contributions

THE BUSH STRATEGY FOR EXECUTIVE ACTION
(A dismal dirge for a country fallen upon evil times by evil people.)
August 12, 2005
By Peter Fredson
We are soon coming up on a count of 2,000 “brave boys” who have died for Bush lies about oil, bases, embassies, and invasions of other countries. Perhaps the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq will soon match the 3,000 innocent people killed in the 9/11 disaster in New York. In this way Bush will be personally responsible for as many (…)

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Cindy Sheehan, speaking live on the Ed Schultz radio show (and elsewhere) on Thursday, August 11, said that the media and Congress have not held the president accountable for his actions. She added that the President’s decision on whether or not to speak to her, the Gold Star Mothers for Peace and the American people is the President’s accountability moment.
Sheehan, the mother of Casey Sheehan, who died fighting for America in Iraq, has been holding a vigil outside the President’s (…)

My country is in the grip of a president surrounded by thugs in suits
by Howard Zinn
It has quickly become clear that Iraq is not a liberated country, but an occupied country. We became familiar with that term during the second world war. We talked of German-occupied France, German-occupied Europe. And after the war we spoke of Soviet-occupied Hungary, Czechoslovakia, eastern Europe. It was the Nazis, the Soviets, who occupied countries. The United States liberated them from occupation. (…)

Cindy Sheehan Solidarity Day!
MONDAY - AUGUST 15 In NYC - Rally in Union Sq. 5:00 pm
Join us Monday, August 15 to stand in Solidarity with Cindy Sheehan!
1) Monday August 15 - Cindy Sheehan Solidarity Day 2) Update on Cindy Sheehan 3) What you can do Monday - August 15 - Solidarity with Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Sheehan is camped out in the hot desert sun, speaking out about the occupations of Iraq and Palestine and demanding answers from the criminal regime that killed her son along with (…)

By Barb Ickes, Quad-City Times
A couple of books on tape, a cell phone and some junk food are the only things keeping Caryn Unsicker company on the long road.
The Silvis, Ill., woman set out Wednesday morning on a 1,000-mile pilgrimage from her home to President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. She probably won’t get but a few miles from the entrance to the sprawling retreat.
But she has to go.
Unsicker won’t know until she gets there today how many other mothers from across the (…)

August 11, 2005, Los Angeles Times
The two largest U.S. teacher unions joined a "back-to-school" boycott against Wal-Mart Stores Inc., targeting one of the year’s busiest shopping seasons to protest the retailer’s labor practices.
The 2.7-million-member National Education Assn., the biggest U.S. union, and the 1.3-million-member American Federation of Teachers are teaming with the United Food and Commercial Workers in urging shoppers to buy school supplies elsewhere, the UFCW’s Wake-Up (…)

By BOB HERBERT
The news coming out of Iraq yesterday was that several more American soldiers had been killed. August’s toll so far has been mind-numbing. For American troops, it’s been one of the worst periods of the war. And yet there’s still no sense of urgency within the Bush administration.
The president is on vacation. He’s down at the ranch riding his bicycle and clearing brush. The death toll for Americans has streaked past the 1,800 mark. The Iraqi dead are counted by the tens of (…)

By WILL LESTER
WASHINGTON — AFL-CIO President John Sweeney proposed Wednesday allowing affiliates of several breakaway national unions to continue working with the labor federation locally.
After the Teamsters and the service workers union split from the AFL-CIO in late July, Sweeney announced that the federation’s constitution would not allow them to have any role in groups like state labor federations and central organizing councils — groups that are key to local unions’ political (…)

by Saloumeh Peyman
TEHRAN, Aug 13 (IPS) - By the time it was banned, a week before the Aug. 6 swearing in of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President of Iran, a bold Ta’zieh (traditional tragedy theatre) on the 1997 serial assassinations of several leading dissident intellectuals, had already had a month-long run.
That month was wide enough a window in Iran’s restricted intellectual world to bestir the country’s young and thinking middle-class to flock to the capital’s main theatre and see for (…)

By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem
Ever since its 1979 Islamic revolution the only fate Iran has had in mind for Israel has been simple: its destruction. Now that Teheran seems to be moving towards acquiring its own nuclear arsenal, its plans for its great enemy threaten to be both fiery and radioactive.
Sometimes Iran’s stated policy towards Israel is couched in inflammatory rhetoric, like that on a 40ft banner that used to hang outside the entrance of the foreign ministry in Teheran bearing (…)