The coup against Manuel Zelaya of Honduras represents a last ditch effort by Honduras’ entrenched economic and political interests to stave off the advance of the new left governments that have taken hold in Latin America over the past decade. As Zelaya proclaimed after being forcibly dumped in Costa Rica: “This is a vicious plot [...]
When it comes to healthcare, is the White House listening? (And, if so, to whom?) President Obama has made a laudable promise to democratize the process of communication between the Executive branch and the American people and his administration has taken some interesting initiatives, but, here’s the point: toward what end? Over the past [...]
Health problems demonstrably vary with class, race, gender, and residence, all critical factors that our market-based health delivery system cannot effectively address. In market economies, where health and health services are, at the end of the day, related to income, the aggregate power of the national economy is not the central issue. As [...]
Barack Obama is on record as advocating a military escalation in Afghanistan. Before sinking any deeper into that quagmire, we might do well to learn something about recent Afghani history and the role played by the United States.
Less than a month after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, [...]
The election victory of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is likely to complicate US President Barack Obama’s new approach to his country’s conflict with Iran. The reason behind the foreseen obstacle is neither the US nor Iran’s refusal to engage in future dialogue but rather Israel’s insistence on a hard-line approach to the problem.
Iran’s presidential elections [...]
Following Netanyahu’s much anticipated policy speech, politicians and journalists, like mindless automatons, have set about repeating Israel’s tired mantra that Palestinians should recognize Israel’s right to exist. Never mind the fact that the PLO and Palestine Authority have obliged this ludicrous call, not once, but four times. And never mind that Israel has always denied [...]
In Italy, there is yet another scandal around Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. This time, according to the New York Times (May 29), it involves allegations that Berlusconi, 72, invited about 40 girls, many of them 18, to spend New Year’s Eve at one of his villas in Sardinia. I don’t particularly like Berlusconi. [...]
In 2002, among the many creepy roles of James Carville was his work as strategist at Greenberg Carville Shrum (GCS), when the political consultancy firm he had helped to found went to work to help Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (nicknamed “Goni”) win the hotly contested presidency of Bolivia. Although they thought the man to [...]
President Obama wants to be bi-partisan. This must be what he means. Democratic Senator Lieberman and Republican Senator Graham wrote to him on May 9, urging him not to release photographs of detainees being tortured. “The release of these old photographs of past behavior that has now been clearly prohibited,” they said, [...]
Well, maybe Nancy Pelosi is right, that the CIA was lying to members of Congress about “enhanced interrogation,” a phrase that has rapidly acquired the status of such great old euphemisms as “collateral damage.” We can talk another time about what we have done to the moral integrity of our language –an issue that [...]
