Global
AUSTIN, Texas - It's an early Labor Day SURPRISE! Congratulations, if you make between $23,660 and $100,000, you have just very likely lost your right to overtime pay, courtesy of the Bush administration.
If this comes as news to you, thank your friendly media, who are much too busy reporting lies abut John Kerry's heroism in Vietnam to bother with this story affecting your life. But next time you hear someone say, "Oh, I just don't care much about politics," you might want to recall this particular connection -- especially if it means you have to go out and get another job.
This stunner is brought to you by President Bush and his big-business campaign donors. The Senate has voted twice to stop the change, so there's no point in raising hell with them. The House of Representatives, the "people's house," dodged the question. So Bush's Department of Labor just up and issued hundreds of pages of new rules on who gets overtime pay.
If this comes as news to you, thank your friendly media, who are much too busy reporting lies abut John Kerry's heroism in Vietnam to bother with this story affecting your life. But next time you hear someone say, "Oh, I just don't care much about politics," you might want to recall this particular connection -- especially if it means you have to go out and get another job.
This stunner is brought to you by President Bush and his big-business campaign donors. The Senate has voted twice to stop the change, so there's no point in raising hell with them. The House of Representatives, the "people's house," dodged the question. So Bush's Department of Labor just up and issued hundreds of pages of new rules on who gets overtime pay.
This summer marks the fortieth anniversary of several extraordinary events in American history – which the national media and, more curiously, the African-American political establishment have largely ignored. These events fundamentally reshaped America’s political landscape regarding the politics of race.
In the summer of 1964, about one thousand, mostly white college students traveled to Mississippi as volunteers, assisting civil rights workers there to register thousands of African Americans to vote. Among their number was Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate in 2000. The effort, termed “Freedom Summer,” captured the imagination of the nation and the world at that time.
Why Mississippi? To understand the symbolic significance of this voting rights campaign, one had to appreciate this southern state’s unique position as the paramount site for white racism in America for more than a century.
In the summer of 1964, about one thousand, mostly white college students traveled to Mississippi as volunteers, assisting civil rights workers there to register thousands of African Americans to vote. Among their number was Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate in 2000. The effort, termed “Freedom Summer,” captured the imagination of the nation and the world at that time.
Why Mississippi? To understand the symbolic significance of this voting rights campaign, one had to appreciate this southern state’s unique position as the paramount site for white racism in America for more than a century.
George W. Bush's big-money backers at Ohio's infamous FirstEnergy electric monopoly are re-opening the door for a nuclear apocalypse by terror or incompetence (whichever comes first). In classic Bush style, they are trashing public oversight as they go.
The Akron-based FirstEnergy blacked out the entire northeast a year ago, resulting in at least $10 billion in losses to the public. No criminal charges have been filed, though the company has reportedly paid tens of millions in civil suits and has been under grand jury investigation for a wide range of issues.
FirstEnergy's top management, starting with President Anthony Alexander, has poured huge sums into Bush's campaign coffers. Before last year's blackout FE big wigs hosted a fundraiser with Vice President Dick Cheney, raising a reported $600,000.
The Akron-based FirstEnergy blacked out the entire northeast a year ago, resulting in at least $10 billion in losses to the public. No criminal charges have been filed, though the company has reportedly paid tens of millions in civil suits and has been under grand jury investigation for a wide range of issues.
FirstEnergy's top management, starting with President Anthony Alexander, has poured huge sums into Bush's campaign coffers. Before last year's blackout FE big wigs hosted a fundraiser with Vice President Dick Cheney, raising a reported $600,000.
It’s obvious that no mainstream news reporter has the gumption to
seriously question Vice President Dick Cheney’s ethics when he was chief
executive of Halliburton, the oil-field services company that is currently
embroiled in a scandal with the Pentagon due to its questionable
accounting practices related to its work in war-torn Iraq.
Pity those journalists because this is the stuff Pulitzer’s are made of. What’s even more remarkable is that there’s reams of documents in the public domain showing how Cheney cooked the books when he was CEO of Halliburton, which makes the vice president look like Ken Lay’s twin brother. The evidence is beginning to collect dust. To tell the story of how Cheney’s Halliburton used accounting sleight of hand to fool investors all you need to do is connect the dots, which is what this story will do.
Let’s start with a bit of old news. A couple of weeks ago Halliburton agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine to settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission probe related to a 1998 change in the way Halliburton accounted for construction revenue.
Pity those journalists because this is the stuff Pulitzer’s are made of. What’s even more remarkable is that there’s reams of documents in the public domain showing how Cheney cooked the books when he was CEO of Halliburton, which makes the vice president look like Ken Lay’s twin brother. The evidence is beginning to collect dust. To tell the story of how Cheney’s Halliburton used accounting sleight of hand to fool investors all you need to do is connect the dots, which is what this story will do.
Let’s start with a bit of old news. A couple of weeks ago Halliburton agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine to settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission probe related to a 1998 change in the way Halliburton accounted for construction revenue.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Remember what it was like just before the war? Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction -- Colin Powell told us to the pound how many tons of this, that and the other -- Saddam had a reconstituted nuclear program, he had numerous ties to Al Qaeda, and he was an imminent threat.
As the president put it, we couldn't afford to wait until the smoking gun was a mushroom cloud.
"To think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just another attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand the question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action; fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man. ... .Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect."
As the president put it, we couldn't afford to wait until the smoking gun was a mushroom cloud.
"To think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just another attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand the question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action; fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man. ... .Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect."
It's time for the Kerry, Nader and Green campaigns to get locked in a room until they disarm the circular firing squad and focus on the real enemy, George W. Bush.
Especially in swing states like ours, the endless wrangling and rancor must stop. Every boring, suicidal attack harms our ability to beat Bush.
In light of his votes for war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and way too much else, it’s obvious President Kerry will be no messiah. But we doubt our democracy or our planet would survive four more years of Cheney-Rove-Bush.
So we may ask friends in safe states like Massachusetts and Hawaii to balance our Kerry votes here in Ohio with votes there for Ralph or for the Green Party candidate, David Cobb.
If Al Gore had met and worked with Nader in 2000 instead of attacking him, we might have been spared the horrors of these past four years. It’s inaccurate, unwise and self-destructive to continually blame Ralph for the Democrats’ “loss” when in fact Gore won the election. We are glad Kerry has had the good sense to meet with Ralph, and to refrain from attacking the Greens.
Especially in swing states like ours, the endless wrangling and rancor must stop. Every boring, suicidal attack harms our ability to beat Bush.
In light of his votes for war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and way too much else, it’s obvious President Kerry will be no messiah. But we doubt our democracy or our planet would survive four more years of Cheney-Rove-Bush.
So we may ask friends in safe states like Massachusetts and Hawaii to balance our Kerry votes here in Ohio with votes there for Ralph or for the Green Party candidate, David Cobb.
If Al Gore had met and worked with Nader in 2000 instead of attacking him, we might have been spared the horrors of these past four years. It’s inaccurate, unwise and self-destructive to continually blame Ralph for the Democrats’ “loss” when in fact Gore won the election. We are glad Kerry has had the good sense to meet with Ralph, and to refrain from attacking the Greens.
The most abhorrent thing found during my research has been the
discrepancy between the effects of prosecution of those who have stolen
from the federal and state governments versus those who have stolen from
individuals or other corporations. The most disconcerting fact is that
many of the corporations that have been convicted of anti-trust
violations, fraud, environmental crimes, as well as campaign financing
fraud are still in business. Many of the corporations are thriving,
because they were able to claim their fines and criminal penalties as
"net loss" and avoid tax liability. Others, the ones I call most devious,
used a calculated bankruptcy claim to avoid payment of the penalties
imposed. And, other devious corporate executives simply changed the name
of their corporation and avoided the public forum as well as the civil
and criminal obligations directed by the courts.
The recent occupation of Columbus City Hall grounds by Operation Save America was an unprecedented event, both for the city and OSA. Never in the history of this group, as far as we can determine, have they taken over such a public space for six days, twenty-four hours a day. In doing so they demonstrated exactly what we had written about them months before: that more than simply an anti-abortion and anti-gay group, they are, in the words of director Flip Benham, out to "kick the table over in the name of Jesus Christ and take over."
Fortunately for the rest of us, it isn't quite that simple. OSA, or as it was originally named, Operation Rescue, has long used abortion as a tactical vehicle, to give legitimacy to its underlying, dominionist purpose. By focusing on a matter of intimate, personal decision making, where personal preferences vary greatly across society, and then using their position as a method of gaining moral and political legitimacy, they, and similar organizations, have long used abortion as something of a proxy so as to receive a hearing in American secular society.
Fortunately for the rest of us, it isn't quite that simple. OSA, or as it was originally named, Operation Rescue, has long used abortion as a tactical vehicle, to give legitimacy to its underlying, dominionist purpose. By focusing on a matter of intimate, personal decision making, where personal preferences vary greatly across society, and then using their position as a method of gaining moral and political legitimacy, they, and similar organizations, have long used abortion as something of a proxy so as to receive a hearing in American secular society.
This article was co-written with Jeff Cohen
The U.S.-centric nature of American politics often affects the
U.S. left. It's hard to get out of USA mindsets long enough to grasp
the global implications of decisions made here at home. Yet the
effects of U.S. government policies are so enormous across the
planet that some people have suggested -- with more than a little
justification -- that every person on Earth should get to vote in
U.S. presidential elections.
On the international left, no one has more credibility as an
unwavering opponent of U.S. foreign policy than Tariq Ali. Raised in
Pakistan, he was a leader of Britain's Vietnam Solidarity Campaign
in the 1960s, and is now a prominent London-based writer and an
editor at New Left Review. His recent books include "Bush in
Babylon" and "The Clash of Fundamentalisms." As progressives in the
United States try to make sense out of the current presidential
campaign, Ali's perspective on the global significance of Bush's
electoral fate deserves serious consideration.