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EDITORIAL: Second superpower is back
September 23, 2005On Feb. 15, 2003, 11 million people around the world marched and rallied against Bush’s plans to unleash a pre-emptive, unilateral war. This huge outpouring was described as “the second global superpower.” The antiwar movement ebbed when the U.S. invasion began. Yet over the following months, Bush’s lies were exposed, torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo shocked the world, and Iraq was plunged into a nightmare of chaos and death....
Read moreTorture in Iraq: The buck stops with Bush
May 14, 2004George W. Bush and his minions are toiling to contain worldwide outrage over the torture of hundreds of Iraqi detainees by U.S. occupation soldiers at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Slip-sliding to shift blame to a few low ranking soldiers, Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld swear they learned of the repellent photos of U.S. military police torturing naked Iraqi prisoners only when they saw them on television. But this...
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Memorial for 3 Muslim students calls for end to hate, ignorance
February 19, 2015There were calls for unity to end hate and bigotry in all forms for the three slain Muslim students slain in Chapel Hill, N.C. last week.
Read moreCensored 2009: Top 25 most censored stories
January 08, 2009According to a study undertaken by the British polling group Opinion Research Business, American military actions since 2003 have led to the death of one million Iraqi people, rivaling mass killings in Rwanda in 1994 and Cambodia in the 70s under Pol Pot. In addition, 2.5 million Iraqis have fled the country to escape the violence and 10,000 depart the country every month.
Read moreCuba fends off U.S. attacks on human rights
May 13, 2005WASHINGTON — A crowd at the Cuban Interest Section here applauded warmly March 29 as Ambassador Dagoberto Rodriguez Berrera assailed Bush administration hypocrisy on “human rights” in Cuba. Cuba, he said, will never bow to U.S. diktat.
Read moreCOMMENTARY The Pelosi distraction
May 18, 2009The cable news programs are full of indignation about Nancy Pelosi supposedly lying about, and thus insulting the CIA. For those who have been vacationing on another planet, Speaker Pelosi last week claimed that the CIA had lied to her about whether they were using the method of torture called “waterboarding” on “war against terror” prisoners. The way the corporate press is handling this situation is a worthy object of...
Read moreCuba celebrates UN Human Rights Day 60th anniversary
December 17, 2008If scant Internet postings and newspaper coverage indicate anything, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Dec. 10 — designated each year as Human Rights Day — passed almost unnoticed in the United States. Cuba staged a workshop attended by 200 people from many countries, looking at “Sixty Years After.” In inaugural remarks contrasting U.S. and Cuban stewardship of human rights, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez...
Read morePowerful realities of Iraq and Iran
March 02, 2007With the increased access to digital camcorders, everyone and their brother is taking a stab at making their own films. Whereas this fortunately puts moviemaking and truth-telling in the hands of the masses, it also creates some amazingly artless but sincere statements. Director James Longley reminds us that filmmaking can be an art, that documentaries don’t have to be cold talking heads and that form is as essential as content....
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Essence music festival declares Peace is power
July 14, 2006HOUSTON — Another Katrina survivor arrived here in July: the annual Essence Music Festival, sponsored by the magazine of the same name, which had to be relocated to the Reliant Center because of continuing adverse conditions in New Orleans. The festival theme was “A call to action to secure our youth” with an opening seminar called “Peace is power.” The festival ran for three days, with all-day seminars and top...
Read moreChurches demand closure of Guantanamo
February 24, 2006WASHINGTON — National Council of Churches General Secretary Bob Edgar has written an open letter, signed by 13,000 others, demanding that the Bush administration close the Guantanamo Bay torture prison where 500 detainees have been held for as long as four years without criminal charges. Under a headline, “Who Would Jesus Torture?” the NCC web site urges people to sign the Edgar letter addressed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice...
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