Today's
Stories
March 21,
2007
James Petras
Meet
the Global Ruling Class
March 20,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
is a Vast, Blood-Drenched Human Disaster
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The Blank Check War
Sharon Smith
Hillary's Cojones: Our Bleached-Blond Thatcher?
Uri Avnery
The New Palestinian Unity Government
Stan Cox
Down-to-a-Trickle Economics
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Hating the Rich
Alan Farago
Why Al Gore Soft-Peddled the Environment in 2000
Richard W.
Behan
Impeachment and Patriotism
Juan Antonio Montecino Latin America Has Moved On
David Krieger
The Treaty of Tlatelolco
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to Pfizer's CEO: $11 Million Salary, 36% Raise,
10,000 Fired Employees
Mickey Z.
A Cat-Eat-Cat World: Beyond the Pet Food Recall
Website of
the Day
Bringing the War Home
Webclip of
the Day
Sunsara Taylor Beats O'Reilly, Again
March 19,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Crime
Blotter: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Patrick Cockburn
Operation
Deepening Nightmare
Stauber / Rampton
Why Won't MoveOn Move Forward?
Werther
Plame Wars: Valerie Plame, the Washington Post and the Ghost
of Joe McCarthy
Noam Chomsky
In Memory of Tanya Reinhart
Jeff Leys
Tap Dancing on Graves: How Democrats Bought the War
Richard May
And Then There Were None: Europe's Afghan Backlash
Ron Jacobs
Lessons of the Antiwar Movement and the Washington Post's Lessons
of the Iraq War
Mike Whitney
Rove in the Dock
Website of
the Day
Ringtones That Roar
March 17
/ 18, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Here
Comes Another "Crime Wave"
John Scagliotti
A Sissy's Manifesto
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Green Imposter: When Al Gore Was Veep
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Confession Backfired
Greg Moses
Jailing Immigrant Mothers in El Paso
Harry Clark
Thrice-Told Tales: Those Israel-Syria Peace Talks
Brian Cloughley
In the Name of Improving People's Lives: Mounting Civilian Deaths
in Afghanistan and Iraq
Mehran Ghassemi
An Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh on the US, Israel and Iran
William Loren Katz
A Disturbing Expulsion: Racism and the Cherokee Nation
John Ross
Being a Zapatista Where You Live
Ralph Nader
Ban the Bomblets!
Walter Brasch
An Intolerant Minority: the Witch Hunt Against Gays in the Military
Samer Assad
The Palestinian Unity Government: Another for US Diplomacy
Dave Zirin
Bowie Kuhn: Death of a Baseball Reactionary
Ron Jacobs
The Darker Nation's: Remembering and Re-examining the Third World
Missy Beattie
No to War and Pace
Don Santina
First, They Came for the Democrats
Sami Adwan
What Hillary Should Know About Palestinian Schoolbooks
Dr. Susan Block
Gods of Spring: the Erotics of the Equinox
Poets' Basement
Reed, Landau, Engel, Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
God Save Helen Mirren
March 16,
2007
R. T. Naylor
The
Political Economy of Diamonds
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Last Days of Constitutional Rule
Joshua Frank
Obama's Israel Problem
Diane Farsetta
How Reporters Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Front
Groups
Tom Barry
Tancredo's Putsch: Anti-Immigrant Agenda Veers Hard Right
Stephen Lendman
Plays from a Political Fake Book: Congress's Phony Opposition
to War
Al Krebs
Compounding Infamy: Chiquita, Its Workers and Colombia's Death
Squads
Jackie Corr
Senator Schumer and the Corruption Culture
Ramzy Baroud
Palestinians Must Redefine Struggle
Reza Fiyouzat
The Chinese Way of Capitalism
Website of the Day
Introducing: the iRak
March 15,
2007
Alison Weir
Strip-Searching
Children at Israeli Checkpoints
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad
Under Surge
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo to Congressional Leaders on Iraq Funding: First Stop the
Bleeding
Franklin Spinney
Of Character and Contractors: the Unauthorized Rumsfeld
Standard Schaefer
Biofuels
and the Green Resistance
Conn Hallinan
The Right's Stuff in Africa: Neocons, Evangelicals and Sudan
Maureen Webb
Another Patriot Act Abuse
Sonja Karkar
Rachel Corrie and Palestine
Margaret Kimberly
The Profits of Self-Hatred: Malkin and D'Souza, Incorporated
Anthony Papa
The New Capones: It's Time to Rethink Drug Prohibition
Katherine Hancy
Wheeler Bush's
Latin American Tour: Good Will Lost
Video of the Day
The Easiest Targets
Website of
the Day
Memo to Kucinich: Watch Your Back!
March 14,
2007
Tao Ruspoli
A
Conversation with Peter Linebaugh on the Slave Trade, Magna Carta
and the State of the Left
Philip Agee
The
Decline of the US, the Rise of Latin America
Bruce Dixon
The Digital Redlining of African-Americans
John Walsh
How One Senator Could End the War
Sunsara Taylor
Red Light, Green Light: the Democrats and Iran
William Johnson
Still Reeling from Katrina: The Spirited Strike at Pascagoula
Shipyards
Richard Thieme
Entitlement and Empire
Jeffrey Klein
Right-Wing Academic Values
Nicola Nasser
This Time, Israeli is Missing an Historic Opportunity
Dave Lindorff
Political Hide-and-Seek with the Democrats
Website of
the Day
Oil Change
March 13,
2007
Catherine Wilkerson,
M.D.
Scenes
from a Cop Riot
Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Invastion of Lebanon
Robert Bryce
Beyond Redemption: the Legacy of George the Second
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Coal-Powered Democrats
Pierre Rimbert
Libération and the Evolution of French Neoliberalism
Dave Lindorff
What's Good for Halliburton is Good ... for Dubai
Elizabeth Schulte
The Repackaging of John Edwards
Norman Solomon
The Pragmatism of Prolonged War
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats' Fraudulent Iraq Exit Plan
Jeff Conant
Greeting Rumsfeld in Taos
Website of the Day
Tacoma and the Big Heat
March 12,
2007
Marjorie Cohn
Patriot
Act Unbound
Col. Dan Smith
Ghost Prisoners, Shadowy Jails and Secret Trials
Paul Craig Roberts
Neocons in Kafkaland
Ingmar Lee
The Sentencing of Betty Krawczyk: a 78-Year-Old Eco-Heroine
Fred Gardner
Cannabis for the Wounded: Another Walter Reed Scandal
Ron Jacobs
Showdown at Port Tacoma: Confronting the War Machine in the Northwest
Ralph Nader
Send the Bush Twins to Iraq!
John Ross
Political Prisoners in Calderon's Mexico
Stephen Fleischman
Bush's Latin American Slip
Eva Carazo Vargas
Why We Reject CAFTA
Website of
the Day
Mountain Justice Spring Break
March 9
/ 11, 2007
Sameer Dossani
Interview
with Noam Chomsky: War, Neoliberalism and Empire in the 21st
Century
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Crude Alliance: The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
Dave Marsh
Bono's Bullshit: Not One Red Cent
Patrick Cockburn
Shia Pilgrims Die Despite US Offensive
Jennifer Van Bergen
A Gonzo Argument: Alberto Gonzales's Defense of NSA Domestic
Spying
James P. Stevenson
Pardon Whom? Libby and the Cheney Unseen
Arthur J. Versluis
Crusade for Commercialism
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Not a Dime's Worth of Difference: Congress and Corporate Crime
Missy Beattie
Too Much Info, Newt!: Sex, God and Praying
Michael Simmons
Annie Get Your Gums: Why I Like Ann Coulter
Kevin Zeese
Making Democrats Pay the Price: Voting Against the War is No
Longer Enough
David Swanson
Shocking Video: The Dark Side of the Democrats
John A. Murphy
Are the Congressional Democrats Spineless?
Dave Lindorff
Bush Dodges a Constitutional Bullet in New Mexico: Abetted by
Democrats
Nikolas Kozloff
Lights! Camera! Chavez!
Christopher
Fons
Bush Goes to Latin America: Is It All About (N)PR?
Mike Roselle
A Thousand Miles of Bad River
Mike Mejia
Justice for Sibel Edmonds
Susie Day
Anna Nicole Smith Bombs Iran!
Michael Donnelly
LA Story: Rock Stars, Porn Stars and Peace
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know (Parts 4 and 5)
Poets' Basement
Reed, Laymon, Mezmer and Harley
Website of the Weekend
Japanese Dolphin Massacre
March 8,
2007
Elaine Cassel
The
Tragic Case of Jose Padilla
Yifat Susskind
Iraq's Other War: Violence Against Women Under US Occupation
Corporate Crime Reporter
Politics and the Prosecutors
Col. Dan Smith
The Sins of Walter Reed
William S. Lind
The Washington Dodgers
Mark Engler
Bush's Latin American Spring Break
Roger Burbach
With Negroponte as Tour Director, Bush's Trip Destined to Fail
Dana Cloud
Return of the Campus Witch Hunts: David Horowitz and the Thought
Police
Isabella Kenfield
Brazil's Ethanol Pland: Breeding Rural Poverty and Environmental
Degradation
Lucinda Marshall
We Stand with the Women of the World
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction (Part
3)
Website of
the Day
Filibuster for Peace
March 7, 2007
Christopher Ketcham
What Did Israel Know in Advance
of the 9/11 Attacks?
Christopher
Ketcham
The
Kuala Lumpur Deceit: a CIA Cover Up
Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey
St. Clair
Ketcham's Story: Coming in From the Cold
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Mismeasuring the Defense Budget
Sean Donahue
Free Scooter Libby!
Dave Lindorff
The Fall Guy Has Fallen
Evelyn Pringle
Psychosis and Mania: ADHD Drug Warnings Come Too Late for Many
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction
Website of the Day
Debating Iraq: Gaffney Against the World!
March 6,
2007
Gary Leupp
Meet
Eliot Cohen: "As Extremist a Neocon and Warmonger as It
Gets"
Uri Avnery
Esterina Tartman: The Big Mouth of Israeli Fascism
Patrick Cockburn
The War on Terror is a Bust: Bush is Now Al Qaeda's Top Recruiter
Saul Landau
World
in Crisis, Candidates in Denial
Corporate Crime Reporter
John Edwards' Big Lie
Ron Jacobs
The Legacy of Lordstown: The Union Makes Us Strong!
Mike Roselle
Judi Bari: Ten Years Gone
P. Sainath
Neoliberalism and the Ideology of the Cancer Cell
Joshua Frank
Dump the Dems, Unite Against the War
Aniket Alam
Women's Day, Lenin and a Riot in Copenhagen
Dave Zirin
Resurrecting Don Barksdale: Basketball's Forgotten Pioneer
Website of
the Day
Physicians for a National Health Program
March 5,
2007
Greg Moses
Holding
Suzi Hazahza for Profit
Patrick Cockburn
Exodus of Iraq's Ancient Minorities
James Petras
Bush vs. Chavez
Frida Berrigan
US Nuclear Hypocrisy and Iran
Marjorie Cohn
Conscientious Objector Faces Court-Martial:
the Case of Augustín Aguayo
Douglas Kammen
and S.W. Hayati
The Rice Crisis in East Timor
Sen. Barack Obama
On Israel and AIPAC: "We Must Preserve Our Total Commitment
to Our Unique Defense Relationship with Israel"
Michael Young
Sy Hersh and Iran: the Dark Side of Spun a Lot?
Dave Lindorff
It's the People of Washington vs. Pelosi, et al
Sonja Karkar
Raiding Nablus: Israel's Hot Winter Offensive
Website of the Day
How Obama Learned to Love Israel
March 3
/ 4, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
Persecution of Sami Al-Arian
Corporate Crime
Reporter
"No Fingernails, No Good:" Al-Arian Prosecutor's Anti-Muslim
Bias
Jeffrey St. Clair
Glory Boy and the Snail Darter: Al Gore, the Origins of a Hypocrite
Patrick Cockburn
War Reporting in Iraq: Only Locals Need Apply
Ralph Nader
Hillary, Inc.: Sen. Clinton and Corporate America
M. Shahid Alam
American Mamlukes
Gilad Atzmon
From Esther to AIPAC
Fred Gardner
It's Official!: Cannabis Reduces Pain
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Fourth World War Started in Venezuela
Rock &
Rap Confidential
Do the James Brown!: "No One Could Speak More Authoritatively
for Blacks"
Gillian Russom
The Court Martial of Agustín Aguayo
Michael McPhearson
My Small Act of Civil Disobedience
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats and the Peace Movement: Who Owns Whom?
Sunsara Taylor
Four Years of an Unjust War
Wendy Thompson
Re-Organizing the UAW
Kenneth Rexroth
Gibbon's "Decline and Fall"
Missy Beattie
Regarding Cheney
Don Monkerud
Jesus Turned Away at US Border
Tina Louise
Stuffed with Terror, Starved of Dreams
Poets' Basement
Richards, Landau and Davies
Website of the Weekend
John Prine: Flag Decal
March 2,
2007
Roger Morris
Cheney's
Bagram Ghosts
Phil Gasper
Prisoners of Ideology
Mike Roselle
Buffalo Gore: The Blood-Stained Snow of Yellowstone
Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scam
John V. Walsh
Who is He This Time?: Kerry's Strange Call to Filibuster the
War
Sherwood Ross
Bush and Walter Reed Hospital: Praise the Care, Slash the Budget
China Hand
Who Let North Korea Get the Bomb?
David Rosen
To Cut or Not to Cut?: the Politics of Circumcision in America
Chris Genovali
Connecting the Dots
Peter Harley
The Wall, Apartheid and Mandela
Website of the Day
Courage to Resist
March 1,
2007
Laura Carlsen
Return
to Sender: Migrants as Globalization's Junk Mail
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men
Ray McGovern
How Far is Iran from the Bomb? Who the Hell Knows?
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Theater of the Absurd
Najum Mustaq
America's Musharraf Dilemma
Brent Bowden
The War on Terror and the Terror of War
Tina Richards
Demoralizing the Troops? The Mother of an Iraq War Vet Responds
Ethan Nadelman
Mexico and the Drug War
Mike Stark
"Tough on Crime" is the Problem, Not a Solution
Wadner Pierre
/ Jeb Sprague
Haiti's Poor Under a State of Siege by UN
Mike Whitney
Market Meltdown: the Dead Hand of Greenspan
Website of
the Day
Dylan Hears a Who
February
28, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
An
Amazing Disgrace
Tao Ruspoli
A Conversation with Francisco Letelier
China Hand
The Shanghai Crash: Take the Money and Run
Marjorie Cohn
Why the Boumediene Case on Gitmo Detainees and Habeas Corpus
Was Wrongly Decided
Sarah Olson
Is Lt. Watada an Isolated Case of Military Dissent?
Susan Van Haitsma
Mark Wilkerson: Standing for a Soldier's Right to Conscience
Nicole Colson
License to Torture
Harvey Wasserman
The Sham of Nuclear Power
William S. Lind
The Non-Thinking Enemy
Nicola Nasser
US Turnabout?: Engagement and Confrontation in the Middle East
Website of the Day
Andrew Cockburn on Rumsfeld
February
27, 2007
Tariq Ali
The
Khyber Impasse: the Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan
Tom Barry
America's
Crusaders: Santorum and Lieberman
Uri Avnery
The Next War
Antonia Juhasz / Raed Jarrar
Oil Grab: the Secret Scheme to Split Iraq
Jeff Nygaard
Howard Hunt and the National Memory System
Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Grenada: an Invasion Revisited
Mitchell Kaidy
Israel's Cluster Bombs: Made in USA, Ground-Tested in Lebanon
Carl Finamore
Airline Bankruptcies, Mergers and Profits
Anne McElroy
Dachel
The Really Big Lie About Autism
Ramzy Baroud
Who is Really in Control?
Andrew Rouse
The Queen, Her Apothecary and the War on Iraq
Website of the Day
New York City Skyline
February
26, 2007
Franklin Lamb
US
Israel Lobby Targets Lebanon's Jihad al-Bina
Bill Quigley
The
Right to Return to New Orleans
Greg Moses
Suzi Hazahza in Haskell Hell
Col. Dan Smith
Calling All Carriers
Ralph Nader
The Bush Administration is a Threat to Our National Security
Paul Buchheit
The Income Gap
Jeff Leys
How Democrats Are Buying the Iraq War
Dave Zirin
Bojangling for Bigots: an Open Letter to Jason Whitlock
Mike Whitney
Doomsday Dick and the Plague of Frogs
Michael Dickinson
Free Kareem Amer!
Website of the Day
Beware the Chickenhawks!
February
24 / 25, 2007
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Frightening
Tales of Endangered Species
R. T. Naylor
Inside Islamic Charity
Gary Leupp
AIPAC Demands "Action" on Iran
Saul Landau
Modern Day Miracle: Rev. Haggard Cured! Thank You, Jesus!
Ron Jacobs
Missile Defense Redux
Jeffrey Blankfort
A Debate on the Israel Lobby
Chris Sands
Afghanistan in Winter: Where Death Comes Cheap
Gary Freeman
The N-Word and Black History Month
Larry Portis
Zionism and the United States: the Cultural Connection
P. Sainath
Two Million People in "Maximum Distress"
Lee Sustar
What Next for the Immigrants' Rights Movement?
Kevin Wehr
Liberal vs. Radical Enviros: the Thrill isn't Gone, It's Just
Moved
Ken Couesbouc
The African Card
Soffiyah Elijah
FBI Hunting Dead Panthers: Can John Bowman Ever Rest in Peace?
Kathlyn Stone
Iraqi Labor vs. Big Oil
Dave Lindorff
Breaking the Dam in Olympia
Jason Kunin
Criticizing Israel is Not an Act of Bigotry
Kevin Zeese
Can Hillary be Trusted?
Remi Kanazi
All Roads Lead to Checkpoints
Missy Beattie
Five Words That Change Lives
Poets' Basement
Davies, Holt and Rodriguez
Website of the Weekend
Caught on Tape: an Anti-War Movement Finding Its Feet?
February
23, 2007
Franklin Spinney
Top
Gun vs. the Axis of Evil: Is This What We Have Become?
Jonathan Cook
Watching
the Checkpoints
Patrick Cockburn
The True Extent of Britain's Failure in Basra
Kathy Kelly
Do Something Good
Chris Dols
Islamophobia at Urban Outfiters: the Case for Keffiyehs
Evelyn Pringle
The Neurontin Suicides: Risks Kept Hidden for Years
Stephen Pearcy
If Bush is a War Criminal, What About the Troops?
Dan Brook
Making Poverty History
Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Police Commit Rapes
Website of
the Day
A Citizens Arrest of Patty Murray
February
22, 2007
Robert Fantina
Repeating
History
Tariq Ali
Prodi's Soap Operatic Fall: Neoliberalism and War in Italy
Michael Shank
An Interview with Noam Chomsky on Iran, Iraq, the Democrats and
Climate Change
John Ross
Calderon's War on Drugs
Christopher Brauchli
Stockcars on Dope: How NASCAR and the Tour de France are Bring
the World Together
Cindy Litman
Paying for the Damage Done to Iraq
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Mr. Jefferson's Inheritors: Caution, Calculation and Cold Feet
Kevin Zeese
Finally, a Populist Antiwar Candidate for President
Aseem Shrivastava
The New Indian Way?: a Developer's Model of Development
Reza Fiyouzat
A Letter to the Israeli People: We are All Led by Mad Men
Illinois Students Against the
War
Why We Protested at Obama's Speech
Website of
the Day
An Interview with Mike Gravel
February
21, 2007
Maass / St.
Clair
The
Clintons: the Art of Politics Without Conscience
Sharon Smith
Inside
the Imperial Budget
Greg Moses
Showdown Over Texas Immigrant Prisons
Margaret Kimberly
America the Stupid
Ralph Nader
Making Cancer Cool: Tobacco and Hollywood
Nicola Nasser
Evasive Diplomacy: Bush Adm. Shuns Middle East Peace Talks
Mike Whitney
The Second Great Depression
Tao Ruspoli
Revolutionary But Gangsta: a Conversation with Stic.Man of Dead
Prez
Byeong Jeongpil
Beyond the "Protection Facility",
Another Prison
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Why Hillary, Obama and Edwards Oppose Single-Payer Health Care
Josh Mahan
The Lost Art of Shattuck: a Good, Old-Fashioned Drinking Story
Website of
the Day
Time to Free the Puerto Rican Nationalists
February
20, 2007
Sgt. Martin
Smith
Structured
Cruelty: Learning to be a Lean, Mean Killing Machine
Werther
How
to be a Washington Expert
Corporate Crime Reporter
Exposing SAIC
Carl G. Estabrook
Common Sense About the Recent Past
China Hand
Setting Sun: The Diverging US-Japan Relationship
Joshua Frank
Cleaning Up Exxon's Greenpoint Oil Spill
Megan Boler
The Daily Show and Political Activism
John Feffer
People Power vs. Military Power in East Asia
Daryll E. Ray
What's Inside the New Farm Bill
Alan Gregory
Midwest Wolves Fall Prey to Slob Hunters' PR Scam
Website of the Day
"Not a Target Rich Environment?"
February
19, 2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Economists
in Denial: Blind to the Consequences of Offshoring
Gary Leupp
"A Genocidal, Suicidal Nation:" Mitt Romney Joins Iran's
Hysterical Accusers
Ron Jacobs
The Mecca Agreements: the Future Remains Bleak
Michael F.
Brown
The Peace Process Industry
Robert Jensen
Liberal Icons and War: Bi-Partisan Empire-Building
Roger Burbach
Ecuador Stands Up to US
Monica Benderman
America, Where Are You Now?
Sonja Karkar
Apocalyptic Archaeology: Israel's Provocations Threaten Jerusalem
John Walsh
Some Good News from Beantown
Talli Nauman
Colorado Delta Blues: Challenging the Law of the River
Website of the Day
"The Best Place to be in Town"
Feburary
17 / 18, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Sold
to Mr. Gordon, Another Bridge!
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews: a Conversation with Patrick Cockburn, Part Two
Gary Leupp
Iran: A Chronology of Disinformation
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Dark Mesas in an Ancient Light
Roger Morris
The Undertaker's Tally: the Tragedy of Donald Rumsfeld
Uri Avnery
Facing Mecca
James Brooks
Palestinians and the "Diplomatic Horizon"
Sen. Russell
Feingold
Congress Must Defund the Iraq War
Linn Washington, Jr.
"Death Row is a Web That Catches Only the Poor"
Michele Brand
Iran: the Proxy War?
Fred Gardner
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Music and Basketball in the Harlem Renaissance
Mitchel Cohen
Storming the Pentagon: Lessons from 1967
Mike Ferner
Democrats Keep Ohio Refugee Free: "No Iraqis in Our Backyards!"
David Swanson
Memo to Don Young: What Lincoln Really Said
P. Sainath
In the Theater of the Jungle Belt
Mike Stark
GoreAid: Gore Plans Concert with Musicians He and Tipper Betrayed
in the 80s
Missy Beattie
The Object of My Disaffection
Jonathan Franklin
Carnival: Where Dance is Hope
Website of the Weekend
The Godfather and the Tenor: "It's a Man's World"
February 16, 2007
Marc Levy
Turning
Point: Veterans' Voices Trigger Response
Andrew Cockburn
In Iraq, Anyone Can Make a Bomb
Glen Ford
Powell, Rice and Obama: Putting Black Faces on Imperial Aggression
Greg Moses
The Terror of Suzi Hazahza: Why Her Family Must Be Freed
Ron Jacobs
Marching on the Pentagon: Then and Now
John W. Farley
Hook, Line and Sinker: The Press and Stephen Hadley
James Marc Leas
Vermont Legislature Says: "Bring Them Home Now!"
Tim Rinne
The Most Dangerous Place on the Face of the Earth?: StratCom
and the Coming War on Iran
Albert Wan
Star-Cross'd Lovers?: The Strange Romance of Hillary and David
Brooks
Website of
the Day
Did Wal-Mart Murder Tweety Bird?
February 15, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
Who
is Muqtada al-Sadr?
Saul Landau
How
to Obsess Your Enemies
Stephen Lendman
The Rules of Imperial Management
Evelyn Pringle
More Zyprexa Postcards from the Edge
Michael Simmons
Is the Joke Over?: an Evening with Ralph Steadman
Kevin Zeese
A Congressional Kabuki Show
Dave Lindorff
The Co-Dependent Congress
Pete Shanks
They Want You to Eat Cloned Meat--And They Don't Want You to
Know It
Peter Rost
The Michelle Manhart Affair: the Air Force Listens!
Lenni Brenner
/ Gilad Atzmon
An Exchange
Website of the Day
Barack Obama vs. Huey P. Newton
February
14, 2007
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews:
A Conversation with Patrick Cockburn
Dick J. Reavis
War
Without a Name
Margaret Kimberly
Medical Apartheid in America
Christopher Brauchli
The Perils of Charity: You Can be Prosecuted for Funding Terror
Even If the Designation of the Group as a Terrorist Organization
was Wrong!
Paul Craig
Roberts
Cracks in the Pentagon
John Ross
The Plot Against Mexican Corn
Michael F.
Brown
The Democrats and Palestine: New Chairman, Old Rules
Dave Lindorff
The Press Bites, Again: a Word of Caution on Those Iranian Weapons
J.L. Chestunut,
Jr.
Texas-style Injustice in Black and White
Don Fitz
Hybrids, Biofuels and Other False Idols
Michael Donnelly
Give Love, Give Life
Dr. Susan Block
The Chemistry of Love
Website of
the Day
Code Pink Drops By Hillary's Office
February
13, 2007
Uri Avnery
Three
Provocations: the Method in the Madness
Patrick Cockburn
Targeting Tehran
Ralph Nader
When Wall Street Whines (You Know They're Making a Killing)
Marjorie Cohn
Fool Us Twice? From Iraq to Iran
Col. Dan Smith
Iran Bashing Goes Prime Time
Col. Douglas
MacGreagor
Empty Vessels: Gen. Patraeus and Other Hollow Men
Thomas Power
Coal Ambivalence: Mining Montana
Nicola Nasser
The Politics of Archaeology in Jerusalem
David Swanson
Iran War Talking Points
Columbia Coalition
Against the War
Why We Are Striking
Website of the Day
Our Friends at Antiwar.com Need Your Help
February
12, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
Scapegoating
Iran
Paul Craig
Roberts
How the World Can Stop Bush: Dump the Dollar!
John Walsh
A Splintered Antiwar Movement: Nader and Libertarians Not Welcome
Dr. John Carroll,
MD
What Next for Haiti's Cite Soliel?: a Journey Through the World's
Most Miserable Slum
Greg Moses
An Outrageously Sickening Immigration Policy
Nicole Colson
The Frame-Up That Fell Apart: Jury See Through Another Botched
Federal "Terrorism" Case
Dave Lindorff
Acting in Bad Feith: Inappropriate
Behavior and Impeachment
Ray McGovern
The Kervorkian Administration: Are Bush and Cheney the Biggest
Threats to the Existence of Israel?
Doug Giebel
Rampant Cyncism
David Swanson
Twisted: Sex and Torture in America
Website of the Day
The Texas Model: Executing Women in Iraq
|
March
21, 2007
The Billionaires
and How They Made It
Meet
the Global Ruling Class
By JAMES PETRAS
Even as the world's billionaires grew
in number from 793 in 2006 to 946 this year, major mass uprisings
became commonplace in China and India. In India, which has the
highest number of billionaires (36) in Asia with total wealth
of $191 billion, Prime Minister Singh declared that the greatest
single threat to 'India's security' were the Maoist-led guerrilla
armies and mass movements in the poorest parts of the country.
In China, with 20 billionaires with $29.4 billion net worth,
the new rulers, confronting nearly a hundred thousand reported
riots and protests, have increased the number of armed special
anti-riot militia a hundred fold, and increased spending for
the rural poor by $10 billion in the hopes of lessening the
monstrous class inequalities and heading off a mass upheaval.
The total wealth of this global
ruling class grew 35 per cent year to year topping $3.5 trillion,
while income levels for the lower 55 per cent of the world's
6-billion-strong population declined or stagnated. Put another
way, one hundred millionth of the world's population (1/100,000,000)
owns more than over 3 billion people. Over half of the current
billionaires (523) came from just 3 countries: the US (415),
Germany (55) and Russia (53). The 35 per cent increase in wealth
mostly came from speculation on equity markets, real estate and
commodity trading, rather than from technical innovations, investments
in job-creating industries or social services.
Among the newest, youngest
and fastest-growing group of billionaires, the Russian oligarchy
stands out for its most rapacious beginnings. Over two-thirds
(67 per cent) of the current Russian billionaire oligarchs began
their concentration of wealth in their mid to early twenties.
During the infamous decade of the 1990's under the quasi-dictatorial
rule of Boris Yeltsin and his US-directed economic advisers,
Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar the entire Russian economy was
put up for sale for a 'political price', which was far below
its real value. Without exception, the transfers of property
were achieved through gangster tactics assassinations,
massive theft, and seizure of state resources, illicit stock
manipulation and buyouts. The future billionaires stripped the
Russian state of over a trillion dollars worth of factories,
transport, oil, gas, iron, coal and other formerly state-owned
resources.
Contrary to European and US publicists on the right and left,
very few of the top former Communist leaders are found among
the current Russian billionaire oligarchy. Secondly, contrary
to the spin-masters' claims of 'communist inefficiencies', the
former Soviet Union developed mines, factories, energy enterprises
were profitable and competitive, before they were taken over
by the new oligarchs. This is evident in the massive private
wealth that was accumulated in less than a decade by these gangster-businessmen.
Virtually all the billionaires' initial sources of wealth had
nothing to do with building, innovating or developing new efficient
enterprises. Wealth was not transferred to high Communist Party
Commissars (lateral transfers) but was seized by armed private
mafias run by recent university graduates who quickly capitalized
on corrupting, intimidating or assassinating senior officials
in the state and benefiting from Boris Yeltsin's mindless contracting
of 'free market' Western consultants.
Forbes magazine puts out a yearly list of the richest
individuals and families in the world. What is most amusing
about the famous Forbes magazine's background biographical
notes on the Russian oligarchs is the constant reference to their
source of wealth as 'self-made' as if stealing state property
created by and defended for over 70 years by the sweat and blood
of the Russian people was the result of the entrepreneurial skills
of thugs in their twenties. Of the top eight Russian billionaire
oligarchs, all got their start from strong-arming their rivals,
setting up 'paper banks' and taking over aluminum, oil, gas,
nickel and steel production and the export of bauxite, iron and
other minerals. Every sector of the former Communist economy
was pillaged by the new billionaires: Construction, telecommunications,
chemicals, real estate, agriculture, vodka, foods, land, media,
automobiles, airlines etc..
With rare exceptions, following
the Yeltsin privatizations all of the oligarchs quickly rose
to the top or near the top, literally murdering or intimidating
any opponents within the former Soviet apparatus and competitors
from rival predator gangs.
The key 'policy' measures, which facilitated the initial pillage
and takeovers by the future billionaires, were the vast and immediate
privatizations of almost all public enterprises by the Gaidar/Chubais
team. This 'Shock Treatment' was encouraged by a Harvard team
of economic advisers and especially by US President Clinton in
order to make the capitalist transformation irreversible. Privatization
led to the capitalist gang wars and the disarticulation of the
Russian economy. As a result there was an 80 per cent decline
in living standards, a devaluation of the Ruble and the sell-off
of invaluable oil, gas and other strategic resources at bargain
prices to the rising class of predator billionaires and US-European
oil and gas multinational corporations. Over a hundred billion
dollars a year was laundered by the mafia oligarchs in the principle
banks of New York, London, Switzerland, Israel and elsewhere
funds which would later be recycled in the purchase of
expensive real estate in the US, England, Spain, France as well
as investments in British football teams, Israeli banks and joint
ventures in minerals.
The winners of the gang wars
during the Yeltsin reign followed up by expanding operations
to a variety of new economic sectors, investments in the expansion
of existing facilities (especially in real estate, extractive
and consumer industries) and overseas. Under President Putin,
the gangster-oligarchs consolidated and expanded from multi-millionaires
to billionaires, to multi-billionaires and growing. From young
swaggering thugs and local swindlers, they became the 'respectable'
partners of American and European multinational corporations,
according to their Western PR agents. The new Russian oligarchs
had 'arrived' on the world financial scene, according to the
financial press.
Yet as President Putin recently pointed out, the new billionaires
have failed to invest, innovate and create competitive enterprises,
despite optimal conditions. Outside of raw material exports,
benefiting from high international prices, few of the oligarch-owned
manufacturers are earning foreign exchange, because few can compete
in international markets. The reason is that the oligarchs have
'diversified' into stock speculation (Suleiman Kerimov $14.4
billion ), (Mikhail Prokhorov $13.5 billion ), banking (Fridman
$12.6 billion ) and buyouts of mines and mineral processing
plants.
The Western media have focused
on the falling out between a handful of Yeltsin-era oligarchs
and President Vladimir Putin and the increase in wealth of a
number of Putin-era billionaires. However, the biographical
evidence demonstrates that there is no rupture between the rise
of the billionaires under Yeltsin and their consolidation and
expansion under Putin. The decline in mutual murder and the
shift to state-regulated competition is as much a product of
the consolidation of the great fortunes as it is the 'new rules
of the game' imposed by President Putin. In the mid 19th century,
Honoré Balzac, surveying the rise of the respectable bourgeois
in France, pointed out their dubious origins: "Behind every
great fortune is a great crime." The swindles begetting
the decades-long ascent of the 19th century French bourgeoisie
pale in comparison to the massive pillage and bloodletting that
created Russia's 21st century billionaires.
Latin America
If blood and guns were the
instruments for the rise of the Russian billionaire oligarchs,
in other regions the Market, or better still, the US-IMF-World
Bank orchestrated Washington Consensus was the driving force
behind the rise of the Latin American billionaires. The two
countries with the greatest concentration of wealth and the greatest
number of billionaires in Latin America are Mexico and Brazil
(77 per cent), which are the two countries, which privatized
the most lucrative, efficient and largest public monopolies.
Of the total $157.2 billion owned by the 38 Latin American
billionaires, 30 are Brazilians or Mexicans with $120.3 billion
. The wealth of 38 families and individuals exceeds that of
250 million Latin Americans; 0.000001 per cent of the population
exceeds that of the lowest 50 per cent. In Mexico, the income
of 0.000001 per cent of the population exceeds the combined income
of 40 million Mexicans. The rise of Latin American billionaires
coincides with the real fall in minimum wages, public expenditures
in social services, labor legislation and a rise in state repression,
weakening labor and peasant organization and collective bargaining.
The implementation of regressive taxes burdening the workers
and peasants and tax exemptions and subsidies for the agro-mineral
exporters contributed to the making of the billionaires. The
result has been downward mobility for public employees and workers,
the displacement of urban labor into the informal sector, the
massive bankruptcy of small farmers, peasants and rural labor
and the out-migration from the countryside to the urban slums
and emigration abroad.
The principal cause of poverty
in Latin American is the very conditions that facilitate the
growth of billionaires. In the case of Mexico, the privatization
of the telecommunication sector at rock bottom prices, resulted
in the quadrupling of wealth for Carlos Slim Helu, the third
richest man in the world (just behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffet)
with a net worth of $49 billion . Two fellow Mexican billionaires,
Alfredo Harp Helu and Roberto Hernandez Ramirez benefited from
the privatization of banks and their subsequent de-nationalization,
selling Banamex to Citicorp.
Privatization, financial de-regulation
and de-nationalization were the key operating principles of US
foreign economic policies implemented in Latin America by the
IMF and the World Bank. These principles dictated the fundamental
conditions shaping any loans or debt re-negotiations in Latin
America.
The billionaires-in-the-making, came from old and new money.
Some began to raise their fortunes by securing government contracts
during the earlier state-led development model (1930's to 1970's)
and others through inherited wealth. Half of Mexican billionaires
inherited their original multi-million dollar fortunes on their
way up to the top. The other half benefited from political ties
and the subsequent big payola from buying public enterprises
cheap and then selling them off to US multi-nationals at great
profit. The great bulk of the 12 million Mexican immigrants who
crossed the border into the US have fled from the onerous conditions,
which allowed Mexico's traditional and nouveaux riche millionaires
to join the global billionaires' club.
Brazil has the largest number
of billionaires (20) of any country in Latin America with a net
worth of $46.2 billion , which is greater than the new worth
of 80 million urban and rural impoverished Brazilians. Approximately
40 per cent of Brazilian billionaires started with great fortunes
and simply added on through acquisitions and mergers.
The so-called 'self-made' billionaires benefited from the privatization
of the lucrative financial sector (the Safra family with $8.9
billion ) and the iron and steel complexes.
How to Become
a Billionaire
While some knowledge, technical
and 'entrepreneurial skills' and market savvy played a small
role in the making of the billionaires in Russia and Latin America,
far more important was the interface of politics and economics
at every stage of wealth accumulation.
In most cases there were three
stages:
1. During the early 'statist'
model of development, the current billionaires successfully 'lobbied'
and bribed officials for government contracts, tax exemptions,
subsidies and protection from foreign competitors. State handouts
were the beachhead or take-off point to billionaire status during
the subsequent neo-liberal phase.
2. The neo-liberal period provided
the greatest opportunity for seizing lucrative public assets
far below their market value and earning capacity. The privatization,
although described as 'market transactions', were in reality
political sales in four senses: in price, in selection of buyers,
in kickbacks to the sellers and in furthering an ideological
agenda. Wealth accumulation resulted from the sell-off of banks,
minerals, energy resources, telecommunications, power plants
and transport and the assumption by the state of private debt.
This was the take-off phase from millionaire toward billionaire
status. This was consummated in Latin America via corruption
and in Russia via assassination and gang warfare.
3. During the third phase (the
present) the billionaires have consolidated and expanded their
empires through mergers, acquisitions, further privatizations
and overseas expansion. Private monopolies of mobile phones,
telecoms and other 'public' utilities, plus high commodity prices
have added billions to the initial concentrations. Some millionaires
became billionaires by selling their recently acquired, lucrative
privatized enterprises to foreign capital.
In both Latin America and Russia,
the billionaires grabbed lucrative state assets under the aegis
of orthodox neo-liberal regimes (Salinas-Zedillo regimes in Mexico,
Collor-Cardoso in Brazil, Yeltsin in Russia) and consolidated
and expanded under the rule of supposedly 'reformist' regimes
(Putin in Russia, Lula in Brazil and Fox in Mexico). In the
rest of Latin America (Chile, Colombia and Argentina) the making
of the billionaires resulted from the bloody military coups and
regimes, which destroyed the socio-political movements and started
the privatization process. This process was then even more energetically
promoted by the subsequent electoral regimes of the right and
'center-left'.
What is repeatedly demonstrated
in both Russia and Latin America is that the key factor leading
to the quantum leap in wealth from millionaires to billionaires
was the vast privatization and subsequent de-nationalization
of lucrative public enterprises.
If we add to the concentration
of $157 billion in the hands of an infinitesimal fraction of
the elite, the $990 billion taken out by the foreign banks
in debt payments and the $1 trillion (one thousand billion)
taken out by way of profits, royalties, rents and laundered money
over the past decade and a half, we have an adequate framework
for understanding why Latin America continues to have over two-thirds
of its population with inadequate living standards and stagnant
economies.
The responsibility of the US
for the growth of Latin American billionaires and mass poverty
is several-fold and involves a wide gamut of political institutions,
business elites, and academic and media moguls. First and foremost
the US backed the military dictators and neo-liberal politicians
who set up the billionaire-oriented economic models. It was
ex-President Clinton, the CIA and his economic advisers, in alliance
with the Russian oligarchs, who provided the political intelligence
and material support to put Yeltsin in power and back his destruction
of the Russian Parliament (Duma) in 1993 and the rigged elections
of 1996. And it was Washington, which allowed hundreds of billions
of dollars to be laundered in US banks throughout the 1990's
as the US Congressional Sub-Committee on Banking (1998) revealed.
It was Nixon, Kissinger and
later Carter and Brzezinski, Reagan and Bush, Clinton and Albright
who backed the privatizations pushed by Latin American military
dictators and civilian reactionaries in the 1970's, 1980's and
1990's . Their instructions to the US representatives in the
IMF and the World Bank were writ large: Privatize, de-regulate
and de-nationalize (PDD) before any loans should be negotiated.
It was US academics and ideologues working hand in glove with
the so-called multi-lateral agencies, as contracted economic
consultants, who trained, designed and pushed the PDD agenda
among their former Ivy League students-turned-economic and finance
ministers and Central Bankers in Latin America and Russia.
It was US and EU multi-national
corporations and banks which bought out or went into joint ventures
with the emerging Latin American billionaires and who reaped
the trillion dollar payouts on the debts incurred by the corrupt
military and civilian regimes. The billionaires are as much
a product and/or by-product of US anti-nationalist, anti-communist
policies as they are a product of their own grandiose theft of
public enterprises.
Conclusion
Given the enormous class and
income disparities in Russia, Latin America and China (20 Chinese
billionaires have a net worth of $29.4 billion in less than
ten years), it is more accurate to describe these countries as
'surging billionaires' rather than 'emerging markets' because
it is not the 'free market' but the political power of the billionaires
that dictates policy.
Countries of 'surging billionaires'
produce burgeoning poverty, submerging living standards. The
making of billionaires means the unmaking of civil society
the weakening of social solidarity, protective social legislation,
pensions, vacations, public health programs and education. While
politics is central, past political labels mean nothing. Ex-Marxist
Brazilian ex-President Cardoso and ex-trade union leader President
Lula Da Silva privatized public enterprises and promoted policies
that spawn billionaires. Ex-Communist Putin cultivates certain
billionaire oligarchs and offers incentives to others to shape
up and invest.
The period of greatest decline in living standards in Latin America
and Russia coincide with the dismantling of the nationalist populist
and communist economies. Between 1980-2004, Latin America
more precisely Brazil, Argentina and Mexico stagnated at
0 per cent to 1 per cent per capita growth. Russia saw a 50
per cent decline in GNP between 1990-1996 and living standards
dropped 80 per cent for everyone except the predators and their
gangster entourages.
Recent growth (2003-2007),
where it occurs, has more to do with the extraordinary rise in
international prices (of energy resources, metals and agro-exports)
than any positive developments from the billionaire-dominated
economies. The growth of billionaires is hardly a sign of 'general
prosperity' resulting from the 'free market' as the editors of
Forbes Magazine claim. In fact it is the product of the illicit
seizure of lucrative public resources, built up by the work and
struggle of millions of workers, in Russia and China under Communism
and in Latin America during populist-nationalist and democratic-socialist
governments. Many billionaires have inherited wealth and used
their political ties to expand and extend their empires
it has little to do with entrepreneurial skills.
The billionaires' and the White House's anger and hostility toward
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is precisely because he is
reversing the policies which create billionaires and mass poverty:
He is re-nationalizing energy resources, public utilities and
expropriating some large landed estates. Chavez is not only
challenging US hegemony in Latin America but also the entire
PDD edifice that built the economic empires of the billionaires
in Latin America, Russia, China and elsewhere.
The primary data for this
essay is drawn from Forbes Magazine 's "List of the World's
Billionaires" published March 8, 2007.
James Petras most recent book is The
Power of Israel in the United States.(clarity 2006 third
printing) His essays in English can be found at petras.lahaine.org
And in Spanish at rebellion.org
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