contributions

By R. W. Dellinger
"The greatness of our nation was the persistent, steady struggle of people, many unnoticed and invisible, who laid the foundation by which we live today. And the struggle of the ’50s and ’60s was one of the great movements," declared Rev. James Lawson at a Nov. 11 luncheon hosted by Loyola Marymount University to honor civil rights activists.
The pastor emeritus of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, a legendary figure in the civil rights movement, reported (…)

Hollywood may have been slow to reflect the post-Katrina reality of America, but it’s catching up fast with films like Syriana and Homecoming, says John Patterson
For the past year the bald, ugly facts of the world we now live in have finally begun bubbling out from under the crust of officially sponsored bullshit that until recently constituted reality for many Americans. However, since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and Hurricane Cindy Sheehan hit Crawford, Texas, Pandora’s box has (…)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 (UPI) — Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, wants the Iraqis to decide whether the United States military should be withdrawn from Iraq.
"Congressman Kucinich believes that Iraq, as a free nation and a blossoming democracy, should have the right of self determination," said his spokesman Doug Gordon.
Kucinich is working on a resolution to be introduced on the floor of Congress "soon" that would make it the sense of Congress that the United States would support an Iraqi (…)

Bush-administration officials privately threatened organizers of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, telling them that any chance there might’ve been for the United States to sign on to the Kyoto global-warming protocol would be scuttled if they allowed Bill Clinton to speak at the gathering today in Montreal, according to a source involved with the negotiations who spoke to New York Magazine on condition of anonymity.
Bush officials informed organizers of their intention to pull out of (…)

MIAMI (AP) - The passenger shot dead by air marshals in Miami had been agitated before boarding the plane and was singing Go Down Moses as his wife tried to calm him, a fellow passenger said Thursday.
"The wife was telling him: ’Calm down. Let other people get on the plane. It will be all right,"’ said Alan Tirpak. "I thought maybe he’s afraid of flying," Tirpak said. Tirpak took his seat and Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, and his wife eventually boarded the plane. Then, a few minutes before the (…)

Have you noticed that if you do a web search for Walmart Video on Google, all you get is news about renting video’s from Walmart?
There must be a way to get these engines to be picking up the 6000 showings of the "Walmart Video" as part of these searches. I’ve seen reference to showings in the brief descriptions of some entries. But I’ve been trying for 10 minutes using Google to bring up the webpage of the group that is promoting and selling that video.
I wonder if there is some (…)

by Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Last May, I wrote an Annals of Outrage II chronicling the waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government in the first half of 2004. Plenty of time has passed since my last piece and much has happened. Here, then, is my latest attempt to guide you through the Bush Administration’s most egregious corruption scandals. The information comes to us courtesy of the federal government’s internal investigations into administration fraud, waste and abuse. The cronyism and (…)

by Henry Marchand
Twenty-five years is a long time, set beside the life span of the average human being. One quarter of a century, that’s time enough to experience all the usual milestones. But sometimes it seems a blink; sometimes, something that happened twenty-five years ago remains so vivid in memory, the passage of so much time is astounding.
Assassinations. Declarations of war. Natural disasters. Political scandals. These are the kinds of public events, as opposed to personal (…)

By George Bisharat
IN A SUDDEN ATTACK of common sense, a Pentagon-commissioned study released in mid-November suggests an approach to nuclear nonproliferation in the Middle East that might actually be accepted by the people of the region. What is this breakthrough idea? That U.S. policies begin not with a country that currently lacks nuclear weapons - Iran - but rather with the one that by virtually all accounts already has them - Israel.
To avert Iran’s apparent drive for nuclear (…)

by Mike Tidwell
AS WE REACH THE 90-DAY mark since Katrina hit, it’s time we ended our national state of denial. Turns out House Speaker Dennis Hastert had it right all along, though his reasons were flawed. We should call it quits in New Orleans not because the city can’t be made relatively safe from hurricanes. It can be. And not because to do so is more trouble than it’s worth. It’s not. But because the Bush Administration has already given New Orleans a quiet kiss of death now that the (…)