan Farago Hell to Pay: Warren Buffett on the Goal Line Christina Kasica King's Dream Foreclosed: the Subprime Crisis in Black America Vicente Navarro How to Read the U.S. Primaries Hall Greenland Australia's Finest Hour Lee Sustar Strange Stimulation: Too Little for Those Who Need It Most David Macaray The Writers' Strike Finally Ends Roderick Frazier Nash Celebrating Wilderness Patrick Irelan Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT Anthony Papa Mean Mister Mukasey: AG Tries to Block Crack Cocaine Releases Carl Finamore Another Parade Passes Me By: Don't Let Your Movement be Coopted by Politicians Website of the Day John He Is   February 12, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez The Case Against Alan Dershowitz Paul Craig Roberts War Without End Dr. Trudy Bond The Elephant at Gitmo: Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink Andy Worthington The Guantánamo Six: Why Charge Them Now? What About the Torture? Col. Dan Smith The Psychology of Killing: Close In or Far Away? Ronnie Cummins Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road Ralph Nader Open the Government John V. Walsh Antiwarriors, Divided and Conquered Dave Lindorff Obama and Progressive Change: Let's Hope the Movement Transforms the Candidate Michael Donnelly Who's Pimping Whom? The Clintons' Selective No Talk Rules Ron Jacobs La Lucha Continua: Castro's "Life" Ben Tripp Beggars Collide Website of the Day Springsteen and Youngstown   February 11, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Lessons for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate? Wajahat Ali A Discussion with Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby Ray McGovern Waterboarding for God and Country Allan Nairn The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta Uri Avnery An End Foreseen? Chris Floyd American Psycho: the Meaning of Mitt Romney's Exit Speech Martha Rosenberg School Lessons in a Lunchbox: Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows Stephen Fleischman The Bonnie and Clyde of American Politics Marc Lamont Hill Not My Brand of Hope Liliana Segura Obama and Torture: the Sounds of Silence and Equivocation Peter Morici Challenges for the New President Christopher Brauchli A Drug Rant from a Former Taker Website of the Day Annie vs. the Blue Angels   February 8 / 10, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Does the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves? Patrick Cockburn Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold? Mike Whitney The Great Bust of '08 Anthony DiMaggio How the Press Covers Waterboarding Andy Worthington The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists? Linn Cohen-Cole Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto? Firmin DeBrabander Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency Cpt. Paul Watson The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering and Deaths of the Great Whales Kenneth S. Pope Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association Jacob G. Hornberger American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy Robert Bryce Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ... Then What? P. Sainath The Last of the Buccaneer Editors Allan Nairn Give Me Back My Land Fred Gardner / Pebbles Trippet "The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the Law!" Andrew Wimmer Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death Robert Fantina America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr David Michael Green Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves Kevin Zeese Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd? Peter Morici Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence Chris Driscoll Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008? Prairie Miller Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen Poets Basement Davies and Buknatski   February 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Why Baghdad Will Explode Again Bill Christison Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians David Anderson NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for the Sake of Ratings Ron Jacobs Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing Jane Rockefeller The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation Andy Worthington On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden Dave Zirin Instep Intifada Saul Landau The "Honestest" Candidate Since Lincoln Susie Day Our Blob in the White House Website of the Day George Carlin on Voting   February 6, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Super Tuesday's Vote for Chaos Ben Rosenfeld Informant Games: The Disturbing GreenScare Case of Briana Waters Vijay Prashad An Intellectual Hustler Lays It All Out Joe Bageant Nine Billion Little Feet on the Highway of the Damned Michael Donnelly What White Women Do In Private Voting Booths Allan Nairn Does the US Need a Civilizing Mayan Invasion? Kathryn Gray Wilderness on Edge: The Fate of Donner Summit Ray McGovern Powell's UN Fiasco Sheldon Richman The Whining Empire Paul Cantor / Roger Sparks A Presidential Aptitude Examination John Chuckman Political Bits and Pieces Website of the Day Save the Albatross February 5, 2008 Winslow T. Wheeler The Chaos in America's Vast Security Budget Tariq Ali Why I Will Not Participate in the Turin Book Fair Stephen Soldz The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq: Did Rumsfeld Authorize War Crimes? Chris Floyd Strange Fruit: America's Gulag and the Good War William S. Lind Saddam's Secret War Strategy: Die and Win Martha Rosenberg Live From the Killing Floor Heather Gray Conversations with Georgia Voters Ayesha Ijaz Khan Obama, Bhagwandas and the Battle for a Secular Politics David Macaray Unions Need to Stop Being So Nice Eliza Ernshire Making Music and Laughing Till the Tears Run Brenda Norrell Hated Nation Website of the Day The Things I Used to Do     February 4, 2008 Marc Levy Winter in America Patrick Cockburn The Bird Market Bombings Saree Makdisi Strangling Gaza Uri Avnery From Stalingrad to Winograd Alan Farago Let's Get Bambi! Someone is Slaughtering Florida's Key Deer Ben Tripp Spare Change: the Whine of the Progressive Voter Paul Wolf Civil Wars North and South Paul Craig Roberts Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed? Joshua Frank MoveOn's Obama Endorsement: Why There's No Hope for Change John Halle Whither Progressive Democrats? Website of the Day How to Cheat in School   February 2 / 3, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Hot Democratic Properties Pam Martens Bankers Gone Bonkers: Global Finance and the Insanity Defense Ralph Nader The Great Clinton-Obama Debate: Questions They Weren't Asked John Ross Hilaria vs. "El Moreno" Wajahat Ali Hillary, Obama and the Clash of Civilizations: an Interview with Imam Zaid Shakir Robert Fantina A Colony by Any Other Name: Iraq as Stepchild of the American Empire B. R. Gowani Not All Veils and Guns James L. Secor China in Winter: On the Western Edge of the Great Snow John V. Walsh The Invisible Green Primary Niranjan Ramakrishnan Barack's Bubble, Bubba's Trouble Dave Zirin Who Stole the Super Bowl's Soul? Jeremy Scahill Blackwater and Blood Fidel Castro Reflections on Lula Joe Allen Tet Reconsidered: the Turning Point in the Vietnam War Stephen Lendman Life in Occupied Gaza Patrick Irelan What Happened to the Streetcars? Andrej Grubacic Ziga Vodovnik Caligula's Horse: the USA, New Europe and Kosovo Josh Karpoff Dead Soldiers and the Antiwar Movement Ron Jacobs Carl Oglesby's War Paul Krassner Tom Waits Meets Super-Joel Website of the Weekend Company Woman: Hillary and Wal-Mart   February 1, 2008 Ray McGovern The Iniquities and Inequalities of War Diane Farsetta The Wild Career of James "Dow 36,000" Glassman Patrick Cockburn The Most Dangerous Country in the World for Journalists Tariq Ali Et Tu, New York Times? Allan Nairn Eating Dirt for Lunch in Haiti Rannie Amiri Collective Punishment in Beirut Ramzy Baroud People Power in Gaza: They Simply Did It Kenneth Couesbouc The Mother of All Snowballs Peter Morici Recession Looms Mumia Abu-Jamal Witha "Brutha" Like This: Bill Clinton as White Negro Rosemary Jackowski 27 Reasons Nader Should Run for President Scott Campbell Direct Action to Stop the War Re-emerges Website of the Day Betes et Hommes   January 31, 2008 Saul Landau Return to Afghanistan Andy Worthington Horror at Guantánamo Mike Whitney Rate Cut as Dagger: America's Teetering Banking System Jeff Ballinger Sustainability for Dictators Initiative? Clinton Praises the "Suharto of the Steppe" Tiffany Ten Eyck The Saga of the Freightliner Five William Loren Katz Waterboarding: Torure or Mystery? Alan Farago Why the Republicans are in Deep Trouble Col. Dan Smith Oh Say Can You See the 2009 Budget? China Hand Slouching Toward Islamabad Dave Lindorff The Usual Suspects Once Again Wadner Pierre Fake Democracy in Haiti Website of the Day One Big Union   January 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair McCain vs. Clinton? Christopher Ketcham The Genius of the Development Industrial-Complex Robert Weissman America By the Numbers: The Shameful State of the Union Neve Gordon An Experiment in Famine Paul Craig Roberts Regulation or Deregulation, Which is Worse? Joanne Mariner How Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Free Speech David Macaray Labor's Only Real Weapon Liaquat Ali Khan Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan? Raymond J. Lawrence Prankster-in-Chief: Bush's Troubling Non-Verbal Communication Dan Bacher The Collapse of the Central Valley Salmon Website of the Day Onward Through the Fog   January 29, 2008 Franklin C. Spinney Bush's New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off Mike Whitney The Great Credit Unwind of 2008 Alan Farago Buyer Beware: Florida, the Candidates and the Latin Builders Association Patrick Cockburn "The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction" Gary Leupp "We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans:" a Sibel Edmonds Timeline R. F. Blader A World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania Ahmad Faruqui Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect Fran Shor Obama, the Kennedys and "Change We Can Believe In" Jeremy Scahill Secret Trials and Criminal Convictions: the Ordeal of the Blackwater Protesters Allan Nairn Bush's SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All Website of the Day The Ghost of Rambo   January 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Return to Fallujah Paul Craig Roberts The End of American Liberty Allan Nairn The Breaking of the Gaza Wall Eyad al-Sarraj / Sara Roy Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza Martha Rosenberg Obit for the "Front Page" City Corporate Crime Reporter How They Rip Us Off David Michael Green Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War Jennifer Van Bergen What's Left? Nancy Oden Survival Tips for Hard Times Divya Karnad Saving India's Sea Turtles James L. Secor Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp Website of the Day Yellow Journalism?         Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition March 1 / 2, 2008 Spain's Reconquest of Mexico Through Deep Pocket Investments and High Fashion Clothing Lines The New Conquistadores By JOHN ROSS Mexico City. When Christopher Columbus sailed out of the port of Huelva on Spain's Atlantic coast in 1492, heading east towards the Mysterious Orient to conquer new markets for his king and queen, the business of his mission was business, and, after accidentally bumping into the New World en route, Columbus and his bosses did exactly what any average avaricious businessperson would do - they set up shop on American shores, stole the gold, slaughtered the Indians, and converted those who remained to the Spaniards' brand of God. By 1519, on the Good Friday morning that Hernan Cortez dropped anchor off Veracruz, that business had flourished into an empire. Cortez, a private entrepreneur, set out to conquer Mexico in a prototypical hostile takeover. His weapons were the Cross and the Cannon and the Plague, his horses, bristly beards, and clunky suits of armor - and the treachery of those native peoples who had grown disaffected with Aztec domination, and, in the end, he toppled Moctezuma's dynasty, took over the franchise, and re-named the place, what else? New Spain. 500 years down history's highway, the Conquistadores have returned to the New World. From Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego, the "Reconquista" is in full swing: *Item - Repsol, the Spanish energy consortium, signs fat contracts with Argentina, battles Evo Morales for the right to exploit Bolivia's immense natural gas deposits, and is in the mix to pick up a chunk of the about-to-be privatized Mexican giant, PEMEX. *Item - "Shut up!" Spanish King Juan Carlos de Borbon imperially snaps at Hugo Chavez as if he were a "zambo" (black) servant at an Ibero-American summit last fall. The Ibero-American summits are instrumental to the Spanish Crown's strategy to take its historical place as the principal overseas power in the Americas. *Item - Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapotero offers to send troops to the borders of Colombia to defend President Alvaro Uribe, an important trading partner, against Chavez's red hordes. "200 years later, the Conquistadores have returned to defend their investments," Colombian novelist Laura Restrepo snorts, her nationalist hackles inflamed. "It's ridiculous. Colombia is as dependent on Spanish investment as it was when Simon Bolivar rose against the Crown." Spanish "Gachupines" (spur wearers) are hated only slightly less than North American "gringos" in Latin America. Here in Mexico City, the gleaming new Spanish Cultural Center towers between the ruins of the Aztecs' "Templo Mayor" (Great Temple), which the Conquistadores once leveled, and the Metropolitan Cathedral, built up from the ruins of the temple to celebrate their Christian god. It's almost as if the Spanish Crown never left New Spain. The Spaniards landed on these shores in many waves. After the Conquistadores came the colonos who blended into the criollos - the Spanish born in America. Intermarrying with indigenous royalty as symbolized by Cortez and his consort Malinche, the Europeans and the Indians supposedly produced a "Cosmic Race" - but the divide yawns large between the tiny white "Spanish" overclass and the dusky Indian and mestizo masses. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Mexico's then-"Bolshevik" president Lazaro Cardenas offered sanctuary to 50,000 Republican refugees. Although their grandparents arrived on these shores penniless, the scions of those refugees have become wealthy industrialists, lauded intellectuals, and fine restaurateurs - paella and fabada are on the menu every day in the better restaurants of this capital's old quarter. The "Re-Conquista" of Mexico has not come with the Cross and the Plague this time around - Zara, the high-end Spanish clothing line and deep pockets investment have proven more effective weapons of conquest. Spain is now the number two foreign investor in Mexico, right behind the U.S.A. and trade between the two countries has boomed from $1.5 billion USD ten years ago to over $6 billion last year. Spanish banks - Santander and BBV (which owns Bancomer, Mexico's second bank) now account for 40% of the Mexican banking business with 14,000,000 customers. Spanish corporations now run Mexico's airports - the moment you touch down in Mexico, your security is provided for by the Madrid-based Eulen Corporation, which also provides security for the soon-to-be-privatized oil monopoly, PEMEX. 20 million Chilangos (Mexico City residents) ride Spanish subway cars to and from work every day. Mexicans could not cook without Gas Natural provided to their kitchens by the Spanish energy company that does business under that name. Nor could many locals turn on the lights without buying the wattage from three major Spanish electricity purveyors - Iberdrola, Union Fenosa, and Gas Natural - who control 70% of private electricity generation in Mexico, about a third of the total customers. Spanish publishing kingpin Prisa dominates the Mexican textbook industry and is building a communications conglomerate that includes daily newspapers and a chain of radio stations. Spanish hoteliers like Sol Melia motor the tourist industry, having all but annexed the Mayan Rivera along the Caribbean coast of Quintana Roo next door to Cancun. Spanish entrepreneurs control 127 hotels with a capacity of 50,000 rooms nightly. SpainBusiness.com buys up the back covers of every glossy magazine on the rack. And, of course, Repsol is on tap to pick up a piece of PEMEX once that petroleum giant gets privatized. On the other end of the socio-economic spectrum, Spanish solidarity with the rebel Zapatista Army of National Liberation has been vital to keeping the Indians' flame alive. The re-conquest of Mexico was spurred by two-term Prime Minister Jose Marie Aznar, whose right-wing Popular Party replaced the post-Franco regime of Felipe Gonzalez in 1996. Early on in his reign, Aznar astutely struck an alliance with right-wing Mexican counterparts in the PAN party with the intention of reviving the Christian Democrat movement in Latin America as a personal powerbase. The Spanish Prime Minister found a perfect foil in ex-President Vicente Fox who now heads up the Christian Democrat directorate in the Americas - the PAN's former party boss Manuel Espino is the secretary general of the ODCA (Organization of Christian Democrats of the Americas) During the run-up to the hectic 2006 presidential election here, Aznar flew to Mexico to personally endorse Fox's successor Felipe Calderon and condemn leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) in violation of Constitutional article 33 that bars intervention in Mexican politics by "extranjeros" (lit. "strangers" or foreigners.) Since the Aznar government was displaced from power in the aftermath of the Madrid terrorist bombings in March 2004 by the so-called "Socialist Workers Party" (PSOE), the right-wing PP has pushed further right, embracing a troglodyte Catholic hierarchy, championing the "victims" of Basque separatists, attacking the wearing of the "hijab" in public schools, and lending credibility to a Falange-like "National Democracy" movement, a crypto-fascist, pro-Franco coalition of neo-Nazis that brought Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke to Barcelona last year. Now Aznar's surrogate, Mariano Rajoy, is poised to return to power in March 8th elections when he takes on the weak-kneed Zapotero. The Spanish Right, lineal descendants of Francisco Franco, is consolidating in their former colony across the Atlantic too. In January, dubiously-elected president Felipe Calderon appointed his young chief of staff, Juan Camilo Mourino, a Spanish citizen, as Secretary of Interior ("Gubernacion"), "the second most powerful position in Mexico" (dixit Mourino's hometown newspaper in Vigo, Spain.) Interior is responsible for the conduct of politics in Mexico in addition to overseeing the justice and security apparatuses. Juan Camilo, 35, a thin-lipped, beady-eyed young man whose pals call "Ivan El Fino" ("Ivan the Fine") was born in Madrid in 1971 to a tycoon father with vast holdings in Galicia, a wealthy north Atlantic province, and a mother who claims to have been born in Mexico City although the family has yet to produce a birth certificate - the "Faro de Vigo" ("The Vigo Lighthouse"), that port's daily, insists Mourino's mama is a native of Avion, a Galician farm town. The distinction is significant, at least to young Mourino's political fortunes. The Mexican Constitution bars the holding of high office to anyone who cannot establish that at least one of his or her parents was born on Mexican soil. Although Juan Camilo swore in as a Mexican citizen when he turned 18 in 1989, questions remain. In August 1996, "El Fino" used a Spanish passport to enter Mexico according to press reports - which automatically disqualifies him from Mexican citizenship, opines Dr. Elisur Arteaga, a leading constitutionalist lawyer. In order to become a Mexican citizen under Article 32 of the Constitution, one most renounce his or hers' previous citizenship, observes National Autonomous University law professor John Ackerman. If, indeed, Mourino is not a citizen he must give up his Interior Ministry post and, once more, could not run for president to succeed Calderon in 2012 which many think is his ultimate destiny - the Interior Ministry is historically a springboard to the presidency. The Mourino family emigrated from Galicia in 1978, not long after Franco was finally buried. Juan Camilo's father - Carlos Mourino Andantes - is deeply invested in developing the Galician coastline and has long-standing ties with ultra-rightist Manuel Fraga, Franco's one-time tourist minister, and the deposed boss of provincial politics. In a recent interview with the Faro de Vigo, young Mourino compared himself to the thousands of "sons of Galicia" who have been forced to leave their homeland to find fortune across the seas. Defending his choice of Mexican citizenship, he told the paper "it is not just that I am naturalized by Mexico but I feel Mexican in the marrow of my bones." The Mourino fortune has blossomed on both sides of the Atlantic. In Campeche, the Yucatan peninsula state where the family set up housekeeping, the Mourino's' GES group ("Grupo Energetico de Sureste") runs a string of 38 gasoline stations and has nailed lucrative transportation contracts from PEMEX. GES is now partnering with a Spanish group headed by the elder Mourino to open up the Mexican wind energy market (Iberdrola, the Spanish electricity powerhouse, runs a huge wind farm on the Oaxacan isthmus.) Back in the old country, the Mourino family has controlling interest in Galicia's top steelworks and has made a fresh fortune in prime real estate development but Carlos Mourino's investment in the local soccer franchise, Celta de Vigo, has been troubled - The team's management is accused of illegally contracting players and scandal brews around land purchased for a new stadium site. In late January, Juan Camilo reportedly flew over to Vigo for a 24-hour visit to cheer on his beloved Celta but the team lost and was demoted to the second division. To consolidate their political power, the New Conquistadores need the power of the press. Prisa, the media empire built by the late Jesus de Polanco, publisher of El Pais, Spain's paper of record, and driven by its publishing arm Santillana, has taken on the task. Santillana publishes about 40% of all Mexican textbooks and 11 out of 40 basic primary school texts for the Secretary of Public Education (SEP) plus ten top non-academic imprints. Some commentators like Julio Hernandez, dean of political columnists for the left daily La Jornada, speculate that El Pais's poison-pen, anti-Lopez Obrador tilt in the disputed 2006 election was inspired by Santillana's expectations of expanded SEP contracts if Calderon was awarded the presidency. Prisa's support for Calderon is emblematic of the way the Spaniards do business in new Latin American markets, ventures Proceso magazine media writer Jenaro Villamil - accommodate those in charge regardless of their political vision. Business is business. On the newspaper side, Prisa publishes a daily Mexican edition of El Pais which doesn't sell nearly as many copies as the conglom's other venture, "La Prensa", a blood smeared scandal sheet in which the gachupines hold a 49% interest and is the biggest selling paper in the country. El Pais also publishes newspapers further south and has a controlling interest in Bolivia's "La Razon" which that nation's ambassador to Mexico, Jorge Mansilla, accuses of backing secessionist states in the Andean country's current constitutional head to head. Prisa also partners with mega-communication corporation Televisa in an international chain of radio stations that includes Radio Caracol in Colombia and outlets in Venezuela, Panama, Argentina, and Miami. In Mexico, the Prisa-Televisa station is the "W", Televisa Radio's bedraggled flagship station. Six years ago, when Carmen Aristegui, a fresh-faced and fearless reporter, signed on and turned the 6 Am to 10 AM slot into the most listened-to news broadcast on Mexican radio, the W's fortunes began to soar. But Aristegui transgressed during the 2006 electoral donnybrook, when she exposed cybernetic fraud engineered by Calderon's brother-in-law - Aristegui was the only mainstream media voice to question the election's legitimacy and often gave Lopez Obrador a platform. But her greatest sin was to diss the so-called "Televisa Law" that gave the TV monopoly a renewable 30-year concession on the entire electro-magnetic spectrum, the property of the nation. This January, after months of behind the scene hassling, Carmen Aristegui was finally silenced. Although Prisa, which built its credibility on opposition to Franco's authoritarianism, fought to keep the popular reporter on the air - sign-waving protestors were banging on the studio doors - Televisa prevailed. Business is business. That's just what Columbus and Cortez concluded five centuries ago when they set out to conquer the New World for Spain the first time around. John Ross is currently slumming in northern California in anticipation of his 70th birthday bash Sunday March 9th at the Café Boheme on 24th and Mission (4 to 8 PM.) Be there or be cuadrado.

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