contributions

By Mark Engler
Mark Engler, a writer based in New York, is a commentator for Foreign Policy in Focus. He can be reached at . Research assistance for this article was provided by Jason Rowe.
To be radical, in the oldest sense of the word, is to go to the root. One strength of truly progressive analysis is that it places what appear to be isolated events in a larger context. It seeks to make connections between seemingly disparate political issues by revealing underlying ideological (…)

By Jerry Mazza
As if Bush’s sale of his $606,000 share of Texas Rangers stock to owner Tom Hicks for $15 million wasn’t enough, there’s more from deep in the heart of Texas to nail the good old boy, namely the possibility of tax evasion. That is, Bush declared the proceeds as a long-term capital gain, which it wasn’t, as opposed to ordinary income, which it was. This means Bush paid at the capital gains’ rate of 20 percent as opposed to the ordinary income rate of 39.6 percent. Beating the (…)

First They Came for the Nurses
By DAVE LINDORFF
So the cat’s out of the bag. With reports today in the New York Times, AP and other media outlets that the Pentagon is contemplating a draft call-up of health professionals because of a shortage of doctors, nurses and medics in the increasingly thinly stretched U.S. military, we can see the lie in Bush’s (and in Kerry’s) promises not to reinstate conscription.
Everyone agrees that with the war in Iraq going badly, and with little prospect (…)

By Eric J. Greenberg
It has been Jerusalem’s dirty little secret for decades: Orthodox yeshiva students and other Jewish residents vandalizing churches and spitting on Christian clergyman as they walk along the narrow, ancient stone streets of the Old City.
Now, however, following a highly publicized fracas last week between a yeshiva student and the archbishop of Jerusalem’s Armenian Church, the issue is generating unprecedented media attention in Israel. The fight started after a (…)

by Black Commentator
Forget the hoopla and ballyhoo celebrating Black faces in high places. The median net worth of an African American household is about $6,000, while white households wield 14 times as much wealth: more than $88,000. The disastrous details are contained in a report on wealth disparities by the Pew Hispanic Center, ’The Wealth of Hispanic Households: 1996 to 2002,’ but the worst news is for Blacks, one-third of whom have no assets or a negative net worth.
The bottom (…)

Fittinging, today, one day after the topping-off ceremony for the new 7 World Trade Center, 52-story skyscraper occurred, there is a full page ad in The New York Times citing, amongst other things, a recent Zogby poll that found that 66% of New Yorkers want the 9/11 investigation re-opened, and that 49% believe U.S. leaders "consciously failed to act" in response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
One of the most perplexing and provocative mysteries surrounding the (…)

by Jane Stillwater
How do you delete a hard drive? Karl Rove had better find out fast!
He should call up Richard Nixon’s secretary and ask her how to erase audiotapes too. "You just accidentally hit the erase button with your knee."
When George Bush becomes a lame duck, the only sound you will hear in the West Wing will be the whir of the document shredding machine.
Lists of people who made illegal campaign contributions? Gone.
E-mail wisecracks about the gullibility of right-wing (…)

by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - A team of international observers who are monitoring the November 2 elections is calling for major reforms in the U.S. electoral process to promote confidence in that each voting system.
Several of the recommended reforms will require legislation, thus making it impracticable for them to be implemented before this year’s elections the run-up to which has been marred by accusations and counter-accusations of ’’dirty tricks’’ by both Republicans and Democrats (…)

Quaker was arrested at anti-war protest
By RICHARD PEARSALL
Lillian Willoughby, a Deptford Quaker who will turn 90 in January, went to jail Wednesday to protest the war in Iraq.
Shortly before noon, Willoughby rose from her wheelchair, gave her husband of 64 years, George, a hug and a kiss, and disappeared into the federal detention center at Seventh and Arch streets here.
Reporting with her were five other peace activists, including a young couple from Camden, Cassie Haw, 22, and (…)

According to the Italian Military Health Observatory a total of 109 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium.
The observatory stressed the fact that 41 pct of active personnel casualties relate to disease. According to Domenico Leggiero at the Military Health Observatory, "The total of 109 casualties exceeds the total number of persons dying as a consequence of road accidents.
Anyone denying the significance of such data is purely acting out of ill faith, (…)