John Perkins worked as an "economic hitman" for decades, and has come out. His working strategy followed a pretty easy formula: lend poor countries more money than they need or can possibly repay for infrastructure improvements, make sure U.S. multinatioinals get the contracts, and when the poor countries fall behind in payments, take over their economies. If his strategy failed, the CIA would unleash the "jackels" who would try to destabilize the country (Chile, Haiti, Central America). If that failed, it would be war (Greneda, Panama, Iraq).

The left apologizes for religious fanatics. The president fights them.
By Christopher Hitchens

Basic background material on Fallujah.

Historian Gary Leupp offers commentary on 'democratic elections' in historical perspective. Leupp looks at the April, 1848 elections based on universal male suffrage in France, and moves forward in time.

"You read about precision strikes, and it’s true that America’s GPS-guided bombs are very accurate – when they’re not malfunctioning, the 80 or 85% of the time that they work, their targeting radius is 10 meters, i.e., they hit within 10 meters of the target. Even the smallest of them, however, the 500-pound bomb, has a blast radius of 400 meters"

The number of U.S. citizens visiting Canada's main immigration Web site has shot up six-fold as Americans flirt with the idea of abandoning their homeland after President George W. Bush's election win this week.

"The last thing America needs is unity with thieves, Pirates and punks. The nation and the world need peace, jobs and justice. Let’s get back to work".

side note (mine): i recognize the importance of marches & rallies, letters & phone calls. but i don't think the boycotts & strikes options have been used enough, or well coordinated enough to make ourselves heard. i suggest we turn it up a notch. also regardless of how you feel about the online activist organizations (ie moveon), we shouldn't totally dismiss the model. some of us (including myself on occasion) have a tendency to 'throw the baby out w/the bath water'.

Karmic Blowback and the Democrats