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Today's
Stories
JoAnn Wypijewski
What
is an Antiwar Movement?
January 13,
2006
Ralph Nader
The
Two Questions the Senate Should Have Asked Alito
Leonard Weinglass
The
Singular Story of the Cuban Five
Amira Hass
Prisoners in Their Own Land: 800,000 Palestinians Sealed Off
by IDF in West Bank
Chris Kutalik
/ Jennifer Biddle
Airline Workers Fight Back
Lawrence R. Velvel
Alito and the Democrats
Dave Lindorff
Eight Who Dared: a (Short) Congressional Honor Roll
Mike Whitney
Countdown to War with Iran?
David Price
How
the FBI Spied on Edward Said
January 12,
2006
Jennifer Van
Bergen
The
Unitary Executive: Why the Bush Doctrine Violates the Constitution
Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith
Command Responsibility: Torture and Legal Accountability
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Alito
Refuses to Answer Fundamental Questions
Ralph Nader / Robert Weissman
Corporations, Originalism and the Bill of Rights: an Open Letter
to Justice Scalia
Jackie Corr
Killing the Big Sky's Golden Goose: Marc Racicot and the Deregulation
of Montana Power
Jared Bernstein
The Wage Doldrums
Russell D.
Hoffman
New Horizons in Space, New Lows in Government
Aubrey Streit
I Was Born in a Small Town: the Fate of Rural America
Clancy Sigal
Hugh
Thompson and My Lai: He Broke Ranks; He Did the Right Thing
Website of the Day
Nukes in Space
January 11,
2006
Kevin Zeese
NSA
Spied on Baltimore Peace Group (And They've Got the Documents
That Prove It)
Ray McGovern
The
Big Wiretap
Allan Maass
/ Joe Allen
Schwarzenegger's
Hit List: Smearing Mandela, Killing Tookie
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Snatching at King's Legacy: Mythmaking, Profiteering & Outright
Distortions
Annie Murphy
Evo Morales' Sweater
Allan Lichtman
Abramoff's
Kind of Big Government
Ramzy Baroud
Politics of Chaos: Gaza's Turmoil in Context
Joshua Frank
MoveOn Surrenders to Hillary
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
"Eating
Palestine for Breakfast": the Real Sharon
Website of
the Day
Memoirs of Rummy's Geisha
January 10,
2006
Uri Avnery
The
Post-Sharon Landscape: Three Fingers, No Fist
Saul Landau
Different
Americas
Noam Chomsky
Beyond the Ballot: Iraq, Iran and China
Brian J. Foley
Playing with Fire: Congress and Executive Power
Lenni Brenner
The War Within the Antiwar Movement
Ronan Sheehan
Sheehan to Sheehan: Cindy Sheehan's Irish Interview
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Con Jobs
January 9,
2006
Behzad Yaghmaian
Who
is to Blame for the Deaths of the Sudanese Refugees?
George Bisharat
US
Aid to Israel is Out of Hand
Dave Lindorff
How the US Press Squelches Bush Impeachment Drive
Norman Solomon
Smoke a Marlboro, Then an Iraqi: How Media War Images Distort
Not Inform
Christopher Brauchli
The Generosity of Credit Card Companies
Aharon Shabtai
A Poet's Letter on the Occupation
Andrew Cockburn
How
Many Iraqis Have Died Since the US Invasion in 2003?
January 7 /
8, 2006
Lawrence Velvel
The
NYT's Unconscionable Decision to Sit on the NSA Story for a Year
James Petras
AIPAC on Trial: Them or US
J.L. Chestnut
Racism and Injustice in Alabama's Courts
Mike Ely
The Dead Miners in Sago
Andrew Wilson
The Dying of Ariel Sharon
Lila Rajiva
Two Moms Go to Capitol Hill
William Cook
The Rape of Palestine
Ramor Ryan
The Sub Motorcycle Diaries: On the Road with the Zapatistas
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff
An Interview with Michael Scheuer on the CIA's Rendition Program
Peter Montague
Inherit the Wind: the Global Spread of GMO Crops
Ron Jacobs
Would Ethan Allen Pay to Protest?
Neve Gordon
Images of Real Eco-Terrorism in Twaneh
Fred Gardner
Business as Usual in San Diego
Josh Mahon
Idaho Timber Industry Leader Advocates Violence Against Green's
Mom
Dr. Susan Block
Abramoff Family Values: the Lobbyist Who Screwed Us All
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of the Weekend
Bush Crimes Commission
January 6,
2006
José
Pertierra
Posada
Carriles May Soon Hit the Streets
Joe Allen
Gary Freeman's Struggle: a Black Radical from the 1960s Fights
Extradition to the US
Winslow T. Wheeler
Huge Defense Budget, Lousy Equipment
John Bomar
A Former NSA Officer on Snoopgate: the Squawkers Should be Congratulated
Jason Leopold
Snoop and Shred
Norman Solomon
Axis of Fanatics: Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad
Robert Pollin
Remembering
Harry Magdoff: the Man Who Explained the Empire
January 5,
2006
Scott Boehm
Big
Profits, Buried Lives: Bulldozing the Dead in New Orleans
Zoltan Grossman
New
Challenges for the Antiwar Movement
Heather Gray
Whistling
Dixie Yet Again
Haninah Levine
Simple
is Dangerous: the Pentagon's Plan for a Manhattan Project on
IEDs
Pierre Tristam
The Sham of Homeland Security: a West Virginia Parable
Remi Kanazi
Stroke of Luck?: Political Hemorrhage in Israel
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon
Meets His Maker
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
What Hillary Clinton Doesn't Know About Palestine
January 4,
2006
Ron Jacobs
Pity
the Miner: A-Diggin' My Bones
Lila Rajiva
Terror
Hits Bangalore
Huibin Amee
Chew
Why
the War is Sexist
Pat Williams
How the West Turned: Biting the Hands That Steal
Linda Milazzo
The House That George and Jack Built: Ownership Society Meets
the Entrepreneurial Style
Nick Dearden
The Fantasy of "Even-Handedness": Blair's Cynical Policy
on Palestine
James Petras
Evo
Morales: All Growl, No Claws?
Website of
the Day
Rat Out a Lobbyist for Jesus
January 3,
2006
James Ridgeway
Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and 9/11: How Much Did the Bush Administration Know?
Laith al-Saud
Iraqi
Intellectuals and the Occupation: an Interview with Dr. Saad
Jawad
Dick J. Reavis
Border
Walls: the View from Mexico
Joshua Frank
Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran
Rochelle Gause
Inside Rafah: Collective Punishment as Normalcy
Missy Comley
Beattie
How My Mother Went from a Republican to a Screaming Progressive
Paul de Rooij
A Glossary of Dispossession
January 2,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Gestapo Administration
Clancy Sigal
A Trip to the Far Side of Madness
Cindy Sheehan
A Tour of Europe: Friends Don't Let Friends Commit War Crimes
Alexander Cockburn
A
NYT Editorial Contemplates Iraq
Dec. 31 / Jan.
1, 2005/6
Patrick Cockburn
The
Year in Iraq
Alexander Cockburn
Who Are We to Complain?: a Diary of 2005
Ralph Nader
Rumsfeld vs. the Military: a Pentagon of Loyalists and Enforcers
James Petras
The Politics of Language: "Escalation" or "Retaliation"
in Israeli Attacks on Palestinians
Peter Montague
A Darker Bioweapons Future
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
Black Forever: Race, Class and Activism in the South
Vijay Prashad
My California Vacation: Conversations with Indian Americans
P. Sainath
Farm Suicides in Vidharbha
James Brooks
The Spoils of War: Israel's Corruption was Inevitable
Eileen E. Schell
The Farmer Wants a Wife: Hayseeds and Hickxploitation in the
Land of Reality TV
Christopher
Brauchli
Birds of a Feather: George and Vlad
Jo Guldi
Politics, Gay Marriage and Christianity
Fred Gardner
America's Only Legal Grower
Ben Tripp
A Hapless New Year
St. Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening To This Week
Poets Basement
Engel, Albert, LaMorticella, Buknatski, Davies, Ford and Bear
Dog
Website of
the Weekend
Commit Bloggamy with Dr. Suzy
December 30,2005
Evo Morales
I
Believe Only in the Power of the People
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
The
Toxic Air in Black America
Dave Lindorff
Bush's NSA Spying Jeopardizes National Security
Gary Leupp
Targeting Iran and Syria: Goss Builds Case for Turkey-Based Attacks
Ron Jacobs
A
Dead New Year's Eve
Brian Concannon
Down
in Haiti, the Chickens are Coming Home to Roost
Sandra Lucas
Inside TeenScreen: the Making of Mental Patients
T.W. Croft
The
Wind Has Changed: Gulf Storms, Fables of Reconstruction and Hard
Times for the Big Easy
Website of
the Day
Images
of Mass Consumption
December 29,
2005
Norman Solomon
Journalists
Should Expose Secrets, Not Keep Them
Missy Comley
Beattie
Christmas
Without Chase
Dave Zirin
Over the Edge: the Year in Sports
Kevin Zeese
Top
10 Antiwar Stories of 2005
Derrick O'Keefe
Bolivia and Venezuela Offer an Alternative to Neo-Liberalism
Sam Bahour
Turning the Page in Palestine, Again
Macdonald Stainsby
What's Behind Paul Martin's Broadside Against Bush?
Bill &
Kathleen Christison
Let's Stop a US/Israel War on Iran
Website of the Day
Deconstructing the Democrats
December 28,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The
Worst Day of Ted Stevens' Life?
Lila Rajiva
Operation Romeo: Lessons on Terror Laws from India
Amira Hass
The Humanitarian Lie
Joshua Frank
Let the Drilling Begin: Iraq's IMF Loan
David Swanson
Leaking Top Secret Lies
Richard Thieme
High Time for Torture
Paul Craig
Roberts
Three
Books to Wake You Up
Website of the Day
Conyers Report: "Constitution in Crisis"
December 27,
2005
Evan Jones
Whither
the National Guard?
Uri Avnery
The Peretz Shuffle
Mike Whitney
Pop Goes the Bubble!
Gideon Levy
Dusty Trail to Death
David Swanson
Kurt Vonnegut: a Man Without a Country
Norman Solomon
NSA Spied on UN Diplomats During Push for Invasion of Iraq
December 26,
2005
Lawrence R.
Velvel
The
Usurpers of Our Freedoms
Lance Olsen
The Toughest Challenge for Intelligent Design
Ben Terrall
No Holiday Compassion for Haiti's Political Prisoners
Scott Boehm
Santa Drove a Bulldozer
Charlie Ehlen
A Vietnam Vet's Appraisal of Bush
Tom Kerr
The Atheist Dad at Christmas
December 24/25,
2005
Aleander Cockburn
The
Year of Vanished Credibility
James Petras
Iran in the Crosshairs: Israel's Deadline
Ralph Nader
Talkin'
About the "I"-Word
Lila Rajiva
Horowitz's New Project: Begging for Brownshirts
Fred Gardner
Dialogue with the DEA
Ron Jacobs
When Impeachment was Taken Seriously
Dave Lindorff
Xmas Games for a Gitmo World
Gary Leupp
Happy Birthday Mithras!: the True Meaning of December 25th
Saul Landau
Bush's Year in Review: a Report Card from Santa
John Chuckman
A Christmas Tale for Bushtime
Dr. Susan Block
Merry XXX-mas!
St. Clair / Vest / Pollack
/ Donnelly
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Holt, Jones, Landau, Ross and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Merry Xmas, From the Beatles
December 23,
2005
John Ross
The
Corrido of Death Row: Mexico Ends the Death Penalty
Chris Floyd
Gospel
Truth: Bush Hypocrisy, Radical Holiness and Woody Guthrie
Lawrence Mishel
/ Ross Eisenbrey
The
Economy in a Nutshell
Joanne Mariner
Bringing
Torture into Court: the Loopholes in McCain's Bill
Eric Johnson-Debaufre
The Trew Law of Free Democracies?
Ray McGovern
Cheney the Bully; Rockefeller the Coward
J. L. Chestnut,
Jr.
What
White America Doesn't Hear
Website of
the Day
BB King: What I've Learned This Year
December 22,
2005
Ingmar Lee
The
Citizen's Metamorphosis: I Awoke an Object of Suspicion
Elisa Salasin
Classrooms
in Cages
Christopher
Brauchli
Absolut Bush: "I Swear to Upturn and Rear End the Constitution
of the United States"
Robin Blackburn
Rudolf Meidner, a Visionary Pragmatist
Evelyn Pringle
Dan Olmstead, Autism & the Dangers of Thimerosal
Amira Hass
A 14-Year Old's Prison Journey: "I Refused and He Hit Me"
Francis A.
Boyle
Iraq and the Laws of War: US as "Belligerent Occupant"
Stew Albert
The
Spies Who Thought We Were Messy
Website of
the Day
How to Reach a Human Voice
December 21,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
One
Nation, Under Prosecutors: Presumed Guilty
Lila Rajiva
A Short History of Radio Free Iraq
Joshua Frank
Nancy Pelosi's Truth
Dave Zirin
The Bray of Pigs: Bush Nixes Beisbol Cubano
Ramzy Baroud
US Image Problem Rooted in History, Not Media
Sonia Nettnin
Connect the Dots: Decoding Bush's Mumbo Jumbo
Ben Saul
Torture as Calculated Policy
Jonathan Cronin
Anniversary of a Handshake: Cherry-picking History in Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
Election Spells Total Defeat for US
Website of
the Day
Nixon on Presidential Power
December 20,
2005
Jackie Corr
Natural
Gas: a Montana Tragedy
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Nothing
New About NSA Spying on Americans
Michael Donnelly
"Eco Terrorism": Cui Bono?
Gian Paulo
Accardo
Empire of Shame: a Conversation with Jean Ziegler
Pierre Tristam
Trifler, Fibber, Sophist, Spy: How Bush Flouted the Constitution
Norman Solomon
The Foulest Media Performances of the Year
Sen. Robert Byrd
No President is Above the Law
Dave Lindorff
Missing
Black Boxes in WTC Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by
NTSB, Concealed by FBI
Website of the Day
FBI's Spy Files: Got Yours Yet?
December 19,
2005
Mike Marqusee
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Gary Leupp
Feds Ask Student: "Why are You Reading that Little Red Book?"
Ron Jacobs
The Antiwar Movement, the Democrats and the Delusions of Bushworld
John Blair
Stealing the Golden Shovel: Lessons on Civil Disobedience
Gideon Levy
Sadism at the Qalandiyah Checkpoint
Kevin Zeese
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Missy Comley Beattie
Warnings from a Military Man and Dad
Don Santina
Ride 'Em Brush Cutter: Cowboy Imagery and the American Presidency
Website of the Day
A Call for Justice in Palestine
December 17
/ 18, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Time-Delayed
Journalism: the NYT and the NSA's Illegal Spying Operation
Gabriel Kolko
The
Decline of the American Empire
Susan Alcorn
Texas: Three Days and Two Nights
Werther
The Democrats are an Impotent and Tolerated Opposition Party
Ralph Nader
The Senator Without Guile: Proxmire of Wisconsin
Patrick Cockburn
Counting Ballots and Bodies in Baghdad
Fred Gardner
When Prosecutors Deceive: Did the Feds Frame Bryan Epis?
Dave Lindorff
Spy Scandal Far Larger Than Just NSA
Ned Sublette
Essence is Gasoline
Lee Sustar
The Class War Economy
Jason Leopold
Did Karl Rove Destroy Evidence in Plame Case?
Laura Carlsen
Report from Hong Kong: Deciphering the Language of Globalization
Jeff White
Teacher Fired for Talking About Peace?
Ray McGovern
Torture Between the Lines
Chris Floyd
Pale Fire: the White Death of Fallujah
William Loren Katz
Remembering the First Quagmire at Xmastime: Zachary Taylor vs.
the Seminoles
Rose Miriam
Elizalde
Mashenka and the Bear: a Tale for Our Time
Greg Moses
Pinter's Provocation: Self Love in America
Heather Gray
Privatizing the Social Contract
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience: the Sequel
St Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Landau, Engel and Albert
Website of
the Day
At Least Homeland Security Believes that Mao Still Matters
December 16,
2005
Tom Kerr
CNN's
Goddess of Vengeance: What's Not to Love About Nancy Grace?
Mark Engler
The
WTO in Hong Kong: Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty?
John Bomar
When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Votes; Now What?
Pierre Tristam
Iraq, Ourselves
William S. Lind
The Fine Art of Withdrawal
Cyril Neville
Why I'm Not Going Back to New Orleans
Robert Jensen
Monkey See, Monkey Do: Reason, Evolution and Intelligent Design
Saul Landau
Bolivian
Democracy and the US: a History Lesson
Website
CounterPunch & Dr. Price Vanquish Anthropologist Spies
December 15,
2005
Oren Ben-Dor
The
Ethical and Legal Challenges Facing Palestine
Stan Cox
"Agroterrorists"
Needn't Bother
Joshua Frank
Organic Inconsistencies: Federal Food Politics
Ben Terrall
Waivers for State Terror: Bush and the Indonesian Generals
Patrick Cockburn
Silence Descends on Baghdad
Monica Benderman
What Peace Needs
Walter A. Davis
Fear and Loathing in San Quentin
Vijay Prashad
Our
Torture Problem
Website of
the Day
Hourly Wages After Four Years of "Recovery"
December 14, 2005
Patrick Cockburn
Iran
Poised to Win Iraqi Elections
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lethal
Developments
Lawrence R. Velvel
A Bore Called Bob: On Trying to Read Woodward
Wayne Garcia
The Summer of Sami
John Sugg
Preach Peace, Sami; Get Truthful Prosecutors
Gary Leupp
Bush and the Constitution: "Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper"
Ray McGovern
Torture: a Defining Moment
Alan Maass
They Murdered a Peacemaker
April Hurley, MD
NPR Swallows Bush's Guestimate on Iraqi Dead
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Richard Pryor's Mirror on America
December 13,
2005
Stephen T.
Banko, III
Heroes
Patrick Cockburn
America's
War So Far: 1000 Days of Getting It Wrong
Laura Carlsen
What's at Play at the WTO
Karl Grossman
Nuclear Routlette in the Troposhere: Another NASA Plutonium Launch
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Original Sin
Kevin Zeese
Report from the International Peace Conference in London
Norman Solomon
At the Gates of San Quentin
Michael G.
Smith
Ending the Death Penalty
Stew Albert
California Killers
Bob Dylan
Song for Tookie: George Jackson
Phil Gasper
California Murders Tookie Williams: a Report from San Quentin
Website of
the Day
Boot Hill
December 12,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Defenders of Torture
Lawrence R.
Velvel
George the Disconnected
Jessica Stewart
My Husband is at the Gates of Gitmo
George Bisharat
Busharon: a Fusion of Like Minds
Nate Mezmer
Killing Tookie Williams: If a Black Man Dies in America, Does
It Make a Sound?
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Richard Pryor Wasn't Crazy
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience
Seth Sandronsky
Thank You, Richard Pryor
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq:
the Beginning of the End
Website of
the Day
Wrestling for Peace
December 10 / 11, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
All
the News That's Fit to Buy
Landau / Hassen
The Condemned of Nablus
Ralph Nader
The
Widening Wasteland of American Media
Linn Washington, Jr
The Philly Media and Mumia: When They Don't Bash, They Ignore
Bill Christison
Apathy, US Culpability and Human Rights Day
Mike Ferner
The Courage of Jim Loney
Elizabeth Schulte
Abortion and the Bush Court
Neve Gordon / Yigal Bronner
Murder in Jerusalem
Linda S. Heard
Saddam's Trial: Grandstanding in the Theater of the Absurd
Ingmar Lee
A Kayak Journey to Vancouver Island's Wildest Forest
Ray McGovern
Lies, Torture and the Six Blind Mice
John Chuckman
Torture and White Phosphorous: the Moral Hell of Condi Rice
John Ryan
An Honorary Degree in Child Sacrifice?: Madeleine Albright and
US Foreign Policy
Dick J. Reavis
From Waco to Baghdad
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Hired Pens
Behzad Yaghmaian
Trapped at the Gates of the European Union
Aseem Shrivastava
The Winter in Delhi, 1984
John Ross
Bushlandia in Black and White
Ben Tripp
War, What is It Good For?
St. Clair / Pollack / Vest
/ Despair
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Hassen, Bear Dog, Ford, Mickey Z, Albert & Engel
Website of the Week
Burn a Brick for Bush
December 9,
2005
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Roots
of Gitmo Torture Lie Close to Home
Dave Zirin
/ Mike Stark
On
Seeing Wesley Baker Die
Patrick Cockburn
Blair
Tries to Cover Up $1.3 Billion Iraqi Theft
Alexander Cockburn
Murtha Returns to Attack; Flays Bush
Lila Rajiva
Shooting the Mentally Ill
Gary Leupp
White House Liars on the Defensive
Jason Leopold
Rove Running Out of Answers, Time
Bruce K. Gagnon
So These Are the Democrats?
Andrew Cockburn
Meet
Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats' New Gatekeeper
Website of the Day
"X-mas Time for Visa"
December 8,
2005
Kathy Kelly
Blessed
are the Merciful in Baghdad
James Petras
The Venezuelan Election: Chavez Wins, Bush Loses (Again)
William S.
Lind
Questionable Assumptions: Dissecting the Stategy for Victory
Laura Carlsen
The Strange Mission of Vicente Fox: Free Trade and Mexico
Justin Akers
Bush's Border War
Thomas Graham, Jr
A Nuclear Pearl Harbor in Outer Space?
Norman Solomon
Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam
Tariq Ali /
Robin Blackburn
The
Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
Pigs at the Trough of War
December 7,
2005
John Ryan
Dershowitz vs. Chomsky: a Review of the Harvard Debate
Gary Leupp
Suicide
Before Dishonor in Occupied Iraq
Fran Quigley
How the ACLU Didn't Steal Christmas
Jeremy Brecher
/ Brendan Smith
Bush
War Crimes: the Posse Gathers
Joshua Frank
Bird Dogging Hillary
William W.
Morgan
Rendition, Torture and Democracy
Dave Lindorff
A Stunning Win for Mumia Abu Jamal
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam: "Come Visit My Cage"
Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture
Website of
the Day
Witnesses to Torture
December 6,
2005
Ron Jacobs
No
One is Illegal; No One is an Infidel
Patrick Cockburn
Inside
Saddam's Trial: Tales of the Human Meat Grinder
Yifat Susskind
Death, Politics and the Condom: African Women Confront Bush's
AIDS Policy
Mike Whitney
How Greenspan Skewered America
Pat Williams
Public Land Should Stay Public
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
to Europe: Trust Us
Website of
the Day
Debunking Woodward
December 5,
2005
John Walsh
The
Lies of John Edwards: What Did the Democrats Know and When Did
They Know It?
Brian Cloughley
The Poor Dead: the Relative
Value of Human Lives
Mokhiber /
Weissman
The Corporate Crime Quiz
Robert Jensen
How Big Money Eviscerates the First Amendment
Norman Solomon
Hidden in Plane Sight: US Media Ignores Iraq Air War Plan
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to the Justice Department: Pfizer May Have Violated
Federal Laws When They Fired Me
Lila Rajiva
The
Torture-Go-Round: CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons
Website of the Day
National Day of Counter-Recruitment
December 3 / 4, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
The
Revolt of the Generals
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Iraq,
Brains and Lies
Rev. William Alberts
The Forgotten Christmas Story: Saying No to King Herod
Saul Landau
Latino
Troops Have Parents
Ralph Nader
Consumerama
Paul Craig
Roberts
Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts
Mike Whitney
Blood Feast: Celebrating Executions in America
Allan Lichtman
The DeLay Scheme: Blatantly Buying Our Government
Dave Lindorff
A Sudden Rush for the Exits?
Brian Concannon,
Jr.
Haiti's Elections
Fred Gardner
Oregon NORML Honors Growers
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
On Freeing the CPT
Carol Wolman
Remembering the 60s
St. Clair /
Vest / Walker / Pollack
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Free the CPT
December 2,
2005
Stan Goff
An
Open Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad
Mike Ferner
Beware Iraqization: Melvin Laird, Vietnam and Christmas Bombings
Over Baghdad?
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Constitutional Kamikazes: Padilla's No-Win Dilemma
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Questions
for the President
Manuel Talens
The Chávez Theorem
Peter Phillips
Death By Torture: Media Ignores the Hard Evidence
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Alabama's
Taliban: Judge Roy Moore, Preachers and Dixie Hypocrisy
Website of
the Day
Support the Hampton University Peace Activists!
December 1,
2005
John Walsh,
MD
The
God Gaps
Ron Jacobs
Hard Rain: Toward a Greater Air War in Iraq?
Jenna Orkin
EPA's
Latest Betrayal at Ground Zero
Joshua Frank
Howard Dean's Blunt Message: Forget Palestine
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
Rank and File Resistance to Delphi
Missy Comley Beattie
Home on the Range: Where the Fear and the Animus Play
Eli Stephens
The Reed and Kerry Show
Elaine Cassel
A Government Game of "Gotcha" with Jose Padilla
Website of
the Day
Rare Erotica
|
January
14 / 15, 2006
What Do We Do Now?
Victory at Passaic
County Jail
By FLAVIA ALAYA
Sunday night, January 8, the 2000 odd
inmates of the County jail in Paterson NJ were in total lockdown.
There'd apparently been a screaming melee involving a number
of prisoners and guards during the day. At least three men were
in solitary, they said, recovering from pepper-spray and charged
with incitement to riot.
A familiar jail scenario? Not
really, not even for Passaic County Jail (PCJ), already known
to readers of these pages-and notorious elsewhere-as a brutal
hellhole for federal detention of immigrants the government wants
to deport, most of them from the New York Metro area. Needless
to say, it's a hellhole not in Iraq or Guantanamo but barely
15 miles from Times Square, and for the past three years it's
also been a lightning-rod for civil rights activism on behalf
of immigrant detainees in the U.S.
Spoonfed by the spokesman for
Sheriff Jerry Speziale, the local cable news channel Sunday night
and the local paper Monday morning both report that PCJ's rioting
inmates were detainees, their hijinx inspired by some 30 placard-carrying
marchers (myself among them) opposite the jail on Sunday afternoon.
A News 12 video clip shows us plodding around in front
of St John's Cathedral chanting: "Free, free, free the detainees!"
Every hour the anchor authoritatively repeats, without challenge,
the official statement that protesters had "sent word"
to the detainees inside "to be disruptive." Hearing
this from the lockdown of their own living-rooms that night,
listeners can confirm what they already believe: that the police
are on the case, protecting them from these reckless radicals
on the street fomenting riot, no less than from the rioting criminals
inside.
Only one problem with this
picture: except for the march, none of it's true. We learn late
Monday from a regular contact/informant inside, when he's finally
allowed to make a phone call: No, no riot, people. Absolutely
nothing amiss. Everything "quiet, calm, cool" inside
the whole day on Sunday and through the night. A reporter for
the North Jersey Herald-News gets separate confirmation;
the newspaper corrects by Tuesday, the article quoting the jail
spokesman as having "mis-spoken." He now vaguely morphs
the disruptive inmates into noisy "federal prisoners"
in another section of the jail.
Three days later the facts
are still fuzzy. No one says which "federal prisoners."
Did anybody really shout? scream? get pepper-sprayed? Who knows?
who cares? The damage is done, and so is officialdom's essential
damage control. By Thursday the story has moved off, official
"mis-speak" has blackened the detainees as "dangerous
criminals"-again-and slandered their supporters, all in
a day's work.
* *
*
But this story has more ironies
than Sophocles. First up you have to know that ICE's beleaguered
contract with Passaic County Jail-object of more than three years
of relentless attack by detainees themselves in concert with
civil rights, human rights, and immigrant activists/advocates
(and the subject of two targeted
articles here in CounterPunch)--is over. OVER. DONE. We've
won. The detainees have won. The hundred or so remaining since
the announcement are being moved, ten, maybe twenty at a time,
to other facilities.
REPEAT: THERE WILL BE NO MORE
DETAINEES IN PASSAIC COUNTY JAIL, no more uncharged immigrants
dealing with its miserable food and filthy, fetid conditions,
deprived of space and light and air and exercise, routinely insulted
and abused, intimidated by the Sheriff's favorite snarling attack
dogs, delivered vicious beatings on hair-trigger excuses, suffering
the neglect of virtually every medical need.
Better yet, it's our arch-enemy
himself, Sheriff Jerry Speziale, the swaggering Count of Passaic
County, who's declared the marriage over. Either he's delivering
a preemptive strike in anticipation of getting a public slap
from Homeland Security's Inspector General and his audit squad,
or ICE is writing him a pass, letting him save his clean-cut
face, having presumably slipped him warning about what the audit
might show-and-tell about his miserable, substandard facility.
(Timeline: auditors finish up, report due in late February; Sheriff
announces late December the end of the contract as of February
1. What would you think?)
The Sheriff has to be pissed
off, all the same. As reported here in October, he'd actually
pulled a Jesus Christ in August and thrown the auditors out of
his jail, after which he'd swanked down to DC to give them a
piece of his mind. This was just before he sent a rescue mission
of the County's Finest down to post-Katrina New Orleans, who
made news not for their compassion but for their siren-screaming
convoy doing 95 mph through Virginia on their return trip. The
quoted conversation between Speziale and the Augusta County,
VA, Deputy is priceless.)
We activists are no Oscar-winners
in victory, but Sheriff Speziale knows what to do with defeat.
Here he was on a recent Lou Dobbs Show (CNN), national hook-up,
telling it like it is:
DOBBS: And your reason for
terminating the program straightforwardly, it's just more trouble
than you think it's worth?
SPEZIALE: It's definitely more
trouble than it's worth. There are so many advocacy groups out
there. There's demonstrations that cost overtime to the taxpayers
of Passaic county, it's really not worth it.
Well, thanks, Jerry! We didn't
know you cared! Yet the frank truth is that over the three years
of this fight you could count on one set of fingertips the serious
demos we organized that counted more than a few hardcore stragglers
toting signs. Only two events brought out serious police force,
including this past Sunday's, when (go figure) there were at
least thirteen Sheriff cars and vans along the curb and and maybe
40 visible cops controlling 25-30 mostly middle-aged protesters
and detainee families, minding the sidewalk and keeping out of
the way of St John's parishioners attending 1 o'clock mass.
What really griped him had
to be the relentless self-organizing among the detainees themselves:
the petitions, the hunger strikes-dozens of them over the three
years, some only one or two men at a time, others involving entire
units-not to mention the support we gave them: the jail visits,
the press conferences and press releases and conversations with
reporters, the AP and National Public Radio and Telemundo stories,
persistent communication between inside and outside, them and
us. You better believe it was trouble.
Of course Dobbs has to get
in one more lick on behalf of beleaguered prison guards:
DOBBS: Bill Tucker just reported
that you can't even discuss these incidents where your officers
are abused or attacked violently.
SPEZIALE: Correct.
DOBBS: Because of the conditions
under the federal contract?
Speziale dodges, not yet ready
to tell us what the press reveals only yesterday-that the
County has never had a formal contract with ICE, that all
of this has been done on a handshake. Instead he goes here for
a more philosophical point:
SPEZIALE: See, what happens
here is the INS detainees, the perception is that most of the
people are someone that crossed over a border or overstays on
a visa to be here for the American dream. In reality, these are
people that crossed over that border and then stole the American
dream by committing a felony, by committing a murder, by committing
a rape, or a sodomy, and we can't even discuss that.
There's got to be another sidebar
in why these jail spokesmen always accuse prisoners of "sodomy"
on family shows.
***
Every solution creates another
problem, right? So we've won. But we're not quite sure what to
do with this victory-or even if it IS a victory. Sure, we've
got what we wished for. What's next? Will these same detainees,
dropped into this slimy slammer because of some petty visa violation
or the mistake of calling attention to themselves, or because
they once did a crime that the government, ex post facto,
has termed a "deportable offense," now be carted off
to places maybe a shade less barbaric than PCJ? After their interviews
with IG auditors, some thirty of them had actually published
a December 17 petition demanding the end of PCJ's contract, over
their own signatures. Would they be singled out for special new
abuses? Punitively sent off to facilities hundreds, if not thousands,
of miles distant from families-lawyers-us?
It's why we're still out there,
marching, or one of the reasons. "First Passaic, now the
rest!" isn't just a cocky victory chant. It's a declaration
of the work still needing to be done. And not just in New Jersey.
Hundreds of thousands remain in detention in this country-in
what people have to grasp as another national scandal of alien
internment-rounded up at work, off the streets, out of their
beds, thrown into whatever dungeons are at hand, really, pretty
much anywhere in the U.S. And for every Passaic County that
calls it quits, there'll be another county somewhere, with officials
like our own Freeholders who see nothing in an ICE contract but
a rich revenue stream. Dobbs had Victor Cerda, former Director
of ICE, putting it in a nutshell: "You have plenty of people,
plenty of municipalities willing to pick up whatever slack exists.
The New York field office has already identified other facilities
in the New York, New Jersey, area to accomplish our mission."
He's right. That's millions
a year @ $77 dollars/day/detainee, or whatever the local market
will bear, count 'em: hundreds of thousands of immigrants under
the punitive provisions of those immigration laws left to rot
in more Podunk county jails while the authorities process their
cases, their pleas for refuge, for asylum, for the same second
chance afforded citizens who've done time and cleaned up their
act-citizens who, according to a recent New York Times estimate,
number some 640,000 of us a year! But the detainees are different:
men, women, sometimes even children, jailed, effectively without
application of Bill of Rights habeas protections, without
charges, without access to lawyers, with nothing but the legal-print
promise that their incarceration has to be limited to six months,
and nobody to enforce it for them. And if they protest their
deportation, the meter is turned off.
Actually no one says it better
than they do, 35 detainees still in PCJ after the Sheriff had
announced the end of his contract. This, their second petition
in two weeks, actually made it to AP, its bad grammar more wrenching
even than its plea, because it tells us about the struggle, the
longing, for justice in this supposedly democratic society:
We immigration detainees in
the custody of ICE are demanding immediately release from punitive
detention here at Passaic County Jail, and ICE and not to be
transfer to another jail where immigration detainees will be
subjected to more and more punitive detention by Passaic County
and other jail (ICE).Noted that these immigration detainees are
not criminals and don't have any criminal charges pending against
them, but the immigration detainees are treated as notorious
criminals jail behind bars. For years, months without legal representation
the immigrant detainees constitutional rights are in limbo with
ICE.
The immigration detainees are
treated as criminals but don't have the same rights as criminals
to attorneys and a jury trial, and put in jail for months years.
NOW where is our constitutional rights freedom for all USA.
We immigration detainees are
held in legal limbo with department of Homeland Secuirty to deprived
them of there life and liberty and place the detainees behind
bars without having a criminal charges against them. It's unconstitutional
to deprived human beings of there life and liberty and most of
all there families.
Many of the immigration detainees
are in jail for the Immigration Custom Enforecement (ICE) for
months and even years and many detainees never gets a chance
to reunite with there families, parents are being taken away
from there children. Where are the family ties laws. The immigration
services just disregard there laws to make money off of there
poor detainees keeping them behind bars for many yearsImmigration
judges are deliberately extending detainees cases for many months
to keep detainees in jail to profit off of them. It's a big racketeering
by the DHS and the contracted jail.
***
The day before we marched,
ten more detainees were transferred to Bergen County Jail in
Hackensack, a few miles east of Paterson. Representatives of
Bergen County Peace & Justice Coalition were with us out
there on Main Street. A few hours after we broke up they shot
us this press release:
The Department of Homeland
Security" Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agency
continues to hold tens of thousands of immigrant detainees without
charges or trial. These detainees are being held in county jails
around the country, especially in New Jersey. In Bergen County,
over a hundred detainees are held in the jail, in violation of
their basic Constitutional rights. Bergen County gets $28,000
a year from the Federal government for each detainee they hold.
The Bill of Rights protects
everyone, everywhere, from being held without charges by the
US Government. It makes no distinction between citizens and non-citizens,
or detention within or outside the US border. The Bill of Rights
puts limits on the action the government can take at any time.
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says that "No person
shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process
of law."
The detainees have been charged
with no crimes. They must be freed.
We demand that the Freeholders
end the contract with ICE, stop holding the detainees and stop
selling our rights! We have succeeded in ending the ICE contract
at Passaic County Jail. Bergen is next!
Maybe our visionary friend
the Sheriff should get the last word here:
SPEZIALE: I think that the
United States government is going have to come up with their
own detention facilities, because regardless where you put these
detainees, the advocacy groups and the demonstrations will continue,
and you're just going to have problems for other facilities.
Thanks again, Jerry. Your mouth
to God's ear.
Flavia Alaya is a retired professor of literature
from Ramapo College, and a founding member of the New Jersey
Civil Rights Defense Committee. She lives and writes in Paterson,
NJ, and can be reached at flavia@nj-civilrights.org
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