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Today's
Stories
October
29, 2003
Gary Leupp
Every
Day, One KIA: On the Iraq War Casualty Figures
October
28, 2003
Rich Gibson
The
Politics of an Inferno: Notes on Hellfire 2003
Uri Avnery
Incident
in Gaza
Diane
Christian
Wishing
Death
Robert
Fisk
Eyewitness
in Iraq: "They're Getting Better"
Toni Solo
Authentic Americans and John Negroponte
Jason
Leopold
Halliburton in Iran
Shrireen Parsons
When T-shirts are Verboten
Chris
White
9/11
in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective
October 27, 2003
William
A. Cook
Ministers
of War: Criminals of the Cloth
David
Lindorff
The
Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer
Elaine
Cassel
Antonin
Scalia's Contemptus Mundi
Robert
Fisk
Occupational Schizophrenia
John Chuckman
Banging Your Head into Walls
Seth Sandronsky
Snoops R Us
Bill Kauffman
George
Bush, the Anti-Family President
October
25 / 26, 2003
Robert
Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James
Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher
Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane
Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin
Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn
Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey
Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets'
Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
October
24, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's
War on Greenpeace
Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Rockets,
Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited
Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty
David
Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button
Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East
Harry
Browne
Northern
Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't
October
23, 2003
Diane
Christian
Ruthlessness
Kurt Nimmo
Criticizing Zionism
David Lindorff
A General Theory of Theology
Alan Maass
The Future of the Anti-War Movement
William
Blum
Imperial
Indifference
Stew Albert
A Memo
October
22, 2003
Wayne
Madsen
Religious
Insanity Runs Rampant
Ray McGovern
Holding
Leaders Accountable for Lies
Christopher
Brauchli
There's
No Civilizing the Death Penalty
Elaine
Cassel
Legislators
and Women's Bodies
Bill Glahn
RIAA
Watch: the New Morality of Capitalism
Anthony Arnove
An Interview with Tariq Ali
October 21, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Beilin Agreement
Robert Jensen
The Fundamentalist General
David
Lindorff
War Dispatch from the NYT: God is on Our Side!
William S. Lind
Bremer is Deaf to History
Bridget
Gibson
Fatal Vision
Alan Haber
A Human Chain for Peace in Ann Arbor
Peter
Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Hanging of Thomas Russell
October
20, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Chile's
Failed Economy: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Chris
Floyd
Circus Maximus: Arnie, Enron and Bush Maul California
Mark Hand
Democrats Seek to Disappear Chomsky
& Nader
John &
Elaine Mellencamp
Peaceful
World
Elaine
Cassel
God's
General Unmuzzled
October
18 / 19, 2003
Robert
Pollin
Clintonomics:
the Hollow Boom
Gary Leupp
Israel, Syria and Stage Four in the Terror War
Saul Landau
Day of the Gropenfuhrer
Bruce Anderson
The California Recall
John Gershman
Bush in Asia: What a Difference a Decade Makes
Nelson P. Valdes
Bush, Electoral Politics and Cuba's "Illicit Sex Trade"
Kurt Nimmo
Shock Therapy and the Israeli Scenario
Tom Gorman
Al Franken and Al-Shifa
Brian
Cloughley
Public Propaganda and the Iraq War
Joanne Mariner
A New Way to Kill Tigers
Denise
Low
The Cancer of Sprawl
Mickey Z.
The Reverend of Doom
John Chuckman
US Missiles for Israeli Nukes?
George Naggiar
A Veto of Public Diplomacy
Alison
Weir
Death Threats in Berkeley
Benjamin Dangl
Bolivian Govt. Falling Apart
Ron Jacobs
The Politics of Bob Dylan
Fidel Castro
A Review of Garcia Marquez's Memoir
Adam Engel
I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert, Guthrie and Greeder
October
17, 2003
Stan Goff
Piss
On My Leg: Perception Control and the Stage Management of War
Newton
Garver
Bolivia
in Turmoil
Standard
Schaefer
Grocery Unions Under Attack
Ben Terrall
The Ordeal of the Lockheed 52
Ron Jacobs
First Syria, Then Iran
David
Lindorff
Michael
Moore Proclaims Mumia Guilty
October
16, 2003
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush
Gunning for Regime Change in Cuba
Gary Leupp
"Getting Better" in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
The US Press and Israel: Brand Loyalty and the Absence of Remorse
Rush Limbaugh
The 10 Most Overrated Athletes of All Time
Lenni
Brenner
I
Didn't Meet Huey Newton. He Met Me
Website of the Day
Time Tested Books
October
15, 2003
Sunil
Sharma / Josh Frank
The
General and the Governor: Two Measures of American Desperation
Forrest
Hylton
Dispatch
from the Bolivian War: "Like Animals They Kill Us"
Brian
Cloughley
Those
Phony Letters: How Bush Uses GIs to Spread Propaganda About Iraq
Ahmad
Faruqui
Lessons
of the October War
Uri Avnery
Three
Days as a Living Shield
Website
of the Day
Rank and File: the New Unity Partnership Document
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
October 14, 2003
Eric Ridenour
Qibya
& Sharon: Anniversary of a Massacre
Elaine
Cassel
The
Disgrace That is Guantanamo
Robert
Jensen
What the "Fighting Sioux" Tells Us About White People
David Lindorff
Talking Turkey About Iraq
Patrick
Cockburn
US Troops Bulldoze Crops
VIPS
One Person Can Make a Difference
Toni Solo
The CAFTA Thumbscrews
Peter
Linebaugh
"Remember
Orr!"
Website
of the Day
BRIDGES
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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October
29, 2003
"The Illegitimate
Holding of Freedom"
Argentina's
War on the Piqueteros
By MARIE TRIGONA
Argentina's unemployed workers movement is faced
with another repressive attack from President Nestor Kirchner
and national government. In the past weeks, national daily newspapers
have published that the government is taking a firm position
against social protest, opening criminal cases against members
of organizations and reactivating a discourse against the unemployed
mobilized.
This attack has heightened this week
and comes after organizations realized an action October 22 in
front of the Government Ministry of Work to demand three thousand
unemployment plans, fresh food including meat and dairy and infrastructural
support for the community kitchens of the organizations. The
organizations were told to come back at a later date and officials
hoped to ignore demands through procrastinating meetings for
negotiations. The minister, Carlos Tomada has claimed that protestors
stayed outside, "putting chains and locks" along police
fences to block his exit from the government building until 4
a.m. However, there were no chains and locks along police fences.
The same police lines and fences that the government ordered
to impede protes! tors from entering the building to meet with
officials blocked the officials from exiting. The protestors
stayed outside in response to officials' unwillingness to meet
with delegates or to come outside and speak with the organizations.
"While the minister stayed in his
offices, our families stayed in the streets until the crack of
dawn waiting for negotiations that would never happen and without
trains running to return home," stated (FUTRADEyO). The
organizations have repudiated government accusations. "It
is false that we don't want to have a dialogue and that we only
look for conflict. It's been 5 months since we went to different
officials and they made promises that they have not kept. It
is also false that we blocked the doors with chains and locks.
The same police fences were used that impeded protestors from
entering, blocked officials. The officials could enter or leave,
but! they didn't want to listen to the thousand companeros outside."
The government has responded by opening
a criminal case against the organizations, accusing, "the
illegitimate holding of freedom." President Kirchner, a
progressive prototype has had a seemingly soft discourse in using
police to control social protests but he used the action as an
opportunity to take a firm stance stating, "we are not going
to tolerate these type of actions."
Argentina's economic crisis has swelled
unemployment to levels never seen in its history. Today over
44% of the population are either unemployed or underemployed.
Of the 14 million in the Economically Active Population (EAP),
there are some 2 million with unemployment subsidies. Meanwhile
government economic studies report that the business sector is
stabilizing, the majority of the population continues to get
used to worsening misery. Unemployment continues to rise and
monthly unemployment subsidies of $150 pesos (about $50) continue
to devalue with sky rocketing inflation and salaries at a standstill.
The real salary (workers' salaries and une! mployment subsidies)
has fallen to one-third of what they were before December 2001.
Salaries and subsidies have not been adjusted to correlate to
inflation (prices of basic food items such as flour and milk
are three times higher than 2 years ago) and peso devaluation.
With the unemployment subsidies, the government has set standards
for salaries. The $150 subsidy requires the recipient to complete
4 hours of work 5 days a week. The government uses these subsidies
to provide dirt cheap labor for public works. I've met individuals
working in public school cafeterias as part of this plan. Many
employers, considering how much is paid for 4 hours of work,
pay $300 for 10 hours-5 days a week. & nbsp;
The tactics of the piqueteros blocking
highways and accesses to demand that subsidies be increased and
that food and infrastructure to meet the immediate needs of the
poor has been newly termed as extortion. "There are not
any proposals from the government for more subsidies, but there
is a proposal for a anti-piquetero brigade and raise the ministers'
salaries," stated Santiago Dalmas organizer from MUP 20.
MUP 20, Futrade, and TC 29 are some of the organizations charged
with the criminal case.
The waiting period for Kirchner take
off his progressive mask and show systemic contradictions has
arrived, with fervor over national elections died down and local
elections over. He has passed laws allowing for private utilities
to be raised and supported U.S. troop military exercises in Argentina.
One of his campaign promises was to "not pay the IMF at
the cost of the nation's poor." In September he paid 2.9
billion dollars to the IMF while 58% of the population live below
the poverty line.
Kirchner has contingent plans to attack
unemployment through ending with "piqueterismo." The
$150 peso (about $50) monthly unemployment plans have been forever
used as a way for the state to keep unemployed worker organizations
in check and distinguish between the good piqueteros willing
to negotiate and the hardliners who continue to block roads and
demand structural changes. Newspapers have reported that the
new government plan to disarticulate piqueteros is to "benefit
certain friendly organizations with subsidies and to isolate
ideological piqueteros." Those ideological piqueteros are
those who go out and demand more than minimal subsidies, such
as genuine work, free trade, transnational corporations' accountability,
and an end to poverty.
In negotiations with unemployed worker
organizations in recent months, national and provincial government
officials have given certain organizations subsidies, but making
the organizations promise that it would not be released publicly
"to avoid hoards of organizations outside government buildings
to demand subsidies." This is a tactic used to fragment
the movement (creating internal conflicts among organizations)
and to avoid having to keep promises to actually provide more
plans.
Marking "hardliners no longer willing
to negotiate," the State sets a platform for the media to
justify government repression against social protest. The theory
of the two daemons was used during Argentina's military dictatorship
(1976-83) to justify the systematic terror in which some 30,000
were disappeared, tortured or executed.
Today piqueteros will march to the Presidential
palace to confront this repressive wave of police and legal persecution
against organizations that continue with demands for dignified
work and better living conditions for Argentines. In the recent
weeks the government has stepped up police repression throughout
the country. Late September there were a number of cases of police
using violence against piqueteros in the subway and in front
of ministry in La Plata, intimidation of marked activists in
neighborhoods, and police killings in the northern province of
Jujuy.
We ask for support to denounce President
Nestor Kirchner and this campaign.
Marie Trigona
works with Grupo Alavio. She can be reached at: mtrigona@msn.com
Weekend
Edition Features for Oct. 25 / 26, 2003
Robert
Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James
Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher
Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane
Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin
Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn
Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey
Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets'
Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
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