Citizen Huevo y Panceta

Citizen Bob.

Christian Scientist To Take Over at Treasury

Bizzare Christian Scientist Henry Paulson to take top job in Bush Administration. Let's hope he doesn't step on any rusty nails at Camp David.

World Passport

A document accepted internationally.

Norwegian Beer Supply at Risk

Scandanavians tremble as Norwegian brewery workers threaten strike.

Oh Oh the Dekker is Dead

Desmond Dekker dead.

Israel's Divide and Conquer Strategy Continues

Israel to give arms to PLO!They used to give arms to Iran.

Lay and Skilling Both Guilty

If you had listened to coverage on NPR the case was closed and these two Bush family crony privateers were heading on vacation. Let's hope it's Club Fed for these criminals. The verdict is in.

GM's Answer to Pollution, Sprawl and Increasing Energy Costs?

Subsidize fuel costs directly for their customers!

Pat Robertson Can Leg Press 2000 Pounds

Why? Because he sells this shake.

John "Mad Bomber/Crash" McCain Appearance at New School Causes Controversy

Commencement speaker denounces the Senator from Arizona.

Horatio Alger Lives!

From Madison's Capital Times.

High-wire developer: T. Wall makes major mark in commercial property
First off, Terrence Wall wants to make a couple of things perfectly clear.

No, he didn't become the largest commercial real estate developer in Dane County off the family money - although those connections certainly didn't hurt. His father, John, is retired owner of DEMCO, the successful local library supply company.
"Dad was an early investor and the way it turned out now he got a pretty good deal," Wall says. "But the idea that he bankrolled me just isn't true."
And yes, Wall is leveraged to the hilt.

I'm going to the bank today to borrow $50 million!

War and Peace

War and Peace on BBC7. Funny stuff!

Middleton Welfare King Goes for the Bucks

Tribeca moves to Middleton, WI. A local developer wants $65 million from the local government to build a profit making enterprise. No shame for the plutocracy. Yes, I did say $65 million!

And the Winner Is

In the creepiest advert contest goes to this ad by ---------'s for a new restaurant in India.

Latin America's Left Turn

Populism, what is it? Where has it been. It's a shame this kind of well done historical analysis has to come from the Economist, el voce de reaccion!

Christian America is Once Again Being Overrun By......Uh, Christians

Speaking of immigration from Latin America Bill O'Reilly recently spewed the following commentary:
Summary: Bill O'Reilly claimed that The New York Times and "many far-left thinkers believe the white power structure that controls America is bad, so a drastic change is needed." O'Reilly continued: "According to the lefty zealots, the white Christians who hold power must be swept out by a new multicultural tide, a rainbow coalition, if you will."

O'Reilly and many others like to argue that their arguments are not xenophobic or racist. I have recently been smeared with the label so I will be precise here. This commentary is racist because he claims that a "muticultural tide, a rainbow coalition" should be feared because "lefty zealots" want them to infiltrate the country to displace White Christians who hold power. He is raising the banner, how high can it get?, of Mexican hoards invading the country and displacing the dominant Anglo-Saxon majority culturally and politically. His basis for analysis is ethnicity. He fears this "race." He wants his followers to fear them and to take action so that white supremacy can be maintained.

I find this analysis quite wired, particularly the religious part, given the pattern of Latino immigration, and particularly Mexican immigration which has followed traditional twentieth century patterns of other immigrants-urbanination, suburbanization and a rightward political drift with future generations.

It reminds me of a quote from William McKinley when talking of his invasion of the Philippines:

"And one night late it came to me this way - I don't know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain - that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany - our commercial rivals in the Orient - that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves - they were unfit for self-government - and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed and went to sleep and slept soundly."

It's a shame he was so worried about Christianizing them given that the overwhelming majority had been bludgeoned by Catholicism for the previous 400 years. I know they are "Papists" and idolotures, not followers of the TRUE faith.

Thom Friedman's Time Problem

For those who know me know that I have an infinity problem/phobia, which my students have informed me is called apeirophobia. In a constant effort to get me off track my students have become very ingenious in freaking me out with new ways to conceptualize endlessness. For instance this year they uncovered for me the idea that fractions go on for infinity as well as negative numbers and the past. So now my phobia has expanded three fold! Unfortunately FAIR has now pointed out to me a fourth dimension to infinity, the Thomas Friedman Iraqi crucial, no critical, next six months. No wonder he wins all of those Pulitzer's.

Wedge Issues Or Good Organizing?

Republicans in Wisconsin have been making major gains politically and socially since the 1980's. The party came back to power with the rise of the Reagan Democrats-white ethnic working class that began leaveing the Democrats in droves with the decline of the industrial bases (unions) and most importantly gender and race-and the religious right. They organized with issues, abortion, tax cuts-Tommy Thompson cleverly hitched the issue to schools and lazy unionized teachers-and crime/race-the state passed truth in sentencing laws and went on a prison building binge which hooked in lots of trades and prison workers (mostly white). This has brought them political power that looks to be long lasting.

The Democratic strategy in the state has been to either depend on the New Deal coalition-union members, blacks, jews, liberal women and a smattering of gays and environmentalists or to become more like Republicans with a conservative pitch to the suburban voter who is a larger and larger percentage of the electorate. These voters tend to be more conservative fiscally but socially liberal so they are able to capture a few of these folk.

But one of the favorite past times from these liberal shores on the coast is to blame the media, think tanks and nasty politics and not look to the base reasons why the Democratic Party is in decline.

Yesterday's announcement that the State Senate had voted to put the death penalty on the ballot along with the November vote on banning civil unions and marriages was met with howls from the Democratic amen corner on public radio and in the written press.

Here's a proposal, out organize them on these issues. Put forward left issues like health care, living wages, progressive taxation and equal funding for schools. Stop complaining and put forward a vision of how the state can be not just how it shouldn't.

Live in Wisconsin?

You are needed this Saturday to go door to door. Fair Wisconsin, the state-wide organization to vote no on the ban on civil unions and marriages, is organizing a canvas this Saturday. You are needed. Sign up!

Counter-recruitment In High Schools

Check this out!

Key US Elections 2006

A look at key elections across the US in 2006.

The Legacy of Intervention in Iran

Lessons of history: Iran, 1953.

H1 Ends Run

And they say GM is not a forward looking company.

New Philip Roth

Everyman.

EU Social Democrats Urge Latin Americans To Act "Responsibly"

In other words we should dictate prices for your primary resources and other exports and our companies should be able to come and go as we please to plunder you like we have for 400 years. Moralist numero uno Tony Blair singles out the top trouble makers:

"Every country needs secure energy supply... Now I don't want to go into the details of what is happening in either Venezuela or Bolivia but I mean all of us have a responsibility to the world community to try to manage this sensibly," he said.

For all those who look to European social democracy as the light this warning is very telling. In the end these imperialists in crime serve similar interests as US capital and although rivals to US and Chinese capital want the same thing, profit at the expense of human needs.

I'll bet Bono and Jeff Sachs were there as consultants and cheerleaders.

It's seems to be time to go back and read Open Viens of Latin America by
Eduardo Galeano for some of that old time critique of capitalism.And some Michael Parenti to boot.

Call or Email the Governor Today

From Voces de la Frontera

URGENT ACTION NEEDED!!!

Call Governor Doyle. Ask him to veto SB567.

Madison Office: 1-608-266-1212
Milwaukee Office: 1-414-227-4344
Park Falls Office: 1-715-5900
Washington, D.C. Office: 1-202-624-5870
E-mail: governor@wisconsin.gov
On May 4th 2006 the State of Wisconsin Assembly passed legislation which denies any form of public assistance to undocumented persons in the state.
The bill SB 567 originated in the Senate and was passed on February 23rd.
The attack on immigrants is rationalized by claiming that they are a drain on the economy.
In fact, each year immigrants EARN $240 billion,
PAY $90 billion in TAXES
RECEIVE $5 billion in WELFARE
SB 567 is on the Governor’s desk. Please call or e-mail today!

Shirley

A story of Levellers and love from Charlotte Bronte. A well done radio rendition.

Fair Wisconsin Organized In All Wisconsin Counties

From Fair Wisconsin:

We announced that Fair Wisconsin now has 72 volunteer county coordinators--that means as of today, 181 days before election day, we have lead volunteers in every county of our state. This is one of the largest grassroots voter mobilization efforts in Wisconsin history.

Few campaigns in the history of Wisconsin politics have been able to claim this accomplishment in October, let alone May of an election year.

Visit their website and see what you can do to defeat this discriminatory effort.

No Healthcare for the Poor

Another city hospital closes (at least the part that serves the poor) in the former brew city. St Michaels is part of the saintly Wheaton Franciscan order INC. (affiliated with Covenant Healthcare) that terrorized and hired a high-end/very expensive anti-union consultant to stop Housekeepers, CNA's, Phlebotomists and other $7/hr workers from gaining union representation 9 years ago at St Francis hospital on Milwaukee's southside (they won by the way).

This closing of in-patient and emergency services for mostly poor people on Milwaukee's northside was inevitable according to Milwaukee's leading paper. This in a city where the local elite closed the County Hospital promising that the city's indigent and poor would be served by the remaining facilities in their neighborhoods. This in a city where an all out propaganda offensive was undertaken because the poor owners of the local baseball team needed a new playground that cost hundreds of millions and counting. This in a city where the local paper supports tax give-aways to condominium/entertainment complexes and convention centers while at the same time condemning efforts at living wage efforts in county and city contracts.

We just can't afford the poor anymore people.

Here's a moderate plan for the liberals out there, I personally think we should nationalize the system, convert the VA system, one that works much more efficiently than the private sector, to a system that turns no one away given that the number of veterans is declining, oh wait we need to send more troops to Iraq, no Iran, no.....

Confessing in the USA

Ralph Nader explores confessions and the criminal justice system.

4 Hour Mirage In China

Folowing 2 days of rain Chinese city experiences 4 hour mirage of a city.

Who's Missing from the Immigration Marches?

Here's the article I have been wanting to write. In Milwaukee it's the same story. The marches are overwhelmingly working class Mexican families with few others there in solidarity.

Slideshow from the Milwaukee rally.

"Lefties from the Troops Out Now Coalition (a spin-off of Ramsey Clark's International Action Center ) may have helped pull the event together with immigrant groups on a shoestring budget of $10,000. But the bulk of the crowd was brought in by word of mouth and flyers printed up by neighborhood activists in Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Russian, French, Creole, and Urdu.

Whole families marched together, mothers pushing strollers and older kids who skipped school to link up with their parents (attendance was down by about 10 percent in city high schools). The majority of protesters were Mexican, but there were many other Latin Americans, Africans, Asia

If there was a demographic slice missing it was the corps of white peaceniks who'd paraded down Broadway on Saturday. That protest felt a bit like a roving street fair with colorful signs and the habitual entertainers--Billionaires for Bush, Missile Dick Chicks, big puppets--along with a group posing as Muslim detainees in prison garb, dragging a guy in a cage."

First Riverwest Block Party

Locust St, Center St and now Clarke. Could Burleigh be next?

US Darling Uribe Calls For Microchip Implants In Columbian Seasonal Workers

Uribe says put micrchips in the plebes!

Native Dispossesion and the US Revolution

Daniel Lazare does Alan Taylor (we use his book in my class) on how settler actions are connected to the revolution.

The Limits of Nationalism

Nationalized Brazilian energy company, PETROBRAS, pulls out of investment in Bolivia as Bolivia re-nationalizes its energy sector.

A Verdict of Reason

A just verdict against Moussaoui a mental case killer that Al Qaeda wanted nothing to do with after they understood that he was not just a homicidal Jihadi but a sadistic retard. I feared a death sentence in a trial based on kooky law that allows death for things you didn't do. An Orwellian crime if ther ever was one.

The jury's instructions and decision.

James Petras

The best of James Petras here. But let's be honest, JP is cheerleading at this moment for a movement that is reformist at best. They want equal access to a system that exploits the shit out of you but you can still go to Wal-Mart and buy shit produced by people who were expoited the shit out of. This is a guy that denounces any reformist movement any where else, see his work on Bolivia's Evo Morales, but can now say si se puede for a movement that is certainly just, which I support, but in no way revolutionary.

Bolivians Strike Back Against 400 Years of Plunder

Morales government re-nationalizes natural gas sector. I know they controlled it in the past but this government seems more committed to re-distribution than governments in the past. The problem is that the weatlth is so punny.

NPR hatchet job. ALBA is an anti-US plot according to Adam Davidson.

DJ Zimmerman

Bob Dylan has DJ gig.

Movies by Fox

Movies that sell are patriotic. A Fox segment that gets a little off message.

Colbert at the Washington Correspondent's Dinner that Annually Roasts the President

Notice how little the lackeys are laughing.

Bush double press conference. Not as funny, 5 times the laughs from the flakocracy.

Commentary on the performance.

The World of the Wierd

I had heard about this this video but now seeing it (it claims that the GOVERNMENT or some other entity-ZOG I presume-bombed the Pentagon) I see the power of the medium. Here's a question for this crew.

What happened to the plane and all of the passengers if this is true?

Lame.

I hope this is a parody.

Pramoedya Dead!

The Buru Quartet is one of my favorite volumes ever. I actually met him in Madison. Almost as a good a dresser as Nelson Mandela. A huge loss. The Buru Quartet.

Tariq Ali on Pramoedya.

May Day

Not since the 1880's has Milwaukee seen crowds this large. And the last time they were this big it was also May Day and the troops came out and shot them.