John McCain remains the chief cheerleader of the war in Iraq and the central proponent of the plan to add more troops to the region. It remains perplexing that a man like McCain, who truly knows the horrors of war, could have such an unnuanced and seemingly callous approach to a war that has cost tens of thousands of lives and continues to produce no positive outcomes.

Now, Time reports that Jimmy McCain, the Senator's 18-year-old son, will report to boot camp in September as a member of the US Marine Corps. According to Time, the younger McCain could be in Iraq by next summer.

"I'm obviously proud of my son," McCain told the magazine, "but also understandably a bit nervous."

McCain is poised to take the helm of the Armed Services Committee if the GOP retains control of the Senate this fall-- a position that will give him "day-to-day responsibility for oversight of the war."

In Washington, the vast majority of the architects and proponents of the war are men who have neither served nor have children who are currently serving. With the memory of his own service in Vietnam and the prospect of his son entering into the chaos of Iraq, will McCain change his tune? Or will his incorruptible sense of "character" and "integrity" continue to lead him on his misbegotten path?

If there's anything that should prompt soul-searching of the profoundest kind, it's putting your child's life on the line. Very few political leaders ever have to make this kind of choice, and now McCain--one of the most powerful and influential in the world when it comes to Iraq-- must.

READ/POST COMMENT...

Does it matter that The New York Times has endorsed anti-war challenger Ned Lamont over Senator Joe Lieberman in the August 8 Connecticut Democratic primary?

Of course it does.

No, newspaper endorsements do not swing all that many votes in and of themselves, especially in high-profile contests. But, especially when they go against a long-term incumbent like Lieberman, they help wavering voters make the leap into the opposition camp.

For Lamont, who is running slightly ahead in the polls, today's Times endorsement comes at precisely the right moment -- as the campaign enters its final stretch. And it comes in the Sunday edition of the paper, which is more closely read in Connecticut -- and elsewhere -- than any other.

The Times circulates widely in Connecticut, and has a long tradition of making endorsements in the state's elections, so the newspaper's choice was long awaited. If the Times had endorsed Lieberman, as the more Republican-friendly Hartford Courant did Sunday, then the senator's flagging campaign might have received the boost it failed to get when former President Bill Clinton swept into the state last Monday to try and pump some life into the incumbent's reelection bid.

The endorsement by the Times, which has backed Lieberman in most of his past races, and which is far more cautious politically than its conservative critics would have America believe, came as something of a shock to Lamont backers. Just a few weeks ago, when I interviewed a Lamont aide in Connecticut, he told me that the candidate was merely hoping for a few kind words from the paper in what was expected to be a pro-Lieberman editorial.

Instead, the Times hit Lieberman where it hurts, ridiculing the senator's suggestion that his support of President Bush's misguided foreign policies makes him some kind of statesman. Suggesting that the Republican White's House's favorite Democratic senator has a "warped version of bipartisanship," the Times editorial explained that, by making himself an apologist for the Bush administration's worst excesses, Lieberman "has forfeited his role as a conscience of his party and has forfeited our support."

At the same time, the newspaper of record offered Lamont exactly what a political newcomer challenging an entrenched incumbent needs: respect from a known quantity. The editors of the Times referred to Lamont as a "smart and moderate" candidate who "showed spine in challenging the senator while other Democrats groused privately."

The Times editorial closed by giving Connecticut Democrats who might not be sure about jettisoning the man their party nominated for vice president in 2000 a compelling case for doing so. "[This] primary is not about Mr. Lieberman's legislative record. Instead it has become a referendum on his warped version of bipartisanship, in which the never-ending war on terror becomes an excuse for silence and inaction," the editors explain, before concluding that, on the basis of this choice, "We endorse Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary for Senate in Connecticut."

READ/POST COMMENT...

I think it's time to start a new political party: Democrats for Demagoguery.

I'll give you three examples of why.

First there was the Dubai ports scandal. Sure, the uproar was bipartisan, but did any Democrat really believe that an Arab company couldn't run a US port as badly as an American one?

Then there was the furor over Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki offering so-called "amnesty" for insurgents who've killed American soldiers. It's a disgusting proposition, but bringing insurgents into the political process is a critical step towards ending the violence. Democrats who favor a speedy withdrawal from Iraq should've known that.

And finally Democrats went off the rocker this week about Maliki's denunciation of Israel's bombing of Lebanon. Howard Dean, the man who once rightly noted that the US should be more "evenhanded" in the Middle East, yesterday called Maliki an "anti-Semite." I'm sorry, but what do Democrats expect from a man whose government might get overthrown by Moqtada al-Sadr?

Our president is obtuse enough. He doesn't need an assist from the opposition.

READ/POST COMMENT...

The announcement from Geneva that the "Doha Round" negotiations for another global trade agreement is in "collapse" lacked high drama since impending failure was already clear to all but the most fervent cheerleaders for the World Trade Organization. Five years of sloganeering and media pep talks and clever maneuvering failed to persuade developing nations or even inspire much enthusiasm in advanced economies. This is very good news for peoples of the world, though you won't see the story played that way in the American press.

In round-about fashion, the WTO's failure represents belated vindication for the blue-green movement that arose in Seattle six years ago and the Global Social Forum launched later from Porto Alegre, Brazil. These bottom-up political mobilizations offered an alternative vision for globalization – not dominated by the desires and dictates of multinational corporations but by ideas of popular sovereignty and common human aspirations that are shared by people in vastly different trading nations. That promising movement was eclipsed by the drama of 9/11 and war in Iraq, but it was never really sidetracked. Many individual countries have already revolted against the "Washington Consensus" and even establishment experts are beginning to acknowledge its failures. Defeat for them in Geneva is an important marker of progress for those who can imagine a different world.

That assembly includes especially the poorer nations of the world, struggling to find their way in a complex game of economic diplomacy usually controlled by the corporate big boys. This time, the impoverished countries stood their ground. They did not take the bait and swallow the empty promises, though they were coaxed and bullied by the major industrial players, led by the US. That reflects both their courage and growing maturity.

The essential deal offered the poor was, if they would accept the expanded domination of the WTO and its multinational sponsors, the rich nations would slash their lush subsidies for global agribusiness, leaving more market space for agricultural producers in developing nations. Many gullible editorial writers bought the logic, but not the poorer nations themselves. To believe that promise, you had to believe George W. Bush was going to sell out Texas cotton and Florida sugar and Midwestern grain or that Paris intended to dump the prosperous farmers of Normandy.

The larger meaning of the Doha collapse is the growing rejection of the WTO itself as a trustworthy governing institution for the global system. It was created ten years ago and it's been down hill ever since, both for rich and poor nations. The activists of Global Trade Watch, arm in arm with other groups around the world, make this case persuasively in a new briefing paper. The demise of Doha, they argue, should restart the worldwide debate on new and more fundamental terms – more promising for people and less deferential to global capital.

"Instead of pinning blame on specific countries, the focus of energy should be on how the world's governments can develop a multilateral trade system that preserves the benefits of trade growth and development, while pruning away the many anti-democratic condstraints on domestic policy making in the existing WTO rules," Global Trade Watch explains. "Much of the backlash against coroporate globalization implemented by the WTO is aimed at the damage caused by the comprehensive one-size-fits-all, non-trade rules comprising the majority of the WTO text."

In blunt summary, the new approach means the following: Scale back the powers of the WTO so that human rights, environmental, labor and other public-interest standards can be adopted "as a floor of conduct for corporations seeking the benefits of global trade rules." In other words, bring other international organizations into the process, with power to enforce standards on everything from toxics to food security to worker rights.

The system, meanwhile, must loosen its grip on individual nations and governments so they can develop their own domestic priorities on non-trade issues. "Countries must be free to prioritize other values and goals above what are sometimes countervailing demands of multinational corporations," the briefing paper asserts.

This is an immense challenge and obviously difficult for brain-dead politicians to grasp and embrace. But it's also an exciting and promising new opening. Imagine that the collapse of the old order has occurred, though not yet acknowledged by its sponsors. "Another world is possible," as the activists like to say, and it has just become a bit more possible.

READ/POST COMMENT...

Minutes after I posted, the Washington Supreme Court issued its decision. Essentially, it went the way of New York State and tossed the issue back to the legislature. Here's the relevant quote:

"In reaching this conclusion, we have engaged in an exhaustive constitutional inquiry and have deferred to the legislative branch as required by our tri-partite form of government. Our decision accords with the substantial weight of authority from courts considering similar constitutional claims. We see no reason, however, why the legislature or the people acting through the initiative process would be foreclosed from extending the right to marry to gay and lesbian couples in Washington."

More later...

In the next few hours the Washington State Supreme Court will issue its decision in Anderson vs. King County, a lawsuit brought by 19 gay and lesbian couples challenging the constitutionality of Washington's Defense of Marriage Act. Coming off the heels of a defeat in New York State, the decision will be closely watched by gay marriage advocates and opponents alike.

According to lawyers I spoke with, the Court can decide to uphold the DOMA, strike down the DOMA and legalize gay marriage, or follow New York's footsteps and pass the issue to the legislature. I'll give you all an update (and hasty analysis) when the decision is announced.

Meanwhile, I want to announce the public debut of a major project I've been working on for the past few months. In April, I was part of a group of LGBT activists who met to discuss the dangers of the gay marriage debate as it's been framed in this country. There were some disagreements, but all of us agreed on a basic set of principles. We support marriage equality, but think that "marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others."

We wrote a manifesto of sorts called Beyond Same-Sex Marriage. And as today it's been endorsed by Gloria Steinem, Dorothy Allison, Cornel West, Michael Lerner, Barbara Ehrenreich, Laura Flanders, The Nation's own Betsy Reed, Judith Butler, Joan Scott, Charlotte Bunch, Leslie Feinberg, Craig Lucas, Armistead Maupin, Terrence McNally, Paula Vogel, Susie Bright and a raft of others. So go to our website, read the statement and add your name. It's www.beyondmarriage.org.

READ/POST COMMENT...

The war in Iraq rages on with no end in sight, new, bloody wars seem to be on the horizon, and yet, for thirteen straight months, the military has met its recruiting goals. How is this possible?

It helps if your standards are rock bottom-- when, as Ari noted, you're willing to send Neo-Nazis and folks with severe mental problems into battle. It helps when you double the number of acceptees (from 2% since the 1980s to 4% today) who have scored in the lowest brackets on qualifications exams.

And it certainly helps when you set up a super-cool, tech-saavy MySpace profile.

The US Marine Corps' MySpace page-- which features awesome Iraq-less, combat-less, handicapped-vet-less video clips and wallpaper downloads-- has already accumulated 12,000 "friends." Browsers can also click a prominently-displayed "Contact a Recruiter" button (hundreds have done so).

Of course, literally zero actual information is available on the MySpace page; I guess they wait to tell you what you're actually going to go through after you volunteer your information and get incessantly hounded by recruitment officials.

So far, only the Marines have a MySpace page-- the Army opted out because it didn't want to be associated with MySpace's reputation for enabling Internet predators... The irony.

READ/POST COMMENT...

In recent years, as too many elected representatives and so-called experts rushed to support the Bush Administration's foreign policy misadventures, former Carter Administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has emerged as perhaps the sharpest voice of dissent in Washington's foreign policy establishment.

Last Thursday, Brzezinski gave a fascinating talk sponsored by the New America Foundation, where he labeled Israel's ferocious military bombing of Lebanon "dogged, heavy-handed, politically unproductive and morally wrong."

"What Israel is doing today in Lebanon is in effect the killing of hostages," Brzezinski said. And the US government enabled the military campaign "by abandoning the tradition of being a negotiator to a promise of complete partiality."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should pull a Kissinger, Brzezinski said, and "stay in the region" until the fighting stops. To that end, Brzezinski offered five practical suggestions for how the Bush Administration might quell the violence.

1. Recreate viability for the Palestinians by working with Hamas.

2. Talk to the Syrians, with or through the French.

3. Talk to the Lebanese government, so they don't just appear as victims screaming for help.

4. Talk to Hezbollah through Syria.

5. Negotiate the sequential release of prisoners between Israel and Hezbollah.

Of course, the Administration refuses to negotiate with Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. But the US essentially has two options: engage or do nothing.

"Either she's doing what she should be doing," Brzezinski said of Condi, "or she's sitting in front of a mirror, talking to herself."

READ/POST COMMENT...

Rove Rule #1: When in doubt, exploit 9-11 and swift boat the hell out of your opponent.

In his latest advertisement, a desperate Ohio Senator Mike Dewine has adopted this most base brand of Rovian politics by not only using images of the Twin Towers burning, but actually doctoring them as if the reality didn't suffice for needed shock value. The tasteless ad goes on to smear Rep. Sherrod Brown in an effort to portray him as "weakening American security."

We're revisiting the dirty, divisive, shameful Bush-Cheney playbook of 2004 with its mushroom clouds, swift boat lies, and false patriotism.

Senator Dewine's ad ends with the assertion that Sherrod Brown is "out of touch with Ohio values." Maybe it's time to let Senator Dewine know that what is out of touch is his use of gutter politics.

READ/POST COMMENT...

President Bush finally got around to speaking to an annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Thursday, and he did a reasonably good job of making amends for failing to build a relationship with the nation's most influential civil rights organization during the first five years of his presidency.

To his credit Bush opened his remarks by acknowledging the inappropriateness of his refusals of past invitations from the group – a pattern that made him the first president since Warren G. Harding to so snub the NAACP.

Referring to his introduction by NAACP president Bruce Gordon, the president joked, "Bruce was a polite guy. I thought what he was going to say, 'It's about time you showed up.' And I'm glad I did."

Bush also acknowledged the extent to which his Republican Party has neglected and insulted the African-American community in recent years.

"I understand that racism still lingers in America -- it's a lot easier to change a law than to change a human heart. And I understand that many African-Americans distrust my political party," Bush admitted, adding that, "I consider it a tragedy that the party of Abraham Lincoln let go of its historical ties with the African-American community," Bush said. "For too long, my party wrote off the African-American vote, and many African-Americans wrote off the Republican Party."

Those were statements that had to be made if Bush was to be taken seriously at the podium. And the president and his aides deserve credit for recognizing and responding to that requirement.

The president also deserves credit for recognizing that apologies are not enough.

Bush needed to display an understanding that baseline commitments must be made by a political leader who seeks any kind of working relationship with the NAACP and with the tens of millions of Americans who share the group's belief that the struggle for social and economic justice is far from complete. On Thursday, he offered just such a commitment, and he did so with proper enthusiasm.

Speaking of legislation to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act – which some Congressional Republicans have openly opposed and others have sought to undermine with amendments – Bush told the crowd, "Soon the Senate will take up the legislation. I look forward to the Senate passing this bill promptly without amendment so I can sign it into law." (Within hours, the Senate passed the legislation unanimously.)

The president earned a round of loud and sincere applause for that statement.

That was as it should be. Though there is still too much distance between this president and the civil rights community, George Bush has finally taken a first small step to bridge the gap. Of course, he should have done so sooner. But his decision to do so at this point – and to offer both good words and good deeds – ought not be diminished.

There are plenty of reasons to criticize this president and his administration. But when George Bush does something right – even if it is late in the game, and even if his motivations may be tinged with politics – he deserves the measure of praise that might encourage him to continue trying to walk the higher ground.

READ/POST COMMENT...

Joe is down. And for the first time in his eighteen year Senate career, he may be going down.

A new Quinnipiac University poll released today finds Ned Lamont holding a 51 to 47 percent lead over Lieberman among likely Democratic primary voters. Just six weeks ago, Lieberman was up by fifteen points. And a month before that, Lieberman's lead was three times that size.

Talk about a surge for Lamont. In a state where 83 percent of the population disapproves of the Iraq war and only 31 percent approve of President Bush, Lieberman's in big, big trouble with Democratic voters.

If he loses the primary, Lieberman plans to run as an Independent. The Quinnipiac shows him winning handily in that scenario; 51 percent, to 27 percent for Lamont and 9 percent for likely Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger.

The new party would be called "Connecticut for Lieberman." Funny how it's not "Lieberman for Connecticut." When it comes to his state and his party, it's all about Joe.

READ/POST COMMENT...

Last year I wrote a long article on the execution of two teenage boys in Mashhad and the firestorm that erupted when they were identified by some gay activists and bloggers as "gay teenagers." Suffice to say, since homosexuality and radical Islam are irresistible topics these days, the story did not end there.

Sometime Nation contributor Doug Ireland has written often on his blog and in Gay City News about what he considers a "vicious pogrom against Iranian gays." The New Republic's Rob Anderson chirped up and attacked US gay rights groups for not taking a harder line. Britain's Peter Tatchell (who publicized the original story) has organized a global protest against Iran. He's been supported by Anderson, Ireland, Michael Petrelis and a bevy of other activists (see Ireland's blog for the full list).

Missing from this list are Paula Ettelbrick of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and Scott Long of Human Rights Watch's LGBT Rights Division. They've both been criticized by Tatchell in an open letter for their non-endorsement. (Full disclosure: I serve on the advisory board of HRW's LGBT rights program). Some of the dispute centers, still, around whether or not the two teenagers were gay and were executed for consensual gay sex (see my piece). But in the larger sense, the controversy represents two different strategies for pursuing sexual rights in precarious and fraught locations such as Iran. As Long puts it in his response to Tatchell, "I urge people to think very carefully about what the demonstrations are meant to achieve...What happens after July 19? How are these demonstrations meant to affect the Iranian government? How are they going to be seen in Iran? Are they only about publicity, consciousness-raising, the self-purifying effect of protest? Do you have a plan for change, or just for catharsis?"

It would take me another 5,000 words (and more strong coffee, cigarettes and vodka than my stomach can handle) to describe and explicate how the story has moved since I last wrote. So instead I urge readers to make up their own mind. New Yorkers can attend the protest outside of the Iranian Mission to the UN (622 Third Avenue at 40th St.). It's happening, like, now (5PM), so start lacing up those shoes.

And when you are done there, please attend the following event at the LGBT Center.

THINKING GLOBALLY, ACTING LOCALLY: HUMAN RIGHTS, IRAN, AND LGBT ADVOCACY

WHAT: The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), Human Rights Watch (HRW), National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Amnesty International OUTfront, Al-Fatiha and SoulforceNYC invite all interested advocates to participate in Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Human Rights, Iran, and LGBT Advocacy, a community dialogue about the persecution faced by LGBT people in Iran and how activists in the West can responsibly engage in supporting our colleagues in Iran as well as Iranian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in New York and elsewhere.

WHO: * Scott Long, Director of LGBT Rights Program, Human Rights Watch * Paula Ettelbrick, Executive Director of IGLHRC * Parvez Sharma, Director of the new documentary film "In the Name of Allah" * Hadi Ghaemi, Iran Researcher, Human Rights Watch * Kouross Esmaeli, Iranian filmmaker * Ayaz Ahmed, Al-Fatiha * Moderated by Hossein Alizadeh, IGLHRC

WHY: Numerous reports and stories of persecution faced by gay men and lesbians in Iran have been circulating. In particular, the executions of two young Iranian men last year on July 19 have been reported as gay-related deaths, prompting some activists to call for demonstrations in local communities to draw attention to these issues on the year anniversary of their hangings. This call raises important questions for human rights and LGBT advocates concerned about human rights violations globally, but unsure of how best to engage and respond.

* How do we situate campaigns for LGBT rights in the context of other human rights issues such as the death penalty and women's rights? * How do we respond in situations where facts are contested and documentation difficult? * What are the responsibilities--and dangers--for Western campaigners wanting to think globally and act locally? * How do we avoid reinforcing stereotypes and playing into hostilities prompted by our own government?

These are not abstract questions or ones relevant only to activists for sexual rights. While Iran will be emphasized in this discussion, the questions are relevant for all human rights advocates as we grapple with how global calls for justice can be made meaningful in the face of persecution and global hostilities.

While IGLHRC had initially offered to coordinate a public vigil to protest the use of the death penalty as a punishment for sexually-based crimes in Iran and elsewhere, conversations with colleagues have made clear that in New York City, dialogue, not demonstrations, would be the most productive way to build longer term strategies and understandings of how best to respond to human rights violations around the world.

WHEN: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

WHERE: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center 208 West 13th Street between 7th & 8th Avenues New York, New York

READ/POST COMMENT...

According to James Jeffrey of the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, at $21.9 billion the Iraqi reconstruction program is "the largest since the Marshall Plan."

If only it included the PLAN part.

Assessing the Bush Administration's "2005 National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," a newly released Government Accountability Office report criticizes the Bush administration's failure to identify "which U.S. agencies are responsible for implementation" as well as "current and future costs…."

Last Tuesday, U.S. Comptroller General David Walker told a House Government Reform subcommittee of "massive corruption" and "theft" in the Iraqi oil industry – including the stealing of 10 percent of refined fuels, and 30 percent of imported fuels. Walker noted the "tremendous incentive" for theft given that subsidized gas sells for 44 cents per gallon in Iraq, compared to 90 cents per gallon elsewhere in the region. And with oil production down from prewar levels, the invasion-justification-assumption that these revenues would largely pay for reconstruction has proven wildly off target.

Joseph Christoff, GAO's director of international affairs and trade, also spoke of wasted payments to a "bloated bureaucracy" and "ghost employees."

The GAO report concludes with the staggering assertion that neither the Defense Department nor Congress "can reliably determine the costs of war, nor do they have the details on how appropriated funds are being spent or historical data useful in considering future funding needs."

The Congressional Budget Office added to the grim picture revealed last week by estimating that – even in the case of a rapid withdrawal – "an additional $166 billion would be needed… on top of $290 billion already allocated."

But the American people have been misled on the costs of this war at every stage, so why what possible reason do we have to believe that these are real numbers? Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz places the costs at $1 trillion to $2 trillion, depending on how long this madness continues.

And this is the reckless, uncharted course that the administration and its GOP accomplices (and Joe Lieberman) continue to ask our nation to follow? To use Mr. Bush's own words, unwittingly captured by a microphone at the G-8 Summit, "That seems odd."

READ/POST COMMENT...

After a week of dithering, the Bush Administration has finally decided to send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Middle East. But when Condi arrives on Friday, ten days after the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began, she won't try and push for an immediate ceasefire.

In 1993 and 1996, Secretary of State Warren Christopher launched a vigorous push for diplomacy that quieted fighting between the Israeli army and Lebanese militants. But today, according to the Wall Street Journal, Bush and Rice "have no intention of launching a similar round of diplomacy to end the current fighting. Visiting Damascus is out of the question. And a cease-fire isn't their most pressing aim, they say."

No, Condi's belatedly stopping by "to build support for the effective crippling of Hezbollah." An ambitious goal, but shouldn't an end to the violence come first?

As the WSJ notes, the continued Israeli bombing and recent incursion into South Lebanon will likely only strengthen the standing of Hezbollah and Iran, while weakening the fragile, anti-Syrian, government of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. If Hezbollah attacks Tel Aviv and Israel responds by hitting Syria, the entire region could go up in flames.

That's why "many top officials in Europe and Arab capitals are calling for a far speedier end to the current fighting than Washington supports. Some are calling for the introduction of international peacekeeping forces into Southern Lebanon."

Not surprisingly, the Bush Administration has thus far brushed off that idea, similar to the way they belittled the Clinton Administration's peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and then did nothing to push the so-called "road map" for peace.

Their only policy towards the region seems to have been the invasion of Iraq. A world of good that's done.

READ/POST COMMENT...

On May 9th, the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) announced it could not pursue an investigation into the role of Justice lawyers in crafting the warrantless wiretapping program. In a letter to New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey --the most dogged Congressional advocate for investigation of the spying program --H. Marshall Jarrett, OPR's Counsel, explained that he had closed Justice's probe because his office's requests for security clearances to conduct it had been denied.

"I am writing to inform you that we have been unable to make the meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program," Jarrett explained in his reply to Hinchey. "Beginning in January 2006, this Office made a series of requests for the necessary clearances. On May 9, 2006, we were informed that our requests had been denied. Without these clearances, we cannot investigate this matter and therefore have closed our investigation."

Who denied the requests? Who obstructed justice?

It turns out --according to Bush's very own Attorney General Alberto Gonzales- it was the President. Under sharp questioning this morning by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Arlen Specter, Gonzales said that Bush would not grant the access required to allow the probe to move forward.

Hinchey, and others like Representatives John Lewis, Henry Waxman and Lynn Woolsey, who originally requested the probe should demand that Gonzales and his Department reopen the investigation. And they should also demand that President Bush explain why he obstructed a vital probe.

As Hinchey said at the time the probe was blocked, "The Bush Administration cannot simply create a Big Brother program and then refuse to answer any questions on how it came about and what it entails. We are not asking for top secret information." What becomes clearer with every revelation about this President's lawlessness is that Bush's arrogance and abuse of power must be checked.

READ/POST COMMENT...

I almost never write about Israel. Someone who supports the Jewish state but opposes the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, as I do, generally gets flack from all sides. Too many on the left are reflexively anti-Israel. But too many in the so-called American mainstream are too quick to back whatever military excursion Israel undertakes--no matter how unproductive or misguided.

Nowhere is the knee-jerk support of Israel more clear than in the debate in Congress this week--or lack thereof--over the Israeli bombing of Lebanon. Leaders of both parties have been quick to forcefully condemn Hamas and Hezbollah while offering unconditional support for Israel's bombing of civilian Beirut.

Just take a look at the draft copy of the resolution under consideration in the House:

"Be it resolved that the House of Representatives reaffirms its steadfast support for the state of Israel; further condemns Hamas and Hezbollah for cynically exploiting civilian populations as shields...calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Israeli soldiers held captive by Hezbollah and Hamas; (and) affirms that all governments who have provided continued support to Hamas or Hezbollah share responsibility for the hostage-taking and attacks against Israel and, as such, must be held accountable for their actions."

Only a few senior statesmen have raised an alarm about the ferocity of Israel's response. Rep. John Dingell, the longest serving Democrat in the House, called the Israeli counterattack "disproportionate and counterproductive."

"The use of force has brought about a tragic amount of civilian deaths and has weakened a promising democracy in Lebanon," Dingell said in a statement. "The United States-–as a leader of the free world--must take immediate steps to bring about a cease fire so that negotiations may begin."

Likewise, Senator John Warner, the hawkish Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has been a lone voice in holding up legislation in the Senate viewed as unnecessarily slanted toward Israel. "Our support for Israel is very strong, Mr. President, but it cannot be unconditional," Warner said on the Senate floor yesterday. "I urge the Administration to think through very carefully how Israel's extraordinary reaction could affect our operations in Iraq and our joint diplomatic efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue," he added in a statement.

Why are so few in Congress following the advice of Dingell and Warner? Perhaps it's because of the influence of what professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt call "The Israel Lobby," particularly its largest player, AIPAC.

Even former Bush and Clinton Administration Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, a sharp critic of Mearsheimer and Walt, admits that AIPAC exerts a disproportionate grip on the Congress. "It's pretty clear that they are a significant force on the Hill," Ross recently told NPR, "And that shouldn't be underestimated."

READ/POST COMMENT...

It's been over a year since that bastion of liberalism – the U.S. House of Representatives – approved federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. It looks as though this week the Senate will finally do the same.

But President Bush, in his ever-expanding role as "The Decider," is threatening his first veto and holding public health hostage to his skewed-faith-based reality and ideological crusade (see DefCon's ad in today's New York Times: "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job").

Despite our need for a sane science policy – and supporters of the legislation including Flip-Flopping Dr. Frist and Nancy Reagan literally urging Republicans to enact this for the Gipper – Bush prefers to side with such well-informed (non) members of the scientific community as:

Rev. Pat Robertson: "Before long, we'll be harvesting body parts from fully formed people. Once you begin this...utilitarian use of cells, then everything is up for grabs."

Rev. Jerry Falwell: "...the President was right to ban federal money going to this dangerous and unethical research."

James Dobson: "Experiments on the blastocytes, which are fertilized eggs, has a Nazi-esque aura to it."

As David Broder writes in The Washington Post, "… in the nation as a whole, polls show that public opinion supports expanded stem cell research." As many as 72% of Americans, in fact. But this administration is once again showing its true colors in this latest act of pandering. One hopes voters will make proponents of zealotry over science pay at the polls in 2006.

READ/POST COMMENT...

As the world burns, Dick Cheney campaigns.

Today Cheney will spend seven hours in Iowa, stumping for two Congressional candidates and addressing the Iowa National Guard. No doubt Cheney will brag about how the Bush Administration is spreading peace and democracy across the globe.

But with the Middle East in flames, is political campaigning really the best use of the Vice President's time? We are talking about the man who effectively runs the White House.

Shouldn't top Bush Administration officials like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice be in the region right now, working round the clock to defuse the crisis?

When it comes to engaging the world, a political campaign is no substitute for a foreign policy.

READ/POST COMMENT...

John Mayer's just-released single "Waiting on the World to Change" has already reached the #3 spot on the iTunes Music Store.

In an age of widespread youth disengagement, it's always refreshing to see a popular artist infuse politics into music (in this song, Mayer directly addresses bringing the troops home, rails against the right-wing media, etc).

Yet, Mayer's message ultimately serves to reinforce the very myth that has caused this epidemic of disengagement: the idea that young people are powerless to improve their situation.

A sample of the lyrics:

Me and all my friends// We're all misunderstood// They say we stand for nothing and// There's no way we ever could// Now we see everything that's going wrong// With the world and those who lead it// We just feel like we don't have the means// To rise above and beat it

So we keep waiting// Waiting on the world to change...

It's hard to beat the system// When we're standing at a distance

Of course, Mayer's not the originator of this idea. He's merely echoing the sentiments that predominate in my generation's politics-- the notion that no matter how angry we are, "we don't have the means" to change the system. The problem is, this is a myth. Just ask the young people in China, Chile, France, Iran, Korea, and elsewhere across the globe.

Instead of calling on us to "rise up," Mayer tells us to sit tight and wait till we're grown-ups. "One day our generation is gonna rule the population," he sings.

With wars raging across the Middle East, an imminent climate crisis, an AIDS epidemic, a global economic system that favors corporate profits over people, and innumerable problems at home, the last thing young people need to do is wait on the world to change.

READ/POST COMMENT...

In your lifetime, has the US ever exercised less global leadership?

The Middle East is burning. Iraq is disintegrating. Afghanistan is collapsing. North Korea is escalating. Iran is cheering.

And all President Bush can do is dither. The Administration has no foreign policy. At least the invasion of Iraq, though wholly misguided and strategically disastrous, was an example of decisive action. Today, in the face of crisis after crisis, Bush does nothing.

"In the current crisis, which has the potential to be as or more dangerous than previous ones, the need for a concerted American-led crisis management role is as great or even greater than in the past," writes Duke professor Bruce Jentleson.

Why isn't Condi Rice in the Middle East right now, working round the clock to defuse the violence as Warren Christopher did during the Clinton Administration in 1993 and 1996? Why aren't we talking directly to North Korea? Why do we refuse to negotiate with Iran? Why are we told we can't leave Iraq even though it's increasingly unclear why we need to stay? Why are we letting the Taliban regroup in Afghanistan?

Why doesn't the Bush Administration have a convincing answer to any of these questions?

If cowboy diplomacy is supposedly over, as Time magazine recently proclaimed, the Administration better find a replacement foreign policy, soon.

READ/POST COMMENT...

For years, leaders of the Republican Party and their amen corner in the media has been demanding to know why African-American voters so consistently support the Democratic Party.

Here's a thought:

When the U.S. House debated the "Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act" this month, the process was bogged down for weeks by objections from Republican members of the House who sought to eliminate some or all of the essential protections contained in the 41-year-old guarantee of equal protection for minority voters.

Even on the final day of debate on the measure, the House had to dispense with four amendments – all sponsored by Republicans -- that sought to undermine the scope and application of the Voting Rights Act.

None of the anti-voting rights amendments received as many as five Democratic votes.

All of the anti-voting rights amendments received at least 95 Republican votes.

One of the amendments – Iowa Representative Steve King's move to restrict and potentially eliminate the availability of ballots for Americans who do not speak English as their first language – gained 181 Republican votes.

A majority of House Republicans also voted for an amendment designed to make it easier for communities to "bail out" of Voting Rights Act requirements and for an amendment that sought to limit the number of years for which the act was reauthorized.

In the end, only 33 House members voted against the final reauthorization of the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act. But all of those votes came from Republicans, meaning that 15 percent of the House Republican Caucus opposed renewal of what civil rights pioneer and Georgia Congressman John Lewis told Congress was still very much needed to "reflect a commitment to equal protection under the law."

At the end of the day, a substantial proportion of House Republicans cast specific votes against maintaining the framework for protecting the rights of minority voters, while the vast majority of House Republicans backed steps that would have effectively gutted provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that make real the guarantee of equal protection under the law.

House Republicans did this despite calls for renewal of the act by every major civil rights group in the country, and appeals from their African-American, Latino and Asian-American colleagues. They did so despite the fact that academics and voting-rights experts echoed the assessment of Michigan Representative John Conyers, the senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, that: "The Voting Rights Act's) importance to opening the political process to all Americans is beyond doubt or challenge."

How will African-American voters respond to the House GOP's assault on what Conyers refers to as "the crown jewel of our civil rights laws"? Perhaps they will react as did Georgia Representative David Scott, one of the most moderate members of the current House, who said of his Republican colleagues: "Their goal has been one thing and one thing only: to kill the Voting Rights Act."

READ/POST COMMENT...

After running as a so-called "reformer" in the race to replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader, Ohio Rep. John Boehner admitted in his first major TV interview, "I've got a very open relationship with lobbyists in town."

Since assuming the House's number two leadership slot, his coziness with K Street has only intensified. According to a front page New York Times story today, Boehner's raising $10,000 a day in campaign contributions from lobbyists and corporations, at a rate that would make even Tom DeLay blush.

"A review of Mr. Boehner's recent contributors finds a 'who's who' of Washington special interests, many with issues before Congress," the Times reported. "Mr. Boehner's biggest donors include the political action committees of lobbying firms, drug and cigarette makers, banks, health insurers, oil companies and military contractors."

Even before joining the House leadership, Boehner placed at least 24 former staffers at plum lobbyist jobs. Since his election last February, Boehner's campaign committees hired two top lobbyists employed by the finance and insurance industries.

And since 2000, Boehner's taken more than twice as many corporate-funded trips as DeLay. When Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert proposed a ban on such travel in January, Boehner quickly nixed the idea--presumably so he could continue attending functions like a convention of commodities traders at a golf resort in Florida. In between hitting the links, Boehner assured the group that Congress would not pass a tax on futures transactions they opposed.

Little wonder why lobbying reform is dead.

READ/POST COMMENT...

As Bush and Putin meet in St. Petersburg for the G-8 summit, there's a lot of talk in the US media about Russia's backsliding on democracy. Of course, Russia isn't on a path to democracy. Putin has reasserted state control over Russian television, jailed a leading oligarch and may well try to alter the Russian constitution so he can remain President for a third term beginning in 2008. But as scholars and writers with a sense of history have argued -- including (my husband) Stephen Cohen in a recent cover story in The Nation and Anatol Lieven in a Los Angeles Times op-ed -- de-democratization began not under Putin but under Boris Yeltsin. As Lieven explains, "The 'democracy' that Putin has allegedly overthrown was, in fact, not a real democracy at all, but a pseudo-democracy ruled over by corrupt and brutal oligarchical clans." Furthermore, he notes, " During the 1990s, the administration of Boris Yeltsin, under the sway of oligarchs and the liberal elites, rigged elections, repressed the opposition and launched a bloody and unnecessary war in Chechnya--all with the support of Washington."

But don't ask that champion of democracy, civil liberties and human rights Dick Cheney to get his history right. Instead, in May, Cheney used his shotgun approach and traveled through the former Soviet Union hectoring Russia's government for its anti-democratic ways. As William Fisher noted at the time, in a sharp commentary on Truthout.com, it was "truly grotesque" that Cheney would be "lecturing anyone about democracy and human rights." As Fisher, who worked for the US State Department and USAID for thirty years, put it, " [Cheney} has dishonored these core American values in his own country...Could there be anyone less credible on subjects like democratic reform and open government?"

Instead of counter-productive lectures, perhaps we should listen more carefully to former Russian dissidents like Boris Kagarlitsky. I've known Kagarlitsky for more than twenty five years. He is a man of integrity, a man of the democratic left, who was imprisoned in the Brezhnev years for samizdat literature and speaking his mind. In May, I asked him what he made of U.S. criticism of Russia's political landscape. Here is Boris's brief and sharp reply.

"Russia doesn't look like a model democracy, but United States under current administration doesn't look so either. Every time American government spoke about exporting democracy somewhere this ended up in disaster, whether it was in Vietnam or in Latin America. We will solve our problems ourselves without George Bush or Dick Cheney. And people who organise elections in Siberia don't need lectures from those who organized elections in Florida... All these technologies are internationally known." Boris Kagarlitsky

READ/POST COMMENT...

A little while back, The Nation ran a huge, full page ad from Fox News in the magazine. But when we tried to run an ad for The Nation on Fox News, Murdoch's gang turned us down.

And today, I got this email from David Halperin, director of Campus Progress (whose conference I blogged about yesterday):

We wanted you to know that Jason Mattera is refusing to grant a press credential to the Young America's Foundation annual conservative student conference to our CampusProgress.org ace reporter / intern... even though Mattera himself has now twice covered the annual conference Campus Progress national student conference for the National Review! When pressed, Mattera said that he also would deny a press credential to The Nation!

I'm not sure why, but the right seems a lot more scared of us than we are of them.

READ/POST COMMENT...

The other night Dan Rather was back in center ring. In an hour long interview with CNN's Larry King. Rather spoke with quiet fury about the suits at CBS who treated him, a 44-year employee, so disgracefully. It turns out that at the end, it was the lawyers--not actor-turned corporate honcho Leslie Moonves--who told Rather "we just don't have a place for you." But, as Rather understood--as has anyone watching the networks these last years--CBS News is a cog in an entertainment company.

"There came a time," he told King (who also works for an entertainment company with a news division) " when I realized...that we were working for not CBS and not CBS News. We were working for Viacom News...a larger entertainment company....but I want to do news that matters. And so much of the news these days...it's so driven by ratings, so driven by demographics, so driven by, we used to be told stockholder value. It's driven by things other than the public interest. I want to do news that's fair and accurate, do it with integrity and I want to do it in the public interest."

In one of the more interesting exchanges, Rather talked about 60 Minutes's controversial broadcast about Bush's National Guard record.

King: "You're saying that was a fair report, I mean that was--you believe that report to this day?" Rather: Do I believe the truth of the story? Absolutely.

Rather added, "...We had a lot, a lot of corroboration..it wasn't just the documents. But it's a very old technique used when those who don't like what you're reporting, believe it can be hurtful, then they look for the weakest spot and attack it, which is fair enough." But, he added, " It's a diversionary technique."

Rather is right.

In the days after "60 Minutes" aired its September 2004 report raising tough questions about President Bush's pampered "service" in the Texas National Guard, the heart of the story was obscured by a rightwing blog-fueled controversy over the authenticity of the so-called Killian memos. Instead of asking the White House tough questions about the well-documented information contained in the broadcast, too much of the media focused almost exclusively on the claims and counter-claims made about the disputed documents.

To be sure, Rather and his producers played into the hands of a Bush spin machine that, to this day,remains expert at peddling the lie that a liberal media is out to distort the president's record. As The Nation's John Nichols wrote at the time, "By relying on a few documents that were not adequately verified, CBS handed White House political czar Karl Rove exactly what he needed to steer attention away from the real story." But it always remained true, as Rather said at the time, that " Those who have criticized aspects of our story have never criticized the heart of it...that George Bush received preferential treatment to get into the National Guard and, once there, failed to satisfy the requirements of his service." The basic story was, in fact, well-reported by Texas columnist Molly Ivins and investigative reporter Lou Dubose almost five years before CBS's report. And in the days before and after 60 Minutes broadcast, the AP, the Boston Globe and US News & World Report all raised new questions about Bush's military record. Though each of these stories, as a good report by FAIR pointed out at the time (Sept 14, 2004), were "accompanied by significant official documentation, developments in the investigations by AP, US News and the Globe [were] largely sidetracked by the fixation on questions about the authenticity of documents aired on CBS on September 8." As FAIR's report concluded, It was like "the equivalent of covering the sideshow and ignoring the center ring."

Here's a modest editorial idea for Rather. Now that you're back with a weekly news program on Mark Cuban's HDNet TV-- and with the editorial freedom and mandate to do tough investigative reports, how about documenting the full story about the White House coverup of George W. Bush's military service?

READ/POST COMMENT...

On Wednesday in Washington, I attended the second annual National Student Conference held by Campus Progress, an organization featured in "The New Face of the Campus Left."

Last year's conference was quite disappointing. "Critical dialogue was in short supply," I wrote then, "and the promotion of strategic tactics--rather than strong principles--seemed to rule the day. Instead of identifying the values with which to forge a movement, the speakers at the conference seemed obsessed over the forging itself." I complained then that the majority of the students in attendance were well-heeled, DC-insider, College Dem types, and that grassroots activists were in noticeably missing. The first conference hardly reflected the diversity of those involved in progressive campus politics.

What a difference a year makes. The opening plenary included Adrienne Marie-Brown of the Ruckus Society, an organization that trains grassroots activists, who implored students to turn their campuses into "hotbeds of sexy, revolutionary action." She told students to steer away from the "corporate biz-casual world and break the fuckin' rules." John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress, even agreed with her ("We need more of you hanging from trees," he said, echoing Brown's earlier call for direct action).

The highlight of the conference, without doubt, was Illinois Senator Barack Obama's address. Eschewing the recycled stump-speech mode employed by Bill Clinton last year, Obama directly addressed the students, speaking mostly of his early days as a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago. Obama's speech was less of a crowd-pumping call to action, and more of a contemplative, moving reflection on his path into politics.

Obama's first employer paid him $12,000, "plus an extra thousand to buy a car--an old, beat-up Honda Civic." He said his peers and elders thought he was crazy for taking such an unglamorous route, but he wanted to "build power from the bottom up, rather than the top down."

"It's easy to just take that diploma, forget about all this progressive politics stuff, and go chasing after the big house and the large salary and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy," he said. "But I hope you don't. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself, and it will leave you unfulfilled."

A lot of progressives, including one who recently wrote for this magazine, are nowhere near sold on Obama. But the most compelling thing about this man--and perhaps the main reason why my generation responds so strongly to him--is his background. Politicians who are more concerned with power than with people do not go to the South Side after college and take jobs paying jack squat to fight for people who hardly anyone else cares about. They take high-paying jobs so that some day they can buy their way into power, fill prestigious posts and clerk for famous judges, or seek the media spotlight any way they can.

Obama's early commitment to grassroots organizing is something that simply cannot be overlooked. His past is an integral part of his character. This comes through in his speeches, and this is why young people refuse to dismiss him as an ordinary political opportunist.

In addition to providing great speakers and above-average food, Campus Progress also unveiled two exciting activism campaigns, one calling for an end to America's oil addiction and another fighting against the cuts in student debt.

Campus Progress has truly shed much of its DC-centric feel and has made good on its commitment to be a big tent for young progressive activists, both pragmatic and radical. Students from a variety of races, classes, religious and ethnic backgrounds, across the ideological spectrum of the student left, came together to discuss, debate, and most importantly, organize.

There was a definite sense in the air that, come this fall, progressive student activism could reach heights not seen for decades on campuses.

READ/POST COMMENT...

Who in their right mind thought Al Gore could become a fashion statement?

Yeah, neither did I. But on Boston's uber-chic Newbury Street and in New York's Soho, I've already spotted numerous hipsters sporting Marc Jacobs' new Al Gore fashion line. The recently-released Al Gore t-shirts, tote bags, and trucker hats are now available at all Marc Jacobs retail stores, and they're not even that expensive (at least by Jacobs standards).

My personal favorite is the red "Al, Save Us" tee (click on "special items" to see them). There's also an "Al For President" shirt.

Hipsters aren't the only ones who want him to run. Today AlterNet released the results of its online straw poll in which 13,000 participated. Gore blew away his opponents, with 35 percent of the vote; Feingold was next with 20 percent.

I'm still in the camp that believes Gore is best doing exactly what he's doing, raising hell outside of the Beltway. But there's no denying that his grassroots support is tremendous right now. Even in Soho.

READ/POST COMMENT...

The Bush Administration claims they always treated prisoners in the war on terror "humanely."

Detainees at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may beg to differ.

President Bush slammed John Kerry during 2004 for sending "mixed messages" to terrorists. But as the New York Times reported today, "Mixed messages over exactly which rules applied where, and which Geneva protections were to be honored and which ignored, were at the root of prisoner abuse scandals from Guantanamo to Iraq to Afghanistan."

That's why the military applauded the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and the Pentagon's memo announcing that all enemy combatants, including those held at CIA black sites, be treated in accordance with Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

"I think commanders in the field will see it positively," Col. David Wallace, a West Point law professor, told the Washington Post. "They see the value of complying with the law of war."

After the Supreme Court's ruling, some Republicans simply wanted to put a Congressional stamp on the Administration's indefinite detentions at Gitmo. But the decision's aftermath gave added backing to GOP dissidents like Senator Lindsay Graham, a former Air Force lawyer who wants the Administration to follow the existing code of military justice. "If you fight that approach, it's going to be a long hot summer," Graham told a DoD lawyer yesterday.

The larger question, of course, is why we need Gitmo at all?

Only 10 of the 450 prisoners have been charged with crimes, and none convicted. Innocent people are stuck in a legal no man's land, with no access to lawyers and no way to defend themselves. America's reputation has been irrevocably sullied. So instead of arguing about the particulars of international law, maybe we should listen to Colin Powell, who said last week: "Guantanamo ought to be closed immediately."

READ/POST COMMENT...

What you learn in American government 101 still rings true: we live in a system of three co-equal branches. The Bush Administration, for perhaps the first time in six years, got the message today.

Justice John Paul Stevens 5-3 decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was blunt and stinging: the Bush Administration must get approval from Congress to hold prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and treat those detainees in accordance with Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

Republicans such as Majority Leader John Boehner denounced the ruling as "special privileges for terrorists." But the Pentagon took notice, releasing a memo today announcing that it would follow Article 3--specifying that prisoners be treated humanely and afforded basic judicial protections. An Administration that gleefully snickered at international law finally decided to comply with it.

What else might the Administration U-turn on? Secret prisons, extraordinary renditions, warrantless wiretapping, permanent bases in Iraq?

The latest issue of Time magazine proclaims "The End of Cowboy Diplomacy." North Korea, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan put an end to the unilateralist Bush doctrine. Too bad France didn't win the World Cup.

READ/POST COMMENT...

No, the above title is not a reference to how many vacation days I've taken this year. Twenty-three days is how long the Senate plans to be in legislative session this year.

According to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the Senate will try and complete its "must-pass" bills by September 27, giving Senators the rest of the time to campaign and raise money before the November elections.

As Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid noted:

This new adjournment date means the Senate has only 8 more weeks in which it will be session.

Subtract Mondays and Fridays--which aren't real work days in this Republican Congress--and there are just 23 legislative days left in the 109th Congress.

Not exactly much time to tend to the people's business. I forgot to mention they're gone the entire month of August.

Last year Frist promised votes on stem cell research and the renewal of the Voting Rights Act. Thus far, neither have been given a specific date for debate.

And you can forget about Congress passing comprehensive immigration reform or new limits on lobbyists.

Right now, we'll be lucky if they name a few post offices.

READ/POST COMMENT...

The New York Post's Page Six reports that Bono , supposed savior of the world's disenfranchised, has, through his private equity firm, invested in a video game which depicts Venezuela as a "banana republic led by a 'power-hungry tyrant.'" According to Page Six, "Players assume the role of a mercenary sent to a fictitious Venezuela, where a dictator has seized control of the country and its oil. The gun-for-hire is instructed, 'If you can see it, you can buy it, steal it, or blow the living crap out of it.'"

The Post story quoted some "lefties" who were annoyed about the game, among them Jeff Cohen, who criticized the game for glorifying "stale, old mercenary approaches." Oh, is that the problem with the violent overthrow of other people's governments? It isn't fresh thinking! It's so 1980s, like berry-flavored lip gloss. Jeff must have been a little jet-lagged when he made that silly remark.

Bono gets much humanitarian cred for campaigning for Third World debt relief. But it is disgusting to make a game out of the Bush Administration's effort to undermine Hugo Chavez, a democratically elected leader, and one of the few living politicians today who are actually working to improve the lot of the world's poor -- the poor, whom the sanctimonious Bono claims to care so much about. If Bono is serious in his commitment, and not, as one frequently suspects, a vapid celebrity poser, he should immediately use his financial muscle to deep-six this horrible video game.

READ/POST COMMENT...

The fate of Mexico is undetermined at this hour, but this much we know: Don't take at face value what you read in the leading American newspapers about Mexico's cliffhanger election outcome. Their candidate is the candidate of multinational business--Felipe Calderón--who supposedly won the presidential election by 240,000 votes out of 41 million. Keep in mind that nearly 65 percent of Mexican voters essentially voted against Calderón and his pro-globalization, pro-NAFTA agenda by voting for someone else.

The leading opponent--Andrés Manuel López Obrador--came in second and charges he was robbed. The most influential papers in America--the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal--have already warned that López Obrador is a dangerous character. They depict a "firebrand" and "messianic" leader of the unwashed poor, a potentially violent "populist" who might destabilize the country. There is a long tradition in these newspapers of warning American readers about the rise of non-establishment politicians in Mexico and Latin America. The CIA has devoted enormous energy over the years to preventing such a calamity for US interests (oil, banking, minerals--you name it.)

So keep an open mind about whether López Obrador's charges of election fraud are substantive or, as the media suggest, farfetched. In recent decades, Mexico's ruling class has been notorious, even violent, about fixing elections. The presidency was effectively stolen from a left-wing challenger back in 1988 to install Carlos Salinas de Gortari, much admired by Wall Street as a "modern reformer." He embraced NAFTA and US finances but was discredited and deeply corrupt. (He had to flee the country afterward but was taken in by his American friends, including the Wall Street Journal, which put him on the Dow Jones board.)

On occasion, a promising politician's candidacy has even been cut short by murder. There were two in the run-up to the 1994 election: Luis Donaldo Colosio and Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu.

What's most disgusting in the current coverage is the similarity to an American election scam. Newsies are pounding home the same message for López Obrador that they used to bully Al Gore back in 2000: Don't be a sore loser. Fold your tent and accept defeat, for the sake of stability, for the good health of democracy. Remember Florida? If the votes had been fairly, thoroughly recounted there in 2000, Gore would be the "next President."

In Mexico, López Obrador asks for a full recount of the national vote--a reasonable demand, given what's already known--but this is dismissed as irrational, even unpatriotic. So far he is standing his ground, but we can expect the respectable pressures to intensify against him. Establishment influentials from the North will warn that Mexico's future prosperity could be damaged if US investors "lose confidence." The specter of small-d democratic protest will be described as an impediment to Calderón's governing the entire country. Indeed, it might be.

I am not anticipating a López Obrador triumph, but surely he is right to demand a full accounting of the real results. In any event, the Mexican people have turned a big corner in their long struggle to achieve a genuine voice in a self-governing democracy. This election, even if the common people fall short of full justice, represents a significant advance. (If only the American people could discover the same spirit of insurgency.)

If Americans were not kept in ignorance by their own leaders and media, they might recognize their self-interest is directly involved. They would understand why, instead of fearing the popular aspirations of ordinary Mexicans, ordinary Americans should be standing with them.

READ/POST COMMENT...

Jack Abramoff lives! When's the last time you heard his name? Washington had almost forgotten the disgraced lobbyist.

Luckily the Secret Service hadn't. New logs released over the weekend show that Abramoff visited the White House a half-dozen times in the early days of the Bush Administration. Previously the White House claimed Abramoff had only been there twice. But the Justice Department explained that the Secret Service had quote "unexpectedly discovered" Abramoff's other appointments.

Still, something is missing from this picture: the Congressmen Abramoff bought and used.

When Abramoff plead guilty to bribery charges last January, press reports indicated that over a dozen Congressmen might be implicated. The Wall Street Journal put the number at sixty. Since then, not one has been charged. Aides have copped deals. A top Bush Administration official, David Safavian, was recently convicted for lying to investigators.

But I'm still waiting for the top guns to fall on Capitol Hill.

READ/POST COMMENT...

The world's greatest military is no longer what it once was.

Soldiers in Iraq are being charged with rape, premeditated murder and cold-blooded massacres. Troops with severe mental illness are being sent back into battle. And the Army keeps lowering recruiting standards, roping in high-school drop-outs and now, skinheads and neo-Nazis.

According to a shocking new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, neo-Nazis and skinheads are infiltrating the military, perhaps in the thousands, as a result of lax recruiting enforcement.

"Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members," says Defense Department investigator Scott Barfield.

Barfield presented the military with evidence of 320 extremists in the past year, but only two have been discharged.

"We've got Aryan Nation graffiti in Baghdad."

Is that what the Bush Administration means by spreading freedom and democracy?

If the kids of the rich and privileged won't fight this war, I guess skinheads will.

READ/POST COMMENT...

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld can't be bothered with a $30 Billion defense procurement scandal; nor will he respond to a Congressional inquiry into retaliation against an Abu Ghraib whistleblower.

That's why he received a subpoena last week from the House Committee on Government Reform.

In March the Committee requested documents from Rumsfeld relating to the case of military intelligence soldier, Sgt. Samuel Provance. Rumsfeld never replied despite numerous follow-up phone calls and emails.

Provance spoke out in 2004 against the human rights violations and torture at the infamous prison – "including the use of prisoners' children to break them." And testifying before Congress in February, Provance described his frustration in trying to alert his superiors about the atrocities.

"They [the investigations] seemed to me to be designed to shut people up, not to reveal the truth about what happened and punish all the wrongdoers. In particular, they seemed focused on trying to shut off the responsibility of those who were higher up the chain of command."

Provance cited Maj. Gen. George Fay as an example. Initially resistant to hearing the allegations, Fay then threatened to prosecute Provance for not coming forward sooner with his information.

According to Rep. Henry Waxman, "… rather than investigate Sergeant Provance's claims, the military ignored him, told him he could be prosecuted for not coming forward sooner, and then demoted him and pulled his security clearance."

Just as this administration has waged an undeclared war against on independent media providing a measure of oversight, so too has it cracked down on whistleblowers who fight back against its grip on information. The Provance case is typical modus operandi for the Bush White House: attack anyone acting in the public's interest; and whitewash the truth.

With the administration's condoning of torture; treatment of the Geneva Conventions as quaint; and fabricated justification for a War – let's hope, this time, Secretary Rumsfeld is held accountable.

READ/POST COMMENT...

College graduates are "applying to service organizations... in record numbers," says USA Today. Teach for America has tripled its applicants since 2000, the Peace Corps has more volunteers than it's had in 30 years, and AmeriCorps has 50% more applicants than it had two years ago.

Before this generation pats itself on the back-- or worse, before our parents do-- let's take a step back to consider why this is and what this might mean.

While I'd like to believe that we're the most self-sacrificial generation ever, I think it's more likely that we're volunteering so much because we don't have a lot of other options.

For one, we're massively in debt. And thanks to the largest cuts ever in student aid--which caused interest rates to soar on July 1st-- we're in even worse debt. A lot of people join the Peace Corps because they care about starving Africans, but a lot of people join because they know the Peace Corps helps pay your debts.

Meanwhile, the labor market for recent graduates, while showing slight signs of improvement, remains atrocious. It's possible that everyone signing up to teach in inner city public schools is doing so out of a deep sense of mission; but it's also likely that many of them are doing so because the starting salary-- around $37,000 a year-- is much, much higher than other available jobs.

Finally, let's not ingore the fact that we are the resume-building generation, and that volunteering can be a smart economic calculation. A large reason for the spike in high school volunteering is because students must do community service in order to fulfill graduation requirements. In college, many students get course credits for volunteering as well. Volunteering in the real world, like working at an unpaid or low-paying internship, is a way to build skills and become more attractive to future employers.

But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that we really are the most self-sacrificial generation in decades*-- that the spike in volunteering truly reflects our desire to make the world a better place. This seems like great news. But let's think about it for a second: will this trend towards volunteerism actually make the world a better place?

As I've argued in the past, there's a darker side to the rise of volunteerism: my generation's lack of belief in its ability to spark widespread, systemic social change. My peers are "chipping in" because they don't believe that they can dramatically alter the status quo, only tweak it. They help homeless individuals but don't believe that they can eradicate the problem of homelessness. They deliver donated drugs to developing nations, but don't believe that they can affectively challenge the corrupt pharmaceutical companies that keep the prices so high.

Don't get me wrong. There's a tremendous need for volunteers in the world, and many individual lives are changed forever thanks to community servants. But if volunteering continues to replace activism-- rather than exist in concert with activism-- we're in trouble.

Jonathan Chait made the important point in his LA Times column that Warren Buffett's multi-billion dollar donation to the Gates Foundation pales in comparison to what the government could have done with all of the lost money from the Estate Tax cut. Sure, philanthropy and volunteering are not the same thing, but the same principle applies. Individual acts are important, but they can't come close to matching impact of institutional change.

The world can't afford it if young people "chip in" but then check out of politics. If we don't struggle for social justice, the inequities that necessitate our volunteer service will persist indefinitely.

* We aren't by the way. This CIRCLE study shows that older generations are just as likely to consistently volunteer as our generation.

READ/POST COMMENT...

One of the most promising mini-trends is the growing popularity of Fair Trade coffee (now you can even buy it at Wal-Mart!). That label means that the coffee was grown under fair labor conditions, and that the small Third World growers received a decent price for it. I just ordered some through Global Exchange, from the Cloudforest cooperative, which sounds like something dreamed up by a satirical novelist: grown by autonomous cooperatives of Mayan Indians in Chiapas, in the shade (better for the forests and soil), it is organic and bird-friendly. Yes, bird-friendly. (A friend moved away from Berkeley after someone tried to assure her that no birds had been harmed in the production of her coffee. That's understandable; Berkeley in all its aromatherapized, self-realized, self-righteousness could drive a gal crazy, but...I really like birds.) The Cloudforest coffee sounded just about perfect.

Unfortunately, it sucks.

For coffee lovers, Fair Trade can pose a dilemma, because, sadly, much of it doesn't taste very good. As someone who falls asleep looking forward to the fresh smell and taste of my morning coffee, I take this problem seriously.The Cloudforest coffee is about as flavorless as any coffee you'll find; even many gas stations, diners and offices aspire to a higher quality these days. So I'm continuing my search. I'm confident that there are Fair Trade blends out there that could inspire me to get out of bed in the morning. To that end, I'll be organizing a tasting panel of coffee enthusiasts and will keep you posted on their findings.

I can just hear the objections. "Isn't this rather trivial? After all, Fair Trade coffee is a human rights issue." But that's, of course, exactly why it's so important that it succeed in the marketplace. To do that, it has to taste good, and appeal to socially conscious bourgeois hedonists like myself. Delicious coffee has become mainstream over the past decade. That's a positive legacy of companies like Starbucks, and you can't beat them by selling crap. A politics that overlooks pleasure has no future, and that's why I will never again -- sorry, Chiapas farmers -- buy the Cloudforest coffee, a bland blend only the most devotedly burlap-clad politico could love.

READ/POST COMMENT...

So it looks like New York won't go the way of Massachusetts. Despite ideological similarities with Massachusetts's Supreme Judicial Court -- what NYU law professor Stephen Gillers called a similar "center of gravity" -- New York's Court of Appeals reached a very different conclusion in their ruling on gay marriage (Hernandez v. Robles).

The court worked hard to avoid sounding homophobic in its decision, acknowledging that "there has been serious injustice in the treatment of homosexuals also, a wrong that has been widely recognized only in the relatively recent past..." But the court swiftly dodged the equality arguments presented by plaintiffs and instead -- in what can only be called an act of judicial passivism -- kicked the issue to the state legislature. In his plurality opinion Judge Robert Smith concluded, "We hold that the New York Constitution does not compel recognition of marriages between members of the same sex. Whether such marriages should be recognized is a question to be addressed by the Legislature." A concurring opinion even gingerly suggested that "it may well be that the time has come for the Legislature to address the needs of same-sex couples and their families, and to consider granting these individuals additional benefits through marriage, or whatever status the Legislature deems appropriate."

Deference to state legislators, however, did not stop the court from speculating on what could be a rational basis for legislation excluding homosexuals from marriage (and by the way the legislation in question is the Domestic Relations Law of 1909). Indeed, such speculation necessarily formed the crux of the court's ruling. And here's where the court's ruling gets really gnarly:

"First, the Legislature could rationally decide that, for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships. Heterosexual intercourse has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not...The Legislature could also find that such [heterosexual] relationships are all too often casual or temporary. It could find that an important function of marriage is to create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born. It thus could choose to offer an inducement -- in the form of marriage and its attendant benefits -- to opposite-sex couples who make a solemn, long-term commitment to each other. The Legislature could find that this rationale for marriage does not apply with comparable force to same-sex couples. These couples can become parents by adoption, or by artificial insemination or other technological marvels, but they do not become parents as a result of accident or impulse. The Legislature could find that unstable relationships between people of the opposite sex present a greater danger that children will be born into or grow up in unstable homes than is the case with same-sex couples, and thus that promoting stability in opposite-sex relationships will help children more."

Need a translation? Heterosexual New Yorkers are reckless, irresponsible sluts who breed without regard. Gays, however, must dutifully and deliberately pursue adoption, artificial insemination or "other technological marvels" and are thus more likely to raise kids in stable families. Consequently, gays don't need the "inducement" of marriage. Voila! And in just a few keystrokes, the stereotype of homosexual promiscuity is reversed -- though with familiar anti-gay results.

Judge Judith Kaye eviscerated this perverse rationalization in her dissent when she wrote, "Of course, there are many ways in which the government could rationally promote procreation--for example, by giving tax breaks to couples who have children, subsidizing child care for those couples, or mandating generous family leave for parents. Any of these benefits--and many more--might convince people who would not otherwise have children to do so. But no one rationally decides to have children because gays and lesbians are excluded from marriage."

In the '80s and '90s, fears of gay promiscuity produced the now almost quaint "gay panic defense" through which gay bashers were let off the hook because they went "temporarily insane" in the face of perceived homosexual advances. That the New York Court of Appeals now invokes a kind of heterosexual panic argument in the face of stable, monogamous, marriage-minded gay couples is rich indeed. But it isn't surprising given how, as Lisa Duggan and I have argued, debates about gay marriage have become less about gay civil rights and more about the future of marriage as an institution. If marriage is the symbolic and legal foundation for household security (for childcare, healthcare, retirement, home ownership, etc.), and marriage is increasingly unpopular and unstable -- then what? Like family-values conservatives, the Court of Appeals stoked and manipulated these anxieties to produce an immediately anti-gay opinion. But the deeper and more occluded marital disorder at the heart of the issue can't be resolved by banning gay marriage. As Judge Kaye's dissent suggests, perhaps it's time for both heterosexuals and gays to debate and enact genuinely pro-family (or pro-household) policies head-on, and recognize the gay marriage question for what it is -- a rather simple matter of equality under law.

READ/POST COMMENT...

"The assault on a free press ...should be recognized for what it is," wrote New York Times columnist Frank Rich last Sunday. "Another desperate ploy by officials trying to hide their own lethal mistakes in the shadows."

While the Bush Administration's war on a free, independent and aggressive media is unparalleled, US government attempts to suppress information are not new. More than forty years ago, for example, the New York Times acceded to the Kennedy Administration's request that it play down its advance knowledge of the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. (In a recent editorial, the Times wrote that "it seems in hindsight that the editors were over-cautious" by not printing what they knew about the invasion.)

In his open letter explaining the decision to publish the banking records story, Executive Editor Bill Keller referred to the Times' handling of the Bay of Pigs story. "Our biggest failures," Keller wrote, "have generally been when we failed to dig deep enough or to report fully enough. After the Times played down its advance knowledge of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President Kennedy reportedly said he wished we had published what we knew and perhaps prevented a fiasco."

What is little known is the role The Nation played in this story. In November 1960, The Nation published the first article on preparations being made for what would become the Bay of Pigs invasion. According to Carey McWilliams, The Nation's editor at the time, "Ronald Hilton, director of Stanford University's Institute of Hispanic-American Studies had just returned from Guatemala with reports that it was common knowledge --indeed, it had been reported in La Hora, a leading newspaper, on October 30--that the CIA was training a guerrilla force at a secret base for an early invasion of Cuba." McWilliams promptly got in touch with Hilton, who confirmed details, and agreed that he could be quoted. McWilliams wrote an article setting forth the facts Hilton had given him, including the location of the base near the mountain town of Retalhulea. If the reports were true, McWilliams wrote, "then public pressure should be brought to bear upon the administration to abandon this dangerous and hare-brained project." in the meantime, he added, the facts should be checked out immediately "by all US news media with correspondents in Guatemala." Although a special press release was prepared-- to which copies of the article were attached-- the wire services ignored the story and only one or two papers mentioned it.

However, The Nation's article was then called to the attention of a New York Times editor who assigned Times' reporter Paul Kennedy to do a story. Kennedy filed an article in January 1961 covering similar ground to the Nation's. But it was the Tad Szulc article in the Times-- that ran only a week before the invasion in April 1961 --that Kennedy called the Times's publisher about. The New York Times yielded to the President's demand that the story be reduced in prominence and detail.

According to McWilliams's memoirs (and the Columbia University "Forum" on "The Press and the Bay of Pigs" of Fall 1967), a week or so after the Bay of Pigs fiasco a group of press executives met with President Kennedy at the White House. "At this session," McWilliams recounts, "the President complained of premature disclosure of security information in the press and cited Paul Kennedy's story in the New York Times as a case in point. The New York Times' Turner Catledge then reminded Kennedy that reports about the base had previously appeared in the Guatemalan newspaper La Hora and The Nation."

The President reportedly turned to Catledge and said, "if you had printed more about the operation, you would have saved us from a colossal mistake." More than a year later, Kennedy told the New York Times' Orvil Dryfoos, "I wish you had run everything on Cuba...I am just sorry you didn't tell it at the time."

To his credit, top Kennedy aide and historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. also later said that he wished the Times had run its stories so that the whole catastrophe would have been avoided.

As McWilliams notes, "Kennedy was correct: timely disclosure of the facts might have prevented what was truly a 'colossal mistake;' but the press elected not to pursue the lead The Nation had provided."

********

Never has the need for a free and independent press been greater. Never has the need for news outlets to inform the public about government abuse and wrongdoing been greater.

The Bush Administration is dedicated to sabotaging the workings of a free press--a cornerstone of a true democracy. The vituperative attacks on the New York Times--a newspaper that, as The Nation's Washington Editor David Corn points out, "consistently published stories that hyped the WMD threat" and whose reporters "--Judith Miller and others--churned out breathless exposes based on Administration leaks and handouts from Iraqi exile groups angling to start a war"--have little to do with the paper's recent publication of the banking records story. It is part of the White House's larger and long-term game plan to delegitimize the press's role as a watchdog of government abuse, an effective counter to virtually unchecked executive power.

The other day Vice-President Cheney attacked the New York Times' disclosure about illegal wiretapping of US citizens. "I think that is a disgrace," Cheney said, referring to the Times winning a Pulitzer Prize for the story.

What is disgraceful is the conduct of an Administration that engages in press-bashing to score political points at the expense of constitutional principles.

READ/POST COMMENT...

Connecticut Senator Joe "I am a loyal Democrat" Lieberman's announcement that he will run for reelection as an "unaffiliated" independent if primary voters reject him August 8 has forced his fellow Democratic senators to decide whether they are more loyal to Lieberman or their party.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, have sent strong pro-Lieberman signals. They're definitely backing him in the August 8 primary against anti-war challenger Ned Lamont, and Schumer has hinted that he might back Lieberman as an independent if Lamont is the Democratic nominee.

On the other end of the spectrum is Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, who has shied away from endorsing Lieberman and recently said on the NBC News show "Meet the Press" that he would "support the Democratic nominee, whoever that is."

Somewhat surprisingly, the Democratic senator who has come closest to echoing Feingold's stand is New York Hillary Clinton. Though Clinton is backing Lieberman in the primary, she won't back him if he runs as an independent.

"I've known Joe Lieberman for more than 30 years. I have been pleased to support him in his campaign for reelection, and hope that he is our party's nominee," declared Clinton in a statement issued after Lieberman indicated that he will not honor the sentiments of Connecticut Democrats if they reject him.

"But," she added, "I want to be clear that I will support the nominee chosen by Connecticut Democrats in their primary," Clinton added. "I believe in the Democratic Party, and I believe we must honor the decisions made by Democratic primary voters."

Clinton is actually closer to Lieberman on the question of when U.S. forces should withdraw from Iraq -- the issue that led to the Lamont challenge after Lieberman emerged as the loudest Democratic support of the occupation in particular and Bush administration foreign policies in general.

But Clinton's politically smart. As a potential 2008 presidential candidate, she recognizes that needs to keep on good terms with the party's base. That base is overwhelmingly anti-war, a fact confirmed by the unexpected strength of the Lamont challenge to Lieberman.

So Clinton's banging the party-loyalty drum -- loudly -- saying that even if it means letting Lieberman loose, "The challenges before us in 2006 call for a strong, united party, in which we all support and work for the candidates who are selected in the Democratic process."

That does not mean, however, that Clinton is will get a pass for her position on the war. She is expected to face an anti-war challenge in the September New York state Democratic primary, from labor activist Jonathan Tasini. Tasini's campaign is completing the process of gathering signatures to qualify for the primary ballot.

With her statement on the Lieberman contest, Clinton sends signals as regards the New York contest and the 2008 presidential race.

Clinton is trying hard to maintain a position that is at least close to the middle of the Democratic Party.

That's the ground Lieberman abandoned altogether when he strongly endorsed the continued occupation of Iraq and refused to join most other Democrats -- including Clinton -- in supporting a vaguely-worded proposal by Rhode Island Democrat Jack Reed and Michigan Democrat Carl Levin that urged the Bush administration to start thinking about an exit strategy.

READ/POST COMMENT...

July 4 is typically a day for patriotic speeches about America's greatness. But, as Eric Foner pointed out in The Nation two years ago, it's also been a day for "eloquent indictments of a country whose actual practices all too frequently contradict its professed ideals." One of the greatest of those speeches was delivered on July 4, 1852, when the former slave Frederick Douglass spoke to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. While Douglass spoke of the contradiction between slavery and American ideals, his denunciation of "crimes that would disgrace a nation of savages" is strikingly relevant today to American practices of war and torture.

"What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy--a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

"There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

". . . . No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. . . . A change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe.... Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other. . . .

"No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light."

The text, with commentary by Eric Foner, appeared in the July 19, 2004 issue of The Nation: Read it here.

READ/POST COMMENT...