Malevolent media

April 1, 2004—To use one of George W. Bush's favorite words, the behavior of the US corporate media has gone beyond criminal to pure evil.

Washington Pinocchios and the lifting of the veil

April 1, 2004—In Washington, noses continue to grow, minds continue to be devoid of intelligence and hearts have yet to be found. Such is the calamity that is the group of liars who comprise the Bush administration, nothing more than an amalgam of unscrupulous beings molded out of the same bed of clay.

When endless war means endless cash flow

April 1, 2004—What's going on? The Arabs are being "ordered" to democratize or else by men in suits thousands of miles across several oceans, in some cases. One Arab country is groaning under the occupation of up to 150,000 foreigners in boots and tin hats, while the Palestinians, as always, are being assassinated at the whim of the "Butcher of Beirut" and suspected grafter, and left wandering around the rubble of their demolished homes—and all those men in suits can say from their comfortable leather chairs in climate-controlled network studios is: Stop the Terror! And they are referring to Arab terror. Eh?

What a twisted labyrinth of lies

April 1, 2004—What a twisted labyrinth of lies and cavernous bends of mud and slime to stand on these Bushes do spin.

Bush's March madness

April 1, 2004—Is it just me or does Scott McClellan look like crap lately? Come to think of it, his boss doesn't look any too good either. As a matter of fact, the whole Bush Gang has been looking like the tail end of a week-long binge-drinking festival—except for Cheney of course. He always has the look of a mortician with something mean stuck in his lower tract. But ever since King George's disaster on Meet the Press a while back, things just don't seem to be going so well for the Bushies.

Something evil this way . . . oh no, it's here!

April 1, 2004—By March of 2001, the Bush cabal's power grab was more than evident to those paying attention. Who can forget Bush telling us, "[T]here ought to be limits to freedom," or [T]his would be much easier if this were a dictatorship, as long as I was the dictator" (Business Week OnLine, July30, 2001; Newsday, Dec.18, 2000), and then there was, "I just don't understand how poor people think" (NY Times, Aug. 26, 2003). What does he mean by those statements? We'll never know (Ha!) as he doesn't "feel like I owe anybody an explanation."  Out of the mouth will always come what is in one's heart!

The quick and the dead

April 1, 2004—It is interesting that many news organizations have begun reporting a significantly smaller number of U.S. military fatalities in Iraq lately. Last week, while reporting the death of two soldiers, the article went on to state that 393 soldiers had lost their lives since the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. The number of U.S. military who have died in Iraq as of March 26, 2004, was 590.

Haiti, Spain and us

April 1, 2004—Political events in Haiti and Spain offer lessons in how democracy is meaningless theory, when under the control of dominating minorities, but meaningful practice, when moving activated majorities to create radical transformations.

Different worlds, different glimpses–Part 6
The pervert's paradise

April 1, 2004—I was about to leave Texas and once more, I found myself slouching on a bench near the State Capitol. The park was immaculate, and the building never seemed to lose its magisterial magnificence.

Snow job

April 1, 2004—The Bush White House is picking up its campaign against the U.S. working class. Recently, Treasury Secretary John Snow said that Medicare, the nation's system of public health care for seniors and the disabled, will be bankrupt in 2019.

No longer an election, but a referendum

April 1, 2004—There are probably 105 million registered voters ready to cast their ballots in the upcoming presidential election. That figure is unlikely to grow much by November since politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, seem to be courting the same true and tried electorate, the ultimate political cliché: the American Center.

Condoleezza's nonsense about democracy

April 1, 2004—Condoleezza Rice wants to bring democracy to the Middle East. Ms. Rice, an expert on what is now an obsolete subject, the Soviet Union, believes this can be done the way the United States brought democracy to Chile or Iran or Afghanistan—that is, by violently overthrowing governments.

A conspiracy theorist's proof

April 1, 2004—Man has struggled throughout time with proving that what exists in his mind also exists in the world outside his mind. When the idea relates to a physical object or a law of motion, the proof might be difficult, but still possible. Man was able to prove that the world is not flat, for example, and with time could even prove that the sun is at the center of the solar system and that it is possible to split an atom. These ideas existed in man's mind before they were proven, and the proof came because the physical world allowed man the opportunity to test his hypothesis.

Just my imagination: Tommy Boy Friedman does 'Imagine'

April 1, 2004—I keep telling myself to stop wasting time critiquing Thomas L. Friedman. No one can possibly top the self-inflicted damage he does merely by putting his laughable words on the New York Times op-ed page. But then he goes and outdoes himself . . . and here I am, furiously typing up an article.

When good men don't do nothing

April 1, 2004—Perhaps, after all these years, Edmund Burke may have got it wrong: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is not, as the wise Englishman once opined, for good men to do nothing. Sometimes men blunder into evil by the sheer force of their own cowardice.

Lies and character assassination are hallmarks of Team Bush

March 26, 2004—Even the word chutzpah isn't strong enough to account for the lies that flow daily from the mouths of the Bush team. Are these people so deranged that they actually believe they can get away with telling whopper after whopper after whopper or do they think the American people are so stupid that they will buy all the lies as long as the lies are humongous ones?

Afghanistan's sands expose an ugly secret

March 26, 2004—Disturbing reports about the fate of up to 3,000 suspected Taliban fighters at the hands of General Abdul Rashid Dostum's men have been circulating since December 2001, but strangely no official investigation has been authorised.

Company with ties to Cheney's energy task force faces criminal indictment for gaming California electricity market

March 26, 2004—Three years ago, while California's energy crisis was spiraling out of control, Vice President Dick Cheney secretly met with a half-dozen corporate executives of the country's largest energy companies to hammer out a national energy policy for George W. Bush.

A malignant tumor onto the world: Israel and its self-defeating actions

March 26, 2004—What were Sharon and the Israeli government thinking when they decided to decapitate Hamas through the assassination of its founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin? If the state sponsored murder of Yassin was not so recklessly self-defeating, one might be inclined to think that Sharon is on a mission to implode the state of Israel.

Is Bush unhinged?

March 26, 2004—Before you conclude that I myself must be unhinged even to raise such a question, ask yourself this: If a man talks as if he has lost contact with reality, then might he actually have done so? Granted that this possibility deserves evaluation, then consider President [sic] George W. Bush's rhetoric in his March 19 speech to diplomats and others at the White House.

Opening the gates of hell

March 26, 2004—The world has been set ablaze, and we are only beginning to feel its fiery wrath . . .

EDITORS' BLOG

Where is the money?