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By Karen Malpede (Editor); Michael Messina (Editor); Bob Shuman (Editor); Chris Hedges (Foreword)
By Eugene Robinson
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak, file
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By Chris Hedges — Washington has become Versailles. We are ruled, entertained and informed by courtiers.
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Democrats and Republicans cut a deal in Congress on Thursday to rewrite controversial surveillance legislation. It’s being billed as a compromise, but civil rights advocates are groaning over concessions including virtual immunity for telecommunications companies and the ability to spy on Americans without a warrant.
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AP photo / Brennan Linsley
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By Stanley Kutler — John McCain and Barack Obama’s differences over the Supreme Court’s recent Guantanamo decision speak volumes about the two candidates and their competing visions for America.
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DoD / Sgt. Luis R. Agostini
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President Bush is trying to wrap up a new status-of-forces agreement with the Iraqi government before the U.N. resolution under which the U.S. operates its occupation runs out. Team Bush has made some concessions to the Maliki government, but there’s one sticking point that threatens an agreement: veto power over military operations.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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With statements such as “if the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong” guiding our government’s thinking during the formation and implementation of interrogation techniques, it’s no wonder Carl Levin and others were outraged in the Senate on Tuesday.
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Flickr / maveric2003
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The United States has long enjoyed lecturing the communist government of China over the conduct of that nation’s economy. How times have changed. Chinese officials have recently criticized the United States’ “warped conception” of regulation, among other economic blunders.
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By William Pfaff — The Italian-Canadian chief executive of Fiat, the leading Italian industrial enterprise, Sergio Marchionne, speaking about the present economic crisis last weekend, mentioned the well-known argument first made by the Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter about the function of “creative destruction” in modern capitalism.
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For 50 years, Tom Hayden has been an indefatigable organizer on behalf of the disenfranchised, and now, with the publication of his “Writings for a Democratic Society,” we have a chance to trace the arc of activism of an American original who continues to make history.
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AP photo / LM Otero
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By Elliot D. Cohen — John McCain has long been a major player in a radical militaristic group driven by an ideology of global expansionism and dominance attained through perpetual, pre-emptive, unilateral, multiple wars. Over its two terms, the George W. Bush administration has planted the seeds for this geopolitical master plan, and now appears to be counting on the McCain administration, if one comes to power, to nurture it.
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By Marie Cocco — You cannot find a more complete and compelling indictment of the Bush administration than the Ohio representative has presented in his 35 articles of impeachment.
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Flickr / World Economic Forum
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Gordon Brown has won an important victory in his effort to extend the time British authorities can hold terror suspects without charge from 28 to 42 days. The measure was significantly controversial, however, that 36 members of the prime minister’s party voted against it.
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DoD / R.D. Ward
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By Scott Ritter — As a critic of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, especially when unsubstantiated allegations of weapons of mass destruction are used to sell a war, I am no stranger to the concept of questioning authority. It’s too bad more journalists can’t say the same thing.
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By Nicholas von Hoffman — A new book by New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse argues that the plight of American workers, both white-collar and blue-collar, is growing worse, putting the American dream out of the reach of tens of millions of citizens.
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By David Sirota — American history is the history of populist uprisings. From the Revolutionary War to the coalfield wars, from labor organizers to anti-tax crusaders, from the New Deal to the current conservative era, backlashes to the status quo have defined every major political era.
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A day after Barack Obama made history, an unfortunate figure from his past was back in the headlines. Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a former Obama fundraiser, was convicted of 16 corruption charges. Obama said he was “saddened,” but took the opportunity to get in another plug for change: “This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew, but now he has been convicted by a jury on multiple charges that once again shine a spotlight on the need for reform.”
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AP photo / LM Otero
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By Robert Scheer — What should be the most important issue in this election is one that is rarely, if ever, addressed: Why is U.S. military spending at the highest point, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than at any time since the end of World War II?
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By William Pfaff — Israel’s colonization and annexation of the Palestinian territories over the last 40 years, and opposition to the creation of an independent Palestinian state, have turned Israel into an Arab-Jewish state under Jewish control.
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By Eugene Robinson — Other than providing Fidel Castro with a convenient antagonist to help him whip up nationalist fervor—and thus prolong his rule—the U.S. trade embargo and other sanctions have accomplished precisely nothing.
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The just-published journals of Rachel Corrie, killed by an Israeli bulldozer, reveal her to have been a natural-born writer and a spirit full of intensity and yearning whose lust for life and sense of justice made her untimely death all the more tragic.
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AP photo / Hasan Jamali
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The Lebanese government and the Hezbollah opposition group came to a power-sharing agreement Wednesday, potentially marking the end to the country’s two-year-old political crisis, which only weeks ago erupted in clashes that left 65 people dead. The move, which some analysts say may benefit Hezbollah more than the Western-backed government, has been hailed by the parties directly involved and others, including the U.S. as well.
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By Marie Cocco — The comment was outrageous, but it was not the least bit surprising. A psychologist responsible for assessing returning war veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder—a psychological ailment that could entitle them to monthly disability payments—told staff members not to diagnose the illness because to do so would increase the government’s costs.
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By David Sirota — What passes for smart economic policy is actually a set of right-wing globalization measures that destabilizes the world economy. For the sake of Americans and others, our politicians need to wise up.
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AP photo / Anja Niedringhaus
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By Anna Badkhen — Sectarian violence has driven millions of Iraqis from their homes. Now that the violence has abated in one formerly upscale Baghdad neighborhood, residents are returning to find squatters who refuse to leave and a government and occupying army unwilling to kick them out.
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Flickr / feverblue
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The plight of the polar bear has come to represent the real-world impact of the climate crisis, so it is only fitting that the Bush administration had to be ordered by a court to make a decision on the endangered status of the species. After years of delay, the Interior Department finally classified the animal as threatened, but also promised to fight any meaningful protection.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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Britain’s Ministry of Defense is making public secret documents related to unidentified flying objects and alleged contacts with aliens. The records, collected between 1978 and 1987, include observations from the public as well as military personnel.
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Wikimedia Commons / AllyUnion
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By Scott Ritter — The Chicago City Council is debating a resolution urging the Illinois congressional delegation to oppose a war with Iran. Scott Ritter, who has been called as an expert witness on the matter, explains why the resolution should be supported—and not just by the citizens of Chicago.
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AP photo / Samir Mizban
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As one U.S. soldier tells Truthdig foreign correspondent Anna Badkhen, it’s not entirely a bad sign that residents of Baghdad’s Saidiyah neighborhood are complaining about their meager daily power allotment: A year earlier they were concerned about just staying alive.
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By Marie Cocco — There is no mystery to the missing lightning rods. John McCain neglects to volunteer the names of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas as model jurists for an obvious reason.
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nytimes.com / Michael Kamber
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After a seven week surge in violent street clashes and an estimated 1,000 civilian deaths in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad alone, U.S. and Iraqi forces are now preparing an overwhelming military offensive they hope will completely annihilate active Shia resistance movements and pacify the area, making it safe for occupation.
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AP photo
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As more details of the devastation left by Cyclone Nargis in Burma emerge, it’s becoming clear that the storm is one of the worst disasters in years. The Burmese government is being criticized for responding inadequately and too slowly to the crisis, and President Bush, himself no stranger to this kind of criticism, is calling on Burma’s “military junta ... [to] allow our disaster assessment teams into the country” in order to help.
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Flickr / Lauras512
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Raul Castro would like to see his island produce more food. Currently, Cuba imports the vast majority of its basic food products, at increasing expense, despite plenty of arable land. Private farmers and collective growers are hoping new reforms make it easier to produce food more efficiently, and that’s not just good news for Cuba. With rice rationing at Costco, that’s good news for the world.
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DoD / U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley
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Former Marine and U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter has spoken out vehemently against the war, so it surprises some that he still embraces military service. In this article, Ritter explains why opposition to a war doesn’t mean lack of patriotism or a failure to “support the troops” and the services in which they serve.
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A star reporter for the Los Angeles Times has written a clear, even elegant anatomy of an economy that is much worse than you probably think.
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Flickr / Nrbelex
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If Hillary Clinton becomes the next president, her administration will have a hell of a time improving relations with Iran, a country that has a few cards to play when it comes to stability in Iraq and the price of oil. That’s because Clinton recently threatened Iran’s annihilation and it turns out that the Iranian government pays attention to these things.
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Flickr/ Captian Giona
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Imagine going to the Internet and being able to see how much everyone in the United States, including you, earned and paid in taxes. The outgoing Italian government just made everyone’s private business public. Needless to say, Italians were outraged as they rushed to the Web to see the income of their neighbors and the rich and famous.
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By Amy Goodman — Food riots are erupting around the world. Behind the hunger, behind the riots, are so-called free-trade agreements, and the brutal emergency-loan agreements imposed on poor countries by financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund.
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Flickr / mape_s
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George Bush’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hasn’t been the most proactive defender of the environment. The agency has been avoiding a decision on the fate of the polar bear since 2005, but a federal judge has just ordered the administration to officially classify the world’s largest land predator endangered or not by May 15.
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By Marie Cocco — Senate Republicans are determined to join with the Supreme Court to keep women on the losing end of discriminatory pay.
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AP photo / Chris Tomlinson
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Truthdig foreign correspondent Sarah Stillman reports from Iraq, where she finds parallels between America’s fast food fortresses and the general engorgement of the war.
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By Amy Goodman — As the media coverage of the Democratic presidential race continues to focus on lapel pins and pastors, America is ailing.
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By Marie Cocco — Fittingly, and with dreadful predictability, John McCain used April 15—tax day—as the day to release his economic plan. Fittingly, and with dreadful predictability, it offers more of the same. But more of the same what?
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AP photo/ Karim Kadim
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Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr issued a strong warning to the Iraqi government Saturday, claiming that he and his supporters will “declare a war until liberation” if a crackdown against his Mahdi Army continues.
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cnn.com
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When CNN commentator Jack Cafferty called the Chinese “a bunch of goons and thugs” on the air April 9, Chinese-Americans were listening—and Saturday morning, thousands protested outside Hollywood’s CNN building, demanding that he be fired.
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By David Sirota — The state in which an infamous slaughter of labor organizers occurred in 1914 may not be killing unionists these days but its persecution of them continues.
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Flickr / caswell_tom
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According to a new L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll, the vast majority of Democratic voters in the next three primary battlegrounds want the government to bail out struggling homeowners. Most don’t seem to care that the Fed rescued Bear Stearns; they just want the same treatment.
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Flickr / Kevindooley
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By James Harris — Harvard scholar Linda Bilmes speaks about the book on the Iraq war’s costs that she wrote with Joseph Stiglitz. The two former Truthdiggers of the Week have been working hard to uncover even more hidden expenses for the war, which they estimate will cost the taxpayers and their children trillions of dollars.
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What will history say about the implacable anti-imperialist and unrepentant revolutionary who has held power in Cuba for nearly 50 years? The publication of Fidel Castro’s and Ignacio Ramonet’s “My Life: A Spoken Autobiography” helps us understand the man and his myth.
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By David Sirota — A straight line can be drawn between the 1914 labor massacre in Colorado and today’s killing fields in Colombia. And one of the villains in both cases is the U.S. government.
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www.buddhismus.at
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Speaking from Japan, the Dalai Lama told reporters that he has supported the Beijing Olympics “right from the beginning,” but that protesters have a right to voice themselves. His government in exile, however, released a statement in opposition to the demonstrations that have followed the Olympic torch.
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Marching in Chicago: Resisting Rahm Emanuel’s Neoliberal Savagery
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