contributions

It began with a bulletin from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles (1/4/06) accusing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of invoking an old anti-Semitic slur. In a Christmas Eve speech, the Center said, Chavez declared that "the world has wealth for all, but some minorities, the descendants of the same people that crucified Christ, have taken over all the wealth of the world."
The Voice of America (1/5/06) covered the charge immediately. Then opinion journals on the right took up the (…)

by Bryan Evans Senator Clinton & U.S. Congressional Leadership: Three cheers from the American "street" and the "outlands" of the Americas for your timely metaphor regarding Congress being run like a "PLANTATION"— by which you surely mean it has become elitist, corrupted, poisoned by paranoia, blinded by industry? All the "good old boys" with their bankrolls and silky suits spitting out barred windows on common taxpayers and the vast "underpriveleged" who barely rate a mention? (…)

Bush Administration Seeks to Squelch State of the Union Protest at Capitol on January 31 January 22, 2006
World Can’t Wait Capitol Hill Office: 511 ‘C’ St. NE Washington DC 20002, Stanton Square DC PRESS CONTACT: Don Spark, 202-536-4310, donspark@worldcantwait.org
Press Conference: Monday, January 23, 9:30 a.m. National Press Club, Edward R. Murrow Room 529 14th Street, NW Washington DC
The Bush administration has expanded the special security zone around the Capitol, effectively (…)

by Mary MacElveen
It is so typical of the United States media to sound the alarm as they just did in an editorial: Halt Chavez arms buildup as if the sky is falling. Meanwhile, under this Bush administration, and as reported in a previous article, they allow Russia to rebuild the arms race ... which is far more devastating to the human race.
Easy does it, my fellow Americans, you have nothing to fear from President Hugo Chavez ... but you do from Bush. Come to think of it, so does the (…)

by Luis Enrique González (Special Envoy)
La Paz, Jan 22 (Prensa Latina) Only by thinking about the people, about Bolivia, I want to be the best president, to lead the best government, Evo Morales said on Sunday, just a few hours before his inauguration.
For the first time, I can reveal this desire of mine, he said. The elections of December 18 made me fall in love with all of Bolivia, according to our indigenous culture, Morales told Prensa Latina at a meeting with Cuban journalists. (…)

By William Fisher
Since Hurricane Katrina smashed into the Mississippi Gulf Coast last December, the U.S. Government has come under scathing criticism for being slow to respond.
But the Administration of President George W. Bush has recently showed it is more than capable of hustling on issues it considers top priorities.
Little more than a month after the Senate voted to ban appeals to the Supreme Court by suspected terrorists detained by the U.S., the Department of Justice (DOJ) (…)

by DAVID LEVERING LEWIS
In one of his more bizarre Oval Office confidences, Lyndon Johnson said that he didn’t want to “follow Hitler” but that Hitler had the right idea: “Just take a simple thing and repeat it often enough, even if it wasn’t true, why, people accept it.” Johnson was speaking by telephone to Martin Luther King, Jr., in Selma, Alabama, about how to convince Southern whites that Southern blacks deserved the franchise. The curious political-science tutorial came on the (…)

by Richard Owen in Milan
OUTSIDERS, says Dario Fo, think of Milan in terms of fashion and style, "but the people who run the city have neither elegance nor moral values. This used to be a city in which engineers, architects and artists all thrived."
That’s why Italy’s finance and fashion capital could soon find as its mayor the Nobel prize-winning playwright, a man with a reputation as an anarchic clown and a merciless, sharp-tongued satirist of the rich and powerful.
At his flat in a (…)

With a fast-graying population, increasing pollution and environmental damage and the absence of a real social system, Beijing is now seeking to check unbridled capitalism and quell flaring social tensions.
Not so long ago, nouveau-riche Chinese could be seen standing in lines several hundred yards long. They were registering to purchase luxury condos in Shanghai — such was the demand. Hoping that prices would continue to rise — as they have over the past four years, by a full 74 percent — (…)

by Uri Avnery
IT WAS a colorful day in Bil’in. Political flags of many colors were fluttering in the brisk breeze, the vivid election posters and the colorful graffiti on the walls adding their bit. It was the biggest demonstration in the beleaguered village for a long time. This week, the protest against the Fence was interwoven with Palestinian electioneering.
I was happily marching along in the wintry sunshine, holding high the Gush Shalom emblem of the flags of Israel and Palestine (…)