default.html Issue 87
Table of Contents

George W. Bush And The Right Wing Media Machine

by Robert Parry After years of denial, The Washington Post has acknowledged the existence of the Right-Wing Machine. Post national political correspondent John Harris came to this epiphany grudgingly, never using those exact words. But in a May 6, 2001 Sunday article in the Outlook section, Harris recognized that U.S. conservatives have built a powerful and well-financed apparatus that can dictate the tone of the political discourse in Washington. The article observed that there is no countervailing apparatus on the liberal side of national politics


Letters From America: Pakistan

A new MONITOR series in the spirit of Alexis de Toquville's Democracy in America


The Politics of AAA

by Michael A. Rivlin Critics see an essential hypocrisy at AAA's heart, for it poses as a consumer advocate yet opposes laws that would lead to cleaner air and a healthier environment for those same consumers. They also cite its history on safety. AAA says it promotes road construction and repair for the sake of its members' safety -- but when it comes to car safety, the story is different. One of the most notorious examples was the airbag law. AAA came out against mandatory installation of airbags in cars. It released a nationwide survey showing that 67 percent of those questioned preferred laws mandating seat belt use, and started lobbying for those laws in state legislatures, weakening the airbag campaign


Ignoring Protests, FTAA Diplomats End Summit

by Gumisai Mutume The Summit of the Americas ended April 22 amidst street clashes between baton-wielding police and a small section of an estimated 30,000 people demonstrating against the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)


FTAA Follows A Flawed Model

by Marcela Valente Statistics paint the dark side of Mexico's recent development. Annual reports by United Nations agencies indicate that the number of Mexicans living in poverty climbed from 32 to 43 million between 1990 and 1998, while the number of malnourished Mexicans -- half of them under five -- rose from 4.4 to 5.1 million. On the employment front, not everyone who has a job is grateful to NAFTA. The informal economy, in which workers enjoy no health or pension benefits, accounts for 29 percent of employment, while 30 percent of jobs are found in the controversial maquila or export assembly sector


Not One or Two, but Hundreds of Protests

by Naomi Klein What is difficult to convey in media reports is that there weren't two protests that took place in Quebec City -- one a "peaceful" labor march, the other "violent" anarchist riot. There were hundreds of protests. One was organized by a mother and daughter from Montreal. Another by a van load of grad students from Edmonton. Another by three friends from Toronto who aren't members of anything but their health clubs. Yet another by a couple of waiters from a local cafe on their lunch break


A Secret Trade Pact Even Worse Than NAFTA

by Randolph T. Holhut If you've haven't heard about FTAA yet, you're not alone. Almost all the details of the treaty have been secret, even though trade ministers have been working on it since 1999. From what little is known about FTAA, it appears that it magnifies the worst pro-corporate, anti-democratic elements of every trade deal of the past decade


15 Dead in Ohio: Cincinnati's Black and Blue

by Tim Wise To hear police representatives tell it, blacks in Cincinnati still have no rights that a member of the FOP is bound to respect. In seeking to justify the deaths of the 15 black males, Cincinnati Police Sergeant Harry Roberts noted that those killed were all "criminals who resisted arrest," leading one to wonder just what is the allowable punishment for "resisting arrest" in Ohio nowadays? I mean damn, I knew the death penalty was still popular with most folks, but execution for running away from a cop?


Survivors Of Palestinian Uprising Find Little Aid

by Ben Lynfield While Palestinian society glorifies martyrs, fighters and stone-throwers, those who were merely disabled face an arduous struggle to preserve their self-esteem and come to terms with their new limitations. About 1,500 Palestinians have become disabled during the intifada, their injuries including being unable to walk, loss of an eye, and loss of hands


Colombia Paramilitaries Terrorize Schools, Unions

by Maria Isabel Garcia Dozens of trade unionists have been killed this year in Colombia by right-wing paramilitary groups, which have seized control of labor organizations and banned schools from teaching subjects like philosophy


Revisionist Japanese Textbook Stirs Anger in Korea

by Ahn Mi-Young South Korea under the administration of President Kim Dae Jung had, in the last few years, seemed amenable to mending relations with Japan. Then came news this month that one of Japan's newly released textbooks had once again omitted the atrocities that its Imperial Army had committed in World War II against its neighbors, including Korea. For many Koreans, this only showed that Japan remained as arrogant as ever


U.S. Kicked Off UN Human Rights Commission

by Thalif Deen "It wasn't just enemies. It was friends as well who voted the U.S. out of the Commission," Joanna Weschler, the UN representative for Human Rights Watch said. The ouster was a major setback to the U.S. which takes a very anti-Third World stance on human rights issues. The negative voting was also a backlash against the new Bush Administration whose right wing conservatives have downgraded the importance of the United Nations and held back monies rightfully due to the Organization


Law Exempts U.S. From Blame In Downing Of Missionary Plane

by Jason Vest Almost immediately after the Peruvian Air Force shot up a Baptist-owned Cessna bearing nothing more intoxicating than missionaries, the United States -- whose Central Intelligence Agency provided Peru with the Cessna's intercept data -- moved quickly to put the bulk of the blame on the Peruvians. But even if it turns out that a CIA-employed aircrew was not as heroic in trying to stop the downing as "intelligence sources" have spun, the point is strangely moot; because according to U.S. law, no official of the American government can be held responsible for the errant shootdown of an aircraft suspected of drug smuggling in the Andes


President Bush Rates Poorly in 100 Day Review

by Cat Lazaroff "This President is in league with the oil, mining, gas and chemical industries, and he's been busy flouting the bipartisan consensus on the environment, trying to roll back 30 years of environmental progress in just 100 days," concluded Gephardt. The Democratic leader noted that Bush appears more concerned with pleasing corporate America than with taking care of the public interest


Tensions Heighten As Bush Declares ABM Treaty Obsolete

by Jim Lobe Most analysts here believe Beijing, even more than Moscow, will actively pursue counter-measures, including a rapid build-up of its currently tiny intercontinental ballistic missile force


Russia Cautious Over Bush Plans To Build "Star Wars"

by Sergei Blagov The Bush statement had not come as a surprise, Communist leader Guennady Zyuganov said last week. Washington had long ignored many international treaties. Under the circumstances, the Russian government must "actively defend Russia's national interests," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying


Russia Cautious Over Bush Plans To Dump ABM Treaty, Build "Star Wars"

by Sergei Blagov The Bush statement had not come as a surprise, Communist leader Guennady Zyuganov said last week. Washington had long ignored many international treaties. Under the circumstances, the Russian government must "actively defend Russia's national interests," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying


China Ties To Worsen With Big Arms Sale To Taiwan

by Jim Lobe Arming Taiwan has long been a particularly contentious issue between the two nations. China has always viewed Taiwan as a renegade province that would have fallen to Communist rule if U.S. naval forces had not moved into the Straits of Taiwan after the defeat of the nationalist government and its flight to the island. For much of the Cold War, Washington recognized Taiwan's "Republic of China" as China's only legitimate government and provided it with vast amounts of economic and military assistance. It was only in the late 1970s that it normalized relations with Beijing, formally recognizing that there was only "One China" and that Taiwan was part of China


Sino-U.S. Clash Unsettles Nations Nearest China

by Boonthan Sakanond As countries around the globe ponder the fallout from the U.S.-China spat over the collision of a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet, none are more apprehensive than Southeast Asian nations close to the Chinese mainland. For many of them -- like the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam -- the reason to worry is obvious. They have territorial disputes with China over islands in the South China Sea and are afraid that a militarily assertive Beijing may leave no room for negotiations


Scientists Feud Over Human Gene Count

by Eli Kintisch Both the public and private projects estimated we had just 30,000 to 40,000 genes, far fewer than most previous figures suggested -- and barely more than worms. But the low estimates have ignited a firestorm of controversy. "Historically, gene-prediction programs have tended to miss over 50 percent of genes," says geneticist Michael Snyder of Yale University. A group at Ohio State University in Columbus has analysed the same data that the consortium looked at and estimates there are actually about 80,000 genes


Bush Gives Key Arms Control Post To Anti-UN Extremist

by Jim Lobe Of all the foreign-policy appointments made by President George W. Bush to date, John Bolton's has been one of the most controversial because of his long record of opposition to major arms-control agreements, the United Nations, and multilateralism in general. At a public forum in 1994, for example, Bolton went so far as to assert that "there is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that is the United States when it suits our interest and we can get others to go along." "If the UN secretariat building in New York lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference," he said


Jenna Bush: Poster Child For Drug Abuse

by David Borden It was a minor news item last week, almost gossip level. Jenna Bush, one of George W.'s daughters, was busted for underage drinking during her freshman year at the University of Texas at Austin, Secret Service agents in tow. My first reaction was excitement: We've finally found the perfect poster child for our Higher Education Act Reform Campaign. Jenna Bush has been convicted of a criminal offense, is going to lose financial aid and have to leave college. Clearly an unjust punishment for the "youthful irresponsibility" that seems to run in the Bush family, the perfect case to hold up to help us finally repeal this bad law once and for all. The President's daughter!


Bush Chooses Worst Possible Drug Czar

by Mike Males Walters is a veteran of drug policy shambles. As the deputy director under former drug czar William Bennett, he helped craft drug war policies that have shattered millions of lives, wasted billions of dollars and exacerbated America's drug crisis. He's a hard-core ideologue who misrepresents the facts and spouts tough-on-crime rhetoric


The GOP's New "Bribery Blind"

by Jim Hightower These clever boys have gouged out a brand new campaign finance loophole big enough to drive an armored truck through, and millions of dollars are being trucked-in by corporations eager to curry favor with key political and congressional leaders. One operative already has used this scam to buy $1 million-worth of TV ads for George W. Bush


Demos Should Listen To Nader, Not Blame Him

by Randolph T. Holhut What are the Democrats doing? Blaming Ralph Nader, of course. It's all his fault that Bush got elected, they say. But the central thesis of Nader's candidacy -- that there is no substantive difference between the GOP and the Democrats and both are beholden to the same corporate special interests -- hasn't changed any


The Torpid Bush

by Steve Chapman One reason Clinton drove so many conservatives to frothing incoherence was that he was so inescapable. Having him in the White House sometimes felt like being stuck in an elevator with a motivational speaker. We've traded the peripatetic presidency for the placid. Bush seems to be following the Calvin Coolidge model, figuring that nothing he doesn't say can hurt him. Other presidents made a practice of wooing or attacking their critics. This one figures he can immobilize them with boredom


Just a Test: Bush's Inadequate Education Plan

by Arianna Huffington Bush may be willing to spend $600 million more on elementary school reading programs and $320 million on developing annual assessment tests for reading and math, but he has failed to address the key question: After spending all those millions on remedial reading and testing -- a very expensive way to re-re-reconfirm just how badly our children are failing -- what do we do next?


NY Times Slants Reports of Teen Violence

by Donna Ladd When reporter Todd S. Purdum twice called the Santee shooting the worst since Columbine, he left out two others listed by the National School Safety Center: the June 1999 shooting, possibly by an adult, of two Mexican American students on their way to school in California and the March 2000 killing of two African American teens by another African American teen at a Georgia high school dance.


Confessions of a Drug War Beancounter

by David Corn In response to data suggesting drug use was on the rise among young people, President Clinton proposed (and Congress approved) an anti-drug propaganda blitz. The multibillion-dollar "National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign" was unveiled in 1998, and don't-do-drug ads -- sponsored by the ONDCP and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America -- were disseminated nationally through television, radio, billboards and the media. Bob's shop found that many of the supposed media buys -- which were being arranged by high-profile advertising firms -- never took place. "That caused a huge stink," he recalls. "At some point we were missing thousands of ads." And commercials designed for kids were running at ten at night. But this matter, Bob maintains, was shoved aside at ONDCP. More importantly, the analysis mounted by Bob and his colleagues -- who looked at survey research and focus group results -- found that the campaign was of questionable effectiveness


Make Energy, Not War

by David Corn Tax cuts for the rich, fuzzy-science missile defense, environmental standard rollbacks, assaults on workplace safety, a revival of nuclear power, eliminating salmonella testing of meat used for school lunches (an initiative that had to be quickly rescinded) -- it's a bad 1980s flashback, Ronald Reagan all over again. What's next: ketchup as a vegetable? Forget Dick Cheney -- is Nancy Reagan calling the shots?


R.I.P. Joey Ramone, Singing Protester

by David Corn In his obituaries there was only slight mention of one of Ramone's best songs: "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg)," an anti-Reagan anthem that warrants inclusion on the best-of list of a subgenre of rock-and-roll protest songs -- the topical-reaction track. And we can thank Pat Buchanan, in part, for this wonderful tune


8,640,000 Seconds of Bush

by David Corn The best quote from all Bush's 100-Days jawboning that I spotted occurred at the start of his Oval Office interview with the Post. In an opening statement, Bush said of the chief executive position: "It's really a decision-making job, much more so than people really realize. I make decisions every day -- large decisions, small decisions, which is a test of my management skills and a test of how firm the foundation on which I walk -- a test of the foundation on which I walk." I make decisions every day. He was surprised by that? He thinks most Americans would be as well? Didn't his dad once have this job? When you see a comment like this, it is tough not to consider Bush a boob. Perhaps that's his secret weapon


U.S. Banks Eager To Launder Money, Congress Finds

by Jim Lobe Some of the country's biggest banks, including Chase Manhattan, Bank of America, Citigroup, and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. have routinely set up so-called "correspondent accounts" for clients of foreign banks, some of which are mere shell companies created for drug-traffickers and other ne'er-do-wells to hide their ill-gotten gains, according to the report by the Minority Staff of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations


Big Business Spurs Anti-Earth Day Protests

by Bill Berkowitz The Greening Earth Society, Coalition for Affordable and Reliable Energy, and other organizations owned by corporate interests understand the huge opening represented by President Bush's so-called "commonsense" approach to environmental issues


Using Butter To Track Air Pollution

by Beverly Hassell When professor Kevin Jones goes shopping for laboratory supplies, one of his first stops is the local grocery store, specifically, the dairy section. Jones is one of a team of environmental scientists who have found another use for butter -- tracking the spread of air pollution around the world


Study Finds Human Viruses Contaminating Ocean Off California

With a technique developed to track pathogens in sewage, a California researcher has shown that potentially harmful human viruses are contaminating coastal waters in Southern California at major river mouths


White Racists Spread Mexican "Reconquest Of U.S." Rumors

by James E. Garcia Given the history of our nation's treatment of Mexicans and Mexican Americans, not to mention other Latinos, it is actually quite amazing that there is no secret guerrilla army of Chicano militants plotting revenge. They could do so in the name of the thousands, if not millions, of migrant farm workers poisoned by cancer-causing pesticides while picking crops on land stolen from their ancestors. What is it that prompted Mr. Brown to write to me? Mr. Brown, it turns out, is a loyal devotee of an anti-immigrant group called American Patrol -- an organization that has been labeled a hate group


Schmio Awards Bash Ad Industry

by Marion Wrenn The Sarafem campaign depicts women on the verge of a nervous breakdown under the pressures of everyday frustrations: a wobbly shopping cart, jeans that don't fit. Sarafem, aka fluoxetine, aka Prozac (aka "Prozac in Drag," as Ehrenreich put it), was designed to treat depression. But Eli Lilly received FDA approval to sell Prozac under the name Sarafem, arguing the name change would "help with educational efforts for this largely unrecognized disorder while reducing confusion about the differences between depression and PMDD." The ads position PMS as a medical, treatable disorder and, in doing so, pathologize emotional swings, self-doubt and daily stress. Ehrenreich deftly critiqued the ads and offered a challenge: "Don't take a pill. Honor your bitchiness and use it to fight back"


Marc Rich's Hidden History as a Union-Buster

by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman What is now widely known about Rich has cast a dark cloud over what Clinton hoped would be a glorious exit from the presidency. What is not widely known, at least outside of West Virginia and certain labor circles, is that Rich played a central role in one of the highest profile union-busting efforts the United States has seen in recent decades


Alllies Of Haiti's Ex-Dictator Return To Power

by Ives Marie Chanel For the first time since the fall of their dictator 15 years ago, Duvalierists are once again in positions of power in Haiti. When President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's cabinet was sworn in during March, it included a prime minister and three ministers who had been prominent figures in the brutal Duvalier dictatorship that ruled Haiti from 1957 to 1986


Antibiotic-Resistant Genes Found In Groundwater

by Jim Barlow Genes resistant to tetracycline have been found in groundwater as far as a sixth of a mile downstream from two swine facilities that use antibiotics as growth promoters. The finding is significant in part because it shows the potential for spreading resistance back into the food chain of animals and people, researchers say


U.S. Military Preparing For Wars Over Natural Resources

by Jim Lobe Ten years after the end of the Cold War, the world is entering a new era in which competition over vital resources will dominate conflict and war, according to a U.S. scholar. Much of that conflict will be over water and oil and will take place in areas such as Central Asia and the Caspian Sea, where resources remain relatively abundant and local governments are too weak to protect them, says Michael Klare, a veteran analyst of U.S. strategic doctrine over the past 30 years


Voice Mail A Tool For Discrimination, Study Finds

by Jacquie Posey "Black speech" has become a way for housing rental agents to discriminate on the basis of race, class and gender, according to a University of Pennsylvania study, which concludes that some rental agents discriminate by using linguistic cues to screen callers


Navy Sub Captain Is No Victim

by Steve Chapman Navy Cmdr. Scott Waddle was not the victim here. The accident didn't occur because of events or circumstances beyond his control. He made one unforgivable mistake after another while in command of a 5,500-ton nuclear-powered submarine -- a job in which he had near-absolute authority over his subordinates. In the civilian world, his actions might well have landed him in jail. Drunk drivers get less forgiveness than Waddle got


Solving The Organ Donation Shortage

by Steve Chapman Lloyd Cohen, a law professor at George Mason University, has long advocated a plan to allow the buying and selling of vital body parts. He envisions letting people contract in advance to donate any usable organs when they die -- in exchange for a fee to be paid to their heirs. It would work like life insurance, only without monthly premiums


The Andrea Thompson Threat To Journalism

by Steve Chapman Andrea Thompson, recently hired as an anchor by CNN Headline News, used to play Detective Jill Kirkendall on "NYPD Blue." Her arrival at a network that has been getting rid of battle-tested reporters did not go down well with many people who think it casts doubt on CNN's professionalism


The USS Liberty, America's Most Shameful Secret

by Eric S. Margolis The attack on 'Liberty' was fading into obscurity until last week, when intelligence expert James Bamford came out with 'Body of Secrets,' his latest book about the National Security Agency. In a stunning revelation, Bamford writes that unknown to Israel, a U.S. Navy EC-121 intelligence aircraft was flying high overhead the 'Liberty,' electronically recorded the attack. The U.S. aircraft crew provides evidence that the Israeli pilots knew full well that they were attacking a U.S. Navy ship flying the American flag


Still Listening to Tupac

by Kevin Weston Lost in the shuffle following the rebellion in Cincinnati was the fact that young people in that torn city had come to realize the current black leadership doesn't speak for them. This sets up a potentially explosive dynamic within the black community itself. As in the 1960s, a young black leadership is charting its own course -- outside the Civil Rights leadership, and even outside of hip hop


Drug Companies' Hard Sell Is Deadly

by Arianna Huffington Just as Hollywood knows how to make a blockbuster movie "open big," the pharmaceutical companies have learned how to build interest in their latest blockbuster drug. As a result, new relatively untested drugs are being sampled by millions of people soon after they are approved, so when something goes wrong, the fallout is widespread


The Right-Wing Media Blitzkreig

by Molly Ivins What we're seeing and hearing in the media now is sort of a Soviet-style reworking of history. In the parallel universe inhabited by The Wall Street Journal's strange editorial writers, there is now a vast left-wing conspiracy to smear Ted Olsen, Bush's nominee for solicitor general, because he may have been involved with the Arkansas Project


Eco-Porn, Pharma-Porn

by Molly Ivins As a cancer survivor, I am particularly susceptible to the wonderful ad in which a woman recovering from breast cancer tries to express her gratitude to the drug companies that saved her life. I know she feels the same gratitude to the doctors, the nurses, the orderlies, the health-insurance company, her best friend, her mother-in-law and many more. I know the gratitude caused by surviving cancer. I just didn't expect to see it exploited by Big Pharmas to counter all the rotten publicity they've been getting for their greedy, blood-sucking, murderous behavior all over the globe


Supreme Court's Scary Decision Unites Right, Left

by Molly Ivins If you're one of those right-wing Goldwaterites who still worries about the government eroding our fundamental freedoms, you're absolutely right. And the latest example is a colossal stinker of a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. You can now get hauled off to jail, booked, printed and held for 48 hours for a seatbelt violation, not to mention dog-off-leash, spitting-on-sidewalk and aggravated mopery. Should you have an encounter with a cop having a bad day, you can kiss your freedom farewell. What were they thinking?


Can You Imagine A Worse Energy Policy?

by Molly Ivins Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group -- two Texas oilmen, a CEO from the electricity-gobbling aluminum industry and a tool of the energy companies, all members of the Cabinet, meeting in secret -- is pushing coal -- hard. Unfortunately, it is the dirtiest source of electricity generation: The administration not only has reneged on its promise to curb coal pollution, but now it proposes to ease the pollution controls already in place. Naturally, the group is also pushing oil and gas -- major contributors to global warming -- and, incredibly enough, de-emphasizing conservation. What kind of energy policy would abandon conservation, which is effective and costs nothing?


Dubya Gets A C-minus

by Molly Ivins I'm giving El Chico even a C-minus is because I figure he'll get worse, and we'll need the lower grades. Not being terribly interested in the efficacy of the Bush public relations operation, or even in his marital fidelity, I'm grading him on what he's actually done to us. Do let me know if any of this makes you healthier or more secure, or improves the environment or your personal finances


Bob Kerrey And The Fantasy Of Innocence

by Norman Solomon Commonly, in the U.S. media frame, the vast majority of the war's victims -- including a few million dead people in their home countries of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia -- are rendered as little more than props for the anguish of Americans. How much we have suffered as a result of killing those people! Their importance grows only to the extent that they underscore our own


The McVeigh Death Penalty Pageant

by Norman Solomon McVeigh's crime, we're told, was the deadliest act of terrorism ever on U.S. soil. Among the 168 people he killed were 19 young children. From prison, he has insisted on describing the kids he murdered as "collateral damage." It's a phrase that disturbed some media consumers a decade ago, during the Gulf War, when it was the euphemism of choice for top Pentagon officials and many American reporters


Bias And Fear Is Tilting Israel Coverage

by Norman Solomon To help maintain pressure for a favorable media tilt, supporters of Israel have a not-so-secret weapon, brandished most effectively as a preemptive threat -- the charge of anti-Semitism. Any Americans who speak out against Israel's extreme disregard for human rights are liable to be in the line of fire


Ignoring The Voice Of Protest

by Norman Solomon Most news outlets showed little interest in the content of alternative forums in Quebec City that drew thousands of activists from all over the hemisphere. Likewise, a big march in the city, with some estimates ranging above 60,000 participants, got underwhelming coverage. For that matter, most reporters didn't seem very deeply interested in the several thousand people who bravely engaged in militant, nonviolent direct action -- risking and sometimes sustaining injuries from police assaults -- while confronting the official summit


The Slippery Slope of Hate Crimes

by Alexander Cockburn Earlier this year, Oregon State Senator Gary George, a hazelnut farmer, introduced a bill making it a hate crime to smash a Starbucks window or sabotage a timber company. George told the press his real target was political correctness on hate crimes. "Even the Scriptures tell you not to judge a person's thoughts but their actions." His bill calls for an additional five years in prison for an offender whose crime is motivated by "a hatred of people who subscribe to a set of political beliefs that support capitalism"


Our Kurt Waldheim

by Alexander Cockburn It's pretty clear that Kerrey's raid was part of the Phoenix program (as was My Lai, where Task Force Barker killed 504 men, women and children the preceding year). The intent of Phoenix was terror, precisely the killing of not only suspected Viet Cong, but their families. The late William Colby, the CIA man who ran the program in Vietnam told Congress that between 1967 and 1971, Phoenix had killed 20,587 Vietnamese "activists." The South Vietnamese declared that 41,000 had been killed


McVeigh And Oklahoma City

by Alexander Cockburn The memorial is supposed to educate us about terror and about the bombing, yet an uninformed person could spend several hours in it and leave without knowing anything more about the perpetrator of the Oklahoma bombing, beyond the fact that he was white and his name was McVeigh


Bush's Irretrievable Blunders

by Alexander Cockburn In politics, first impressions can be the enduring ones, and in the minds of many Americans, the Bush administration is the errand boy of oil and coal companies, indifferent to arsenic contamination of water, eager to OK drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and heedless of fears about global warming. A Washington Post poll this week shows respectable numbers for Bush, except in the area of the environment, where both Republicans and Democrats, by substantial majorities, deem him to be a gofer for the corporations


A Simple Fix For Our China Crisis

by Joshua Samuel Brown Looks like you've stepped in it now, Mr. President, and only three months into your term. International relations can be complicated, George, and China is an especially tricky issue. A century of being carved up like a melon by Westerners has made them extremely sensitive to even the slightest whiff of foreign bullying. All we were doing was spying on their coastline when one of their pilots had to go and earn the posthumous title of "People's Hero" by ramming his plane into ours. Now they've got our plane, and you've got a major headache



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