How
the Press &
the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Today's
Stories
December 30,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Unbecoming
Conduct
December 29,
2004
Dave Lindorff
Us,
Stingy?: It's All Relative
M. Shahid Alam
America
and Islam: Seeking Parallels
Ronald D. Hoffman
Tsunamis
and Nuclear Power Plants
Sam Bahour
/ Todd May
Elections
Without Democracy
Fred Gardner
Ricky Does 60 Minutes
Ali Khan
Who's Feeding the Bin Laden Legend?
John Hansen
Family Farms Are Being Fed to Corporate Sharks
Sam Lewin
How the Justice Department Continues to Screw the Sioux
Richard Oxman
As Time Goes By With Andy Goldsworthy
Mickey Z.
A Wave of Questions: Putting a Disaster in Context
Website of the Day
Banking While Muslim
December 28,
2004
Brian Cloughley
The
Chief Weirdo at the Pentagon: Rumsfeld Must Go
Joshua Frank
Privacy Piracy? What Howard Dean May Bring to the DNC
Jessica Leight
The
Chilean Miracle: Less Than Meets the Eye
Dave Lindorff
A
Shameful Response to Disaster
John Walsh
Disappearing the Anti-War Movement at the NYTs
Dave Zirin
The Death of Reggie White: an Off the Field Obituary
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Be Careful Not to Get Too Much Education: It's Happened to a
Lot of Good Christians
Ron Jacobs
Iran
2004: The Resistance and the Western Anti-War Movement
December 27,
2004
M. Junaid Alam
"Civilization
v. Barbarism": an Interview with Noam Chomsky
Michael Donnelly
Greens and Greenbacks: How Nonprofit Careerism Derailed the "Revolution"
Greg Moses
Texas Election Scandal: Forty Faxes and a Whisper
Toni Solo
Colombia's Appalling Vista: Justice With Eyes Wide Open
Brian Kwoba
Blaming the Victims of the 2004 Elections
Genna Goodman-Campbell
Honduras Validates Its Banana Republic Status, Again
Mike Whitney
Disappearing Act: Fallujah and the Media
Ari Shavit
"Zionism Has Exhausted Itself": an Interview with Amos
Elon
Richard Oxman
Reflections on a Handful of Activists
Saul Landau
James
Cason's Cuban Delusions
December 25
/ 26, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Yup,
It's Moral Outrage Time
Diane Christian
The Christmas Christ
Dr. Susan Block
Faith-Based Sex
Gary Leupp
Rumsfeld, His Critics and the Draft
Ron Jacobs
Music in Wartime
Elaine Cassel
Articles I Didn't Write
Jim Minick
Beyond Organic
Poets Basement
Louise, Landau, Orloski, Albert
and Collins
December 24,
2004
Diane Christian
Winning:
Rummy and John Milton
Chad Nagle
Ukraine's
Real Underdog
Saul Landau
My Friend Richard Barnet
Greg Moses
Ramsey Muniz Speaks
Joe DeRaymond
The Endless War in Colombia: a View From Within
Borzou Daragahi
Iraq's Christians: Tolerated by Saddam; Targets Under Occupation
Mike Whitney
Rummy's Quagmire of Lies
Francis A. Boyle
O Little Town of Bethlehem: Another Christmas Under Occupation
William Loren
Katz
Florida 1837: Christmas Eve Resistance to the First US Occupation
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
December 20,
2004
Gary Leupp
Japan
in Iraq
Robert Fisk
An
Army Without Compassion
Uri Avnery
The Mountain and the Mouse
Francisco Letelier
My Case Against Pinochet
Patrick Cockburn
The Polls of Fear
Bill Conroy
Charles Bowden on the Legacy of Gary Webb: "He Drew Blood"
Yoshie Furuhashi
Chokeholds of a Giant: Attacking Wal-Mart's Supply Chain
David Swanson
Media Blackout of Bush's War on Labor
Chad Nagle
Did Yushchenko Poison Himself?
December 18
/ 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
They Hated Gary Webb
Saul Landau
Gen.
Pinochet Should Also Face Charges in DC
Patrick Cockburn
Losing
Mosul: Once They Called It a Model for the Occupation
Douglas Valentine
Wolves
and Revolution in Venezuela: a Caracas Romance
Ray McGovern
Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear: the New China / Russia Alliance
Fred Gardner
DEA Upholds Grower's Marijuana Monopoly
Jean-Guy Allard
Locked Up Naked in a Hole Within a Hole: Have the Cuban 5 Been
Tortured in US Prisons?
Ron Jacobs
Drifters Escape, Again: Encounters with Berkeley's Police
Raymond G.
Helmick, S.J.
The Law and Peace in the Middle East
Sean Sellers
Values Voters, Desperate Housewives and Sweatshop Tacos
Lee Sustar
Christmas
on the Picket Line at CNH: "They Want to Break Our Unions"
Richard Thieme
Webb's Wife: "Gary Was Never the Same After They Attacked
Him"
Sam Bahour
WANTED:
Middle East Negotiator
Joshua Frank
The
Spin Doctor: an Interview with Mickey Z.
Dave Lindorff
A Man Who Confers with God Should Have Good Hearing
Stan Cox
What Kids Cost: Dallas v. Delhi
Chris Frasier
Farming By Numbers: More Poets, Fewer MBAs
Poets' Basement
Katz, Melek, Harley, Albert and Ford
December
17, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
CounterAttack:
How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Dave Lindorff
Racism:
Philly Style
Dan Bacher
Bush Abandons Salmon Restoration
Marisa Jacott
NAFTA and the Environment: Trade Still Runs Roughshod
Francis Thicke
How Now, Industrial Cow?
Rupert Cornwell
The Inuit Strike Back
Website of the Day
Franz Boas Unrolls Over in His Grave
December
16, 2004
Michael
Neumann
How We Became Barbarians
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Ralph Nader
Gabriel
Espinoza Gonzales
The Dubious Career of John Bolton
Christopher
Brauchli
Louis Freeh's New Gig: Usurer
Patrick
Cockburn
Allawi's Pre-Election Ploy: Putting "Chemical Ali"
on Trial
Mike
Whitney
Gearing Up for a Draft?
Walter
Brasch
Hillbilly Humvees and Rumsfeld's New Physics
Bill
Conroy
How Gary Webb Saved My Ass from the FBI
Website
of the Day
Saturday Memorial for Gary Webb
December
15, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Who Killed Baha Mousa?
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Monster Under the Bed
Heather
Gray
Will the Real Christians Please Stand?: a Personal Testimony
Dave
Lindorff
The DNC, Albright and the Iraq Elections
Luis
Hernandez Navarro
To Die a Little: Migration and Coffee
in Mexico and Central America
Joshua
Frank
The Ohio Recount: an Exercise in "Dumbocracy"
Greg
Moses
Eighty-Sixing Civil Rights in Ohio?
George
Caffentzis
The Petroleum Commons
December
14, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
DNC Meddling in the Ukraine Elections
Larry
Birns / Seth DeLong
Haiti is Unraveling and No One is Saying
Anything
Richard
Thieme
My Last Talk with Gary Webb: "I Knew It Was the Truth and
That's What Kept Me Going"
Patrick
Cockburn
A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq
is Getting Worse
Chris
Floyd
Client State: Moral Values and Voluntary Servitude in Bush's
America
Akiva
Eldar
A One-time Hanukkah Miracle
Burbach
/ Cantor
The Legacy of Pinochet: Kissinger
and the Teflon Tyrant
December
13, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Gary Webb: a Great Reporter, Trashed
by the CIA's Claque
David
Phinney
"Contract Meal Disaster" for Iraqi Prisoners: Rancid
Food Sparked Abu Ghraib Riots
Paul
Craig Roberts
A Dose of Non-Delusional Reality
for Douglas Feith
M.
Junaid Alam
The War is the War Crime
Robert
Jensen
The US Has Lost the Iraq War...and That's a Good Thing
Richard
Oxman
Kafkaesque Lessons for the Left
Greg
Moses
Send No Messengers of Defeat
Douglas
Lummis
The Pentagon's Neurosis: Fallujah
Gulag
December
11 / 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Running an Empire on the Cheap
Ron
Jacobs
The Drugs of War: Getting High in the Green Zone?
Saul
Landau
Listening and Talking to God About
Invading Other Countries
Gary
Leupp
Bush's Capital
Sharon
Smith
The Horrible Toll on US Troops
Dave
Lindorff
Deja Vu All Over Again: 5,000 Desertions and Counting
Uri
Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Crazy
Jude
Wanniski
The Neo-Con Smear on Kofi Annan: What Food-for-Oil Scandal?
Heather
Gray
How the South Became Republican: an Interview with John Egerton
Patrick
Cockburn / Ken Sengupta
Fallujah: the Homecoming and the Homeless
John
Pilger
Return to Kosovo: Calling the Humanitarian Bombers to Account
Joshua
Frank
All the Rage: Mr. Solomon, Say You're Sorry
Ben
Tripp
O Canada!: the Truth About the Election of 2004
John
Stanton
God Speaks!
Laura
Nathan
Porn Stars are People, Too: a Talk with Christi Lake
Poets'
Basement
Capaccio, Davies, Louise, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Day
Fallujah Photos: Killed in Their Beds
December
10, 2004
Ralph
Nader
President Bush, Stop Destroying the
Mosques of Iraq
Greg
Moses
Whitewashing Voter Fraud
Nicole
Colson
Rebellion in the Ranks: Grunts Are Resisting Stop-Loss Orders
Frederick
B. Hudson
"They Still Got Those Dogs": A New Book Probes Old
Civil Rights Lessons
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Insurgents Oppose the Occupation, Not the Elections
Kathy
Kelly
From Haiti to Iraq: Burying Water
December
9, 2004
Greg
Moses
Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah
Joshua
Frank
Cobb and the Ohio Recount: Vote Fraud as Fundraiser!
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush: It's Time to
Disclose the Real Casualty Figures
Lee
Sustar
Bhopal: the Making of a Disaster
Tom
Barry
Restrictionist Resurgence
Mickey
Z.
Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth Movement
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush in the Bubble
Mark
Donham
Why are House Democrats Trying to
Deny Cynthia McKinney Seniority?
Gary
Corseri
On the Anniversary of John Lennon's Death, 2012
Paul
de Rooij
The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers
December
8, 2004
Ralph
Nader
Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge?
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
Paul
Craig Roberts
War Crime
Dave
Lindorff
They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for
Spying
Patrick
Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe
CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
Col.
Dan Smith
Rules of Engagement in Iraq
Emily
Alves / Michael Johnson
Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica
Richard
Oxman
The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas
Ron
Jacobs
In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
December 30, 2004
NAFTA Through a Gender Lens
What
"Free Trade" Pacts Mean for Women
By
ALEXANDRA SPIELDOCH
It has been nearly ten years since the
Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China and the U.S.
government's ratification of the Beijing Platform for Action.
To commemorate the occasion, analysts and organizations have
begun to assess the expected gains in preparation for the UN
Commission on the Status of Women meeting in March, 2005.
One fact stands out: in the
area of the macroeconomy, women in the U.S. and abroad have experienced
major shifts, many of them negative. These shifts have occurred
in employment, consumption, and general well-being for women,
their families, and their communities. Some of the shifts can
be linked to NAFTA and other free trade agreements, while other
trends are part of the long-term privatization and deregulation
agenda (implemented in the U.S. since the 1980s) that forms the
foundation for much of the U.S. trade agenda in key sectors such
as services, agriculture, and investment.
Making Macroeconomics
a Women's Issue
Prior to the World Conference
on Women in Beijing in 1995, few in the U.S. women's movement
were focused on macro-economic questions. Women's traditional
focus had been on national poverty and economic justice. In Beijing
, however, activists and policy analysts pushed the U.S. government
to agree to language acknowledging the sometimes negative impact
of macroeconomic policies on women globally and to bring gender
concerns into all levels of macroeconomic decisionmaking. Some
examples of the commitments the U.S. government made in Beijing
in the area of poverty and the economy include:1
* Revising laws and administrative
practices to ensure women's equal rights and access to economic
resources;
* Developing gender-based methodologies
to conduct research to address the feminization of poverty;
* Promoting women's economic
rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate
working conditions, and control over economic resources;
* Facilitating women's equal
access to resources, employment, markets, and trade;
* Eliminating occupational
segregation and all forms of employment discrimination;
* Promoting harmonization of
work and family responsibilities for women and men (i.e. labor
protections, job benefits, parental leave, education reform,
and technological innovation).
From a structural analysis,
the Beijing Platform recognized the need for strong national
programs on the advancement of women and the promotion of gender
equality, which require political commitment at the highest level.
Such commitment includes monitoring policies, introducing and
implementing legislation, programs and capacity building, as
well as public dialogue on gender equality as a societal goal.
The results have been less
than satisfying. On a global level, there has been an increase
in economic disparities among and within countries. Increasingly,
nation states are unable to provide social protections, social
security, or funding to implement the Platform. The shift of
service provision from the public sphere to the household, and
inadequate attention to the different nature of work for women
and men (remunerated and unremunerated, formal and informal),
are having a disproportionately negative impact on women.
Ten years after Beijing , U.S.
women in solidarity with their sisters in other parts of the
world are assessing progress in the area of the economy--not
only for themselves, but for their families and their communities.
In the United States , it is clear that the government has not
lived up to the promises made in Beijing .
Despite advocacy from national
women's, development, labor, and human rights groups, since Beijing
Washington has done little to incorporate a gender analysis into
its macroeconomic policies and into decisionmaking processes,
nor has it acknowledged that its trade policies are having a
negative and heavier impact on women and children than on men.
It is no surprise that trade
necessarily affects women differently than men because of their
different and often secondary social status in the economy. In
employment, women tend to hold different positions than men,
they receive less pay than men, and they are often the first
laid off when companies downsize. Women are more likely to move
in and out of the formal and informal sectors as they struggle
to balance work and family with little federal support. Women
and children are also the most negatively affected when social
programs are privatized and/or deregulated. This can raise the
cost of provision, making it impossible for families to receive
proper care and assistance.
Many women of color are even
harder hit by negative economic trends than white women, since
shifts in the economy have differential impacts based on race
and class. As trade drives the global economic agenda of the
U.S. government and, to a certain degree, its national and foreign
policy, U.S. women's voices from a race, class, and gender perspective
are critical for identifying positive goals and implementation
processes.
A gender perspective must also
take into account environmental and sustainable development goals
to create a comprehensive quality-of-life assessment. Solutions
also should be developed with such a comprehensive understanding
in mind.
NAFTA Through
a Gender Lens
The U.S. Government ratified
NAFTA with Canada and Mexico in 1993. Ten years later, the administration
considers it a success and uses it as the blueprint for other
trade negotiations.
When it was being drafted,
policymakers predicted that NAFTA would open borders, narrow
the gap between rich and poor within and among the three countries,
and create new jobs. The results of NAFTA paint a different picture.
Goods are able to cross the borders, but people are not. Thousands
of undocumented workers try to get into the United States every
day and are turned back. Additionally, hundreds of undocumented
workers are killed each year trying to cross the border from
Mexico into the U.S.
The gap between the haves and
have-nots has widened in all the NAFTA countries. Millions of
jobs have been lost across the three NAFTA countries. The nature
of work has changed as well.
The supposed gains from NAFTA
have not been realized and this has left many people concerned
about the current and future direction of trade rules that use
NAFTA as a model. Within this analysis, different sectors of
civil society--including labor and environmental groups--emphasize
the negative effects of NAFTA from their particular angle. As
vital actors in the changes, women have begun to do the same.
Preliminary statistics from
a gender perspective offer compelling evidence that in the United
States and the other signatory countries the differential impact
of NAFTA on the quality of peoples' lives, on the environment,
and on sustainable development is often very negative. Some statistics
in the areas of labor, agriculture, and migration follow.
Labor
In the U.S., job loss has occurred
in key sectors such as steel and textile manufacturing. The nature
of work has also shifted over time from being primarily stable,
long-term positions to work that is flexible, precarious, and
tenuous. U.S.-owned multinationals have found it economically
advantageous to shift production to Mexico and other places in
the Global South where they can bypass labor and environmental
regulations. This production model has resulted in weaker unions,
flexible, tenuous labor with less benefits, and job loss. The
following statistics demonstrate the losses:
* In the United States , all
50 states have experienced job loss under NAFTA. The industrial
states have experienced noticeable decreases in employment as
industry has moved to Mexico .2 Many women who have lost jobs
in the manufacturing sector and found new jobs in the service
industry suffer a decrease in wages and stability.3 For example,
Registered Nurses are increasingly contracted as part-time employees
with no benefits and no overtime --as of 2000, 97.8% of the more
than 2.6 million Registered Nurses in the U.S. are women.4
* In the state of Texas, for
example, more than 17,000 garment manufacturing jobs have been
lost as firms relocated to Mexico, and now China. Most of the
workers affected by this transnational shift in production are
first-generation Mexican women, many of whom are illiterate,
speak little English, and have few prospects for finding comparable
work.5
In 1996, the maquila
industry in Mexico accounted for over U.S. $29 billion in annual
export earnings and trailed only petroleum-related industries
in economic importance.6 Although growing numbers of men now
work in the maquiladora sector, almost 70% of the maquila
workforce in Mexico is comprised of women.7 Working conditions
in the maquilas are often unsafe for women and adolescent
girls. Women have been denied fair working conditions and wages
as a direct result of the type of foreign direct investment that
was implemented under NAFTA. The jobs created under NAFTA did
not improve the living conditions for many Mexican women workers
who may be receiving a salary but work in precarious and unsafe
conditions with social costs to their lives and that of their
families related to violence, scarcity, long hours and forced
overtime, and other hardships.8
Agriculture
Agricultural export-led production,
as encouraged under NAFTA and promoted in other FTAs that the
U.S. has initiated, largely favors U.S.-owned agribusiness by
maintaining domestic supports and unfair subsidies while at the
same time forcing open export markets. This model has changed
the nature of farming and food production. Shifts in agricultural
ownership and production over time have all but eliminated small
family farming in the United States and largely wiped out the
small farmers in Mexico 's rural sector. In addition, both prices
for commodities and family farm incomes have plummeted and threats
to the environment have increased.9
A few statistics on rural employment,
environmental, food security, and gender-specific concerns are
included below:
* U.S. export-led production
has driven down prices relative to costs and created massive
rural unemployment in Mexico. For example, Mexican corn farmers
comprise 29% of rural unemployment as a direct result of U.S.
corn production under NAFTA.10
* Chemical fertilizers are
used on the vast majority of U.S. corn crops. The run-off is
a major source of water pollution, affecting drinking water throughout
the cornbelt in the center of the country. Run-off into the Mississippi
River contributes to a well-documented "dead zone"
in the Gulf of Mexico, an area the size of a small U.S. state
in which all life has been killed off."11
* Despite U.S. citizen's concerns
about the potential health dangers of genetically modified crops,
over 30% of U.S. corn production and over 70% of soy production
is genetically modified.12
* Approximately 1.2 billion
pounds of pesticides are used each year in the U.S., roughly
75% in agricultural production, much of which is targeted toward
production for export.13 Farm workers, their families, and their
communities are among those at greatest risk from pesticide exposure
and related illness. An estimated 300,000 farm workers suffer
pesticide poisoning every year in the U.S.14 In the adult sampling,
women and Mexican Americans have the highest body-burden levels
of several organochlorine pesticides. Children also carry high
body-burden of many these pesticides, which damage the nervous
system.15
* U.S. farm workers, the majority
of whom are foreign-born and from Mexico, are among the poorest
laborers in the U.S., falling well below the poverty threshold
for single adults and families.
* According to an OXFAM America
report, workers in many cases are paid 30% less today than they
were in 1980.
* Women farm workers face particular
discrimination in getting semi-skilled and skilled jobs. While
men account for 80% of farm workers in the U.S., women are mainly
hired in the packing houses and processing plants rather than
in the fields. Women often need to work longer hours in order
to earn the same income as men. At the same time, they often
have primary responsibility for caring for their children and
completing household chores.16
* The majority of U.S. farm
workers are undocumented. They are more likely to have temporary
jobs and migrate for seasonal work. Ninety-nine percent of all
farm workers do not have social security or disability insurance
and 95% do not have health insurance for non-work related injuries
or illness.17 Migratory and seasonal work separates families,
a burden further intensified by declining benefits.
* Thirty-seven percent of adolescent
farm workers in the U.S. work full time.18
Migration
Migration to the U.S. due to
rural unemployment and overall lack of jobs has risen post-NAFTA.
Foreign-born workers in the U.S. , many from Mexico , are increasingly
sending remittances back to their home countries to help their
families survive economically. Undocumented workers trying get
into the U.S. are facing serious violence and even death. To
date, there is not enough gender analysis of migration in the
U.S. specifically related to NAFTA. Nonetheless, some statistics
are available that indicate the growing number of women migrants
and the specific problems they face:
* Of the over 8 million undocumented
workers in the U.S., over half are from Mexico.19 The majority
of undocumented Mexican workers are men20, but the number of
women is growing.
* 346 people died along the
2,000 mile U.S. border with Mexico over the fiscal year 2002/2003.
The number was 320 the year prior.21
* The Inter-American Development
Bank projects that remittances sent from the United States to
Latin America will exceed 30 billion in the year 2004. The border-states
such as Texas, California, Arizona, and Florida as well as other
areas like Washington, DC represent the largest populations from
which money is being sent.22
* 43.5% of families receiving
remittances in the rural sector of Mexico post-NAFTA are female-headed.23
* In the year 2000, women constituted
more than half of the migrants in the Americas region as whole.
(This includes South/South migration between Latin America and
the Caribbean as well as South/North migration from Latin America
and the Caribbean to the U.S. and Canada).24
Privatization
and Deregulation
Privatization and deregulation
of services and other key sectors are prerequisites for opening
up markets for trade and their impact on women is profound. The
U.S. steps toward NAFTA and other free trade agreements are based
on the assumption that privatization and deregulation have worked
successfully at the national level. These shifts have taken place
without ensuring the proper safeguards and regulations to ensure
that peoples' basic needs are being met.
The reality is that along with
the shifts toward private-sector services associated with NAFTA,
people in the U.S. are experiencing a crisis in healthcare, social
security, pensions, and welfare programs. These programs are
being dismantled at the federal level through privatization and
deregulation policies. As part of this trend, over 44 million
people in the U.S. are uninsured for healthcare. The 1996 "Welfare
to Work" legislation has resulted in major cuts in federal
and state assistance to the poor, which are comprised mostly
of women and ethnic minority groups. In 2002, households headed
by single women comprised half of the families living in poverty.25
In many cases, privatization
and deregulation compound the hardships caused by job loss and
flexibilization of labor, since social services are reduced precisely
when many families most need them.
Conclusion
This preliminary set of statistics
shows that the NAFTA model based on trade, finance, and investment
liberalization, in line with ongoing privatization and deregulation
policy shifts, is having a negative impact on many women and
their families' livelihoods. Ten years after the World Conference
on Women in Beijing and after NAFTA, U.S. women should demand
different macroeconomic policies that will promote rather than
reverse our human rights, and that will increase and not diminish
our solidarity with our sisters in the global women's movement.
Alexandra Spieldoch is with the Center of Concern and
coordinator of the International Trade and Gender Network.
Endnotes
1. United Nations Beijing
Platform for Action. Chapters on Poverty and the Economy.
Beijing, China. 1995.
2. Robert E. Scott, "The High Cost of Free Trade: NAFTA's
Failure Has Cost the United States Across the Nation." Economic
Policy Insitute. November, 2003.
3. Elizabeth Kahling, " U.S. Women Workers: Trends and Trade."
August, 2002
4. Bill Brubaker. "Hospitals Go Abroad to Fill Slots for
Nurses." Washington Post, 2001.
5. Charlie LeDuff, "Mexicans Who Came North Struggle as
Jobs Head South." New York Times, October 13, 2004.
6. Miriam Ching Louie. Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women
Take on the Global Factory. 2001, p. 69.
7. Ibid.
8. Bama Athreya and Cathy Feingold. "How will the FTAA Impact
Women Workers?" excerpt from Breaking Boundaries II:
The Free Trade Area of the Americas and Women: Understanding
the Connections. U.S. Gender and Trade Network. September
2003, p.5.
9. Robert E. Scott and Adam S. Hersch. "Trading Away U.S.
Farms." September, 2001.
10. "Making Global Trade Work for People." Heinrich
Boell Foundation, Wallace Global Fund, UNDP, the Rockefeller
Foundation, 2003, 132.
11. Alejandro Nadal and Timothy Wise, "The Environmental
Costs of Agricultural Trade Liberalization: U.S.-Mexico Maize
Trade Under NAFTA," in Globalization and the Environment,
Lessons from the Americas, Working Groups on Trade and Environment
in the Americas, Heinrich Boll Foundation, June 2004, p. 29.
Available at http://www.boell.de/downloads/global/Boell_LessonsAmericas.pdf.
12. "Genetically Modified Crops in the United States."
Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. A Project of the University
of Richmond. August, 2004.
13. Kristin Shafer, Margaret Reeves, Skip Spitzer and Susan E.
Kegley, Chemical Trespass: Pesticides in our bodies and Corporate
Accountability. Pesticide Action Network in North America
. May 2004, p. 31.
14. Oxfam America. Like Machines in the Fields: Workers Without
Rights in American Agriculture. March 2004, p. 3.
15. Ibid, p. 5-7.
16. Ibid, p. 2-7.
17. Ibid, p.3 -8.
18. Ibid., p. 7.
19. Michael Fix and Passel, Jeffrey S. "Immigration and
Immigrants: Setting the Record Straight," The Urban Institute
(May 1994).
20. "NAFTA and the FTAA: A Gender Analysis of Employment
and Poverty Impacts in Agriculture." Women's EDGE. November,
2003, p. 29
21. "Border Deaths hit Record High." Compiled by Weekly
News Update on the Americas, available at http://www.americas.org/news/nir/20031003_border_deaths_hit_record_high.asp
22. Inter-American Development Bank. "Sending Money Home:
Remittances from the U.S. to Latin America, 2004." http://www.iadb.org/exr/remittances/ranking.cfm?Language=English
23. "NAFTA and the FTAA: A Gender Analysis of Employment
and Poverty Impacts in Agriculture." Women's EDGE. November,
2003, p. 30.
24. Hania Zlotnik. The Global Dimensions of Female Migration,
March 2003. www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=109
25. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Number of Americans
Without Health Insurance Rose in 2002. October 8, 2003. www.cbpp.org
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