contributions

By Marie-Laure Germon Le Figaro
An interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter in the White House from 1977 to 1981 and today an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. A great foreign policy strategist, he is credited with the success of the first Camp David summit. He is the author of several works, including Le Grand Echiquier (Bayard) [The Big Chessboard] and Le Vrai Choix: l’Amérique et le reste du (…)

By CHRIS POWELL
It is hardly news that politics can be discouraging. Indeed, almost 100 years ago America’s premier cynic, Ambrose Bierce, found politics so phony that his Devil’s Dictionary defined it as "a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage."
But even many realistic people see in the current campaign and the nation’s stark division the worst hatefulness, mockery and smugness ever - a clash of armies of (…)

By Jim Moore JMoore1819@aol.com
As one pundit put it, in rudimentary, if derogatory, terms: "Neocons run the government, and the President runs the fax machine." As simple as that sounds, it is both complex and troublesome. Most importantly, it is a dangerous assertion, not only for its verbal attack on the Presidential office itself but unfortunately for its provable accuracy and veiled truth. Anyone with a glimmer of interest in American politics knows that neocon is a condensed (…)

The race between the presidential election candidates in the United States is close. George Bush’s policies in his first term mainly benefited the rich but surprisingly he is most popular in the poorest states, which were former union and Democrat strong holds.
By Serge Halimi
SOME of the most down-at-heel homes in the remotest villages of West Virginia sport posters for George Bush and Dick Cheney, although their occupants surely do not expect to gain from any further reductions in (…)

by NewsRx.com
University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researchers have uncovered damage in a specific, primitive portion of the nervous systems of veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome.
UT Southwestern researchers reported that damage to the parasympathetic nervous system may account for nearly half of the typical symptoms - including gallbladder disease, unrefreshing sleep, depression, joint pain, chronic diarrhea and sexual dysfunction - that afflict those (…)

By Charles Lane
WASHINGTON - The inscription on the front of the Supreme Court building says “Equal Justice Under Law,” but the court’s motto could just as easily be “What Happens Here, Stays Here.” In a town where confidential information travels fast, the justices protect their internal deliberations fiercely - and, usually, successfully.
But in the October issue of Vanity Fair magazine, former Supreme Court law clerks from the court’s 2000-01 term speak out - under cover of anonymity (…)

by Richard K. Moore
We the People and the Internet
Consider for a moment how important the Internet has become as a source of news and analysis. Over the past ten years, email lists and websites have evolved into a formidable alternative to commercial media. They provide people all over the world with timely eyewitness reports on developing events, along with a broad range of analysis and opinion. For many of us, the Internet has become our primary source of information. By selecting our (…)

US election begins with voting in Florida dogged by controversy over faulty machines and disenfranchised voters
by Oliver Burkeman in Tallahassee Gordon Sasser first got the feeling that something strange was going on when the telephone pierced the silence of a weekday afternoon at his house on the swampy fringes of Tallahassee, northern Florida.
An automated voice had some surprising news: did he know that he could now cast his presidential vote by phone, and could do so right now, (…)

CFTM EXCLUSIVE ANALYSIS
BY: Mike Schiller dontbelievethespin@yahoo.com
Point 1: Military action in Iraq both was and still is completely un-necessary, and it does not serve any national security purpose.
I do not say this lightly. Around Spring of 2001, I, as a concerned citizen, sent an email to the White House with a prediction that the Taliban was a threat to the national security of the United States. I was not a military intelligence expert then, and I am not one now. However, as (…)

by Simon Tisdall
In the Middle East maelstrom, all parties acknowledge one fixed point: forceful US diplomatic engagement is essential if the central Israel-Palestine conflict is ever to be resolved.
But far from taking the lead over the past four years, the Bush administration has been mostly led by the nose. The man responsible for this extraordinary feat is Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
Mr Sharon was running a "war on terror" when George Bush was still running a baseball (…)