January 14, 2005

Frank Rowe's "Peace in Korea Now".

The show consists of more than 50 prints, drawings and paintings from the artists' estates, and includes images of laborers, war casualties and the McCarthy hearings. The works span the years from the Depression to the Reagan era. more....

January 13, 2005

Conservative radio talkers and other simplistic thinkers have been contrasting Michael Moore and Mel Gibson for the past year, as respresentative of the alleged divide between blue and red states.

Oh well:

When Mr. Gibson walked to the press room lectern, he and Mr. Moore seemed delighted to meet each other.

"I feel a strange kinship with Michael," Mr. Gibson said. "They're trying to pit us against each other in the press, but it's a hologram. They really have got nothing to do with one another. It's just some kind of device, some left-right. He makes some salient points. There was some very expert, elliptical editing going on. However, what the hell are we doing in Iraq? No one can explain to me in a reasonable manner that I can accept why we're there, why we went there, and why we're still there."

January 12, 2005

While Howard Dean has not been as progressive on a number of issues as we hope he will become in time, we believe that supporting him for DNC Chair in February is in the interests of the Democratic progressive movement.Ê PDA will be advocating useful and strategic steps that its members can take to help this cause over the coming month.Ê more...

January 11, 2005

Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administrationâs battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. more....

Torture? Not if cheerleaders do it, lawyer claims

Sergeant Charles Graner Forcing naked Iraqi prisoners to pile themselves in human pyramids was not torture, because American cheerleaders do it every year, a court was told today.

A lawyer defending Specialist Charles Graner, who is accused of being a ringleader in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, argued that piling naked prisoners in pyramids was a valid form of prisoner control.

"Donât cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year. Is that torture?" said Guy Womack, Sergeant Granerâs lawyer, in opening arguments to the ten-member military jury at the reservistâs court martial. more....

January 10, 2005

Investment pros see bonanza Social Security proposal would add billions to investments and fees

The prospect of 100 million Americans each having $1,000 of their Social Security contributions to invest every year has investment professionals salivating at the potential financial bonanza.

About $100 billion a year would be freed up for stocks, bonds and other investments under a tentative plan President Bush has floated to fix the Social Security retirement system by creating private investment accounts. The fees paid to brokers and money managers could run into the billions. more....

January 9, 2005

If the Democrats in Congress are willing to stand for anything, it seems to me, they ought to be standing against the Gonzales nomination. ãFightä was the favorite verb of the past two democratic presidential candidates: fight for the little guy, the patient, the pensioner and fight against the rich, mighty and powerful.

Hereâs a fight worth having and the Democrats are settling for aggressively-intoned hearing questions and hand-wring aye votes.

The Gonzales hearing was a kabuki hazing. The most revealing and thus absurd moment came when Sen. Joe Biden harangued Gonzales for sidestepping tough questions, "This is not about your intelligence, this hearing is not about your competence, it's not about your integrity - it's about your judgment and your candor," he said. "We're looking for candor, old buddy. I love you, but you're not very candid so far."

But Biden used up his allotted time with this unpunctuated sermon leaving Gonzales no time to speak, much less speak with candor. Thatâs the essence of confirmation hearings. more....

January 8, 2005

ALBERTO GONZALEZ will undoubtedly be approved by the Senate since he meets the current Washington standard for confirmation: he has not been found guilty of any indictable offense and doesn't have an illegal nannie.

In fact, he and his buddies should probably be prosecuted under the RICO statute for sitting around the White House plotting ways to ignore various national and international laws as they tortured people. And his evasive answers clearly put him the category of other great congressional witnesses such as the mobsters who appeared before the Kefauver committee.

Finally, it was clear that Gonzalez, like much of official Washington, considers moral values to be defined not by the Father Almighty but by the criminal code. The idea that one might want to stand further than just the other side of criminality is an alien one to your capital city.

Not even the press bothers about such concerns anymore. They are considered quaint and obsolete. One Washington correspondent patiently explained to Diane Rehm why stress positions shouldn't be considered torture and on CSPAN, an editor of City Journal, Heather MacDonald, announced that "we need these tools" and that we are "too good for our own good."

It is with the aid of such sophistry that evil flourishes, whether episodic or organized as fascism. Great wrong doesn't just come out of the barrel of the gun; it also comes from the cynical rationalizations of those who are meant to know better.

January 14, 2005


January 13, 2005


January 12, 2005


January 11, 2005


January 10, 2005


January 9, 2005


January 8, 2005

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