Issue 73
Table of Contents |
Bear Lincoln Jailed in New Shooting Incident |
by Nicholas Wilson
Bear Lincoln, who was acquitted three years ago of murdering a deputy sheriff, surrendered to Mendocino County authorities Tuesday and was charged in new shooting incidents on the Round Valley Indian Reservation at Covelo. No one was injured
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1999 Project Censored Awards |
The most under-covered "censored" news stories for 1999 have a strong international flavor, with an emphasis on untold stories of Kosovo, foreign policy, and international corporate power abuse
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Life Beyond Project Censored |
by Don Hazen
This process -- for the most part the sole recognition for independent
journalism -- demeans our standards. We can do better
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A Death Unpunished |
by Stephen Leon
The killing of Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant with no criminal record, sparked outrage in New York City and beyond, and on March 31, 1999, the four officers were indicted on charges of second-degree murder and first-degree reckless endangerment. On Dec. 16, the trial venue was changed to Albany -- a move heavily criticized as being unfair to the prosecution, who would have benefited from a jury familiar with the history of police-community relations in the Bronx
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Verdict Demonstrates System Corruption |
by Vickie Smith
What was it that allowed this verdict to happen? The answer is that all the parts of a corrupt and racist criminal-justice system came together to protect its own. The change of venue, the inadequate prosecution, the judge's rulings, and a jury selected from a predominantly white jurisdiction all came together to pervert and manipulate the fair-trial process. Every defendant is supposed to be entitled to the presumption of innocence, to the benefit of the doubt -- but these defendants received the benefit not of doubt, but of white privilege, and the protection of the powerful
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Police Abuse is Invisible Crime |
by Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Despite the recent wave of highly questionable police shootings of mostly young African-Americans and Latinos, the Justice Department has done almost nothing to nail the murderous cops. According to a 1999 report on police misconduct by Human Rights Watch, an international public watchdog group, in 1998 federal prosecutors brought excessive force charges against police officers in less than one percent of the cases
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Cop in Diallo Case Had Killed Man In Similar Incident |
by Erin Sullivan
On Halloween night 1997, 22-year-old Patrick Bailey, an aspiring stockbroker and son of Jamaican immigrants living in Brooklyn, was shot by none other than Street Crime Unit Officer Kenneth Boss, one of the four recently acquitted in the Diallo trial
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"Dear Amadou..." |
by Lance Johnson
Ever since the Diallo shooting, I have felt trapped. Cornered, not as Amadou was in the vestibule as the four officers rained gunfire on him, but cornered in a society that will never understand me, or simply refuses to try -- no matter how hard I try. No matter how non-threatening, college-educated or "positive" I presume to be, I will always be judged by the shade of my skin
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Pinochet Freed For "Humanitarian" Reasons |
by Gustavo Gonzalez
Ex- Chilean dictator
Pinochet headed home March 2 "scorned" by the
international community, said the Group of
Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (AFDD) president Viviana Diaz, who announced that her
group would immediately begin work to strip
Pinochet of his immunity as a life senator, in
order to see him stand trial in Chile, where he
faces 59 lawsuits on charges of crimes against
humanity
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Pinochet's 503 Days in Britian |
by Gustavo Gonzalez
Highlights of the case that
silently began to take shape four years ago
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Rights Groups Claim Victory Despite Pinochet Release |
by Jim Lobe
"Dictators around the world must now live with the
constant fear of being 'Pinocheted,'" said John
Cavanagh, the director of the Washington-based
think-tank, the Institute for Policy Studies
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Julia Butterfly Harassed At Conference |
by Sunny Lewis
Speaking to an audience of about 3,000 at the
University of Oregon Law School's conference on
environmental law in the public interest, Hill was
describing the difficulties she experienced while 180 feet
up in a redwood tree on Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Company land
when a woman stood up in
the crowd and began scolding Hill for giving money to
Pacific Lumber Company
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Fears of Starvation in E Timor |
by Sonny Inbaraj Ê
East Timor's Nobel Peace Laureate Jose Ramos-Horta called the situation of East Timorese refugees in Indonesia "a criminal matter," and urged the international community to help return them home fast
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U.S. Probe May Link Pinochet to Murder |
by Gustavo Gonzalez
U.S. Justice Department's decision to reopen investigations into the 1976 assassination of a former Chilean foreign minister and his assistant could mean the eventual implication of former dictator Augusto Pinochet in the crime
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Boeing Cuts Corners on Safety Inspections, Says Union |
by Nina Shapiro
Is Boeing compromising on safety in order to cut costs? Some workers believe
so, pointing to changes in the way the company carries out inspections. A
former head of the National Transportation Safety Board, among others, seems
to agree
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Court Determines Reform Party Future |
by Jack Breibart
The big question is whether the losers will strike out to form a new party. There is precedent here. In 1966 a group which backed Richard Lamm against Perot for the party presidential nomination left and formed the American Reform Party. There also may be a lesson: The ARP hasn't made a dent in national politics
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How Campaign Finance Laws Favor the Rich |
by Steve Chapman
The giving limit might make sense if it were essential to prevent corruption. But $1,000 was too paltry to buy a politician even in 1974, when the law was enacted. And today, $1,000 will buy only about what $300 would buy then. In 26 years, Congress has never seen fit to raise the contribution ceiling to reflect inflation.
Why should it? It's the best incumbent-protection measure ever devised
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Falwell Gets Ready to "Reclaim America" |
by Bill Berkowitz
Twenty years ago, Falwell's Moral Majority played a key role electing Ronald Reagan as President and helped to build a conservative majority in Congress. Falwell says these accomplishments were realized by "register[ing] over 8.5 million new voters through the churches and religious organizations and re-activated millions more back into the political arena."
Now he intends to top that figure
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End of Road for McCain -- or the Beginning? |
by Steve Chapman
By the time McCain began denouncing Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, his campaign was already taking on water. What he clearly hoped was that by disassociating himself from the GOP's right wing, he would energize non-Republicans across the country to turn out for him in numbers sufficient to swamp the old guard and win him the nomination. That didn't happen. On Super Tuesday, he was beaten so soundly that the only remaining question was when he would quit the race.
But all along, his strategy had a hidden virtue: It might succeed even if it failed
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McCain Strategy of Luck and Heresy |
by Harold Meyerson
When historians look back on the brief, intense primary season of campaign 2000, they will doubtless note that John McCain proved himself a far more compelling challenger in his party than Bill Bradley did in his. But they should also note that February's bizarre primary calendar artificially inflated McCain's stature
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Ruling Party Candidates Win Primary |
by David Corn
After Super Tuesday, each party has as its putative nominee the fellow embraced by its elites, by its main money people and by its prominent lobbyists. And, of course, by its loyal voters, who followed the orders from above and spurned challengers who, in limited fashion, dared their parties to be better. John McCain and Bill Bradley provided more discomfort than expected. But the lesson is not startling: It's damn hard to beat the Man
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Texas Taxpayer Funds Used to Solicit $2.2 Million for Bush Campaign |
by Nathaniel Heller
Almost half the governor's guests at the mansion have given money to Bush's campaign. Furthermore, beginning in mid-1997, political figures and big money fund-raisers who would play major roles in his presidential campaign began to stay over, a clear break from the previous two years, when the guests indeed were predominantly friends and family
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Who Is George W. Bush? |
by Toby Rogers and Nick Mamatas
The difference between the anti-Clinton books and this biography of George W. Bush is singular. The former were sold in bookstores across the country, and Fortunate Son was taken off the shelves and burned
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House OKs "Property Rights" Bill |
by Cat Lazaroff
Landowners
will have easier access to federal courts in zoning disputes and other conflicts over land use if a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday becomes law. Critics of the bill, including members of the Clinton administration, say it will allow developers to override local decisions to curb sprawl
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Vanishing Wetlands Key to Global Water Crisis |
by Gustavo Capdevila
The environmental organization maintains that
agriculture has been one of the principal culprits
in the disappearance of wetlands.
Government farm subsidies and agricultural waste
are responsible for the destruction of hundreds of
thousands of hectares of wetlands in industrialized
countries | |
No Proof That Mitigated Wetlands Work |
by Holly Wagner
When a developer fills in and builds on a natural
wetland, he's required by federal law to create a
wetland in a nearby area -- a process called
mitigation. And it's the developer's
responsibility to maintain and monitor the
wetland for five years, according to Mitsch.
After five years, though, these mitigated
wetlands often "disappear off everybody's radar
screen" | |
Who's Liable for Genetically Modified Crops? |
by Danielle Knight
New suit would make Monsanto financially liable for
damages caused by its products. This includes
damages to the environment or public health, as
well as additional costs incurred by farmers and
food manufacturers resulting from GMOs produced by
Monsanto
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Caged Warrior: Interview with Leonard Peltier |
by Ben Corbett
Last November, in wake of publication of Leonard's book, "Prison Writings: My life is my Sun Dance," American Indian leaders descended on Washington D.C. to voice their opposition to the illegal incarceration of Peltier, considered a political prisoner by a growing force of global Indigenous rights activists. During the month-long rally, Katherine porter, wife of Congressman John Porter, delivered 35 million signatures of petition demanding immediate executive clemency for Peltier. To squelch the widening effort for Peltier's freedom, during the November event, the FBI placed ads in the Washington Post as well as other national media, denouncing Peltier as a cold-blooded killer, guilty as charged
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Sharp Decline in "Maquiladoras" Conditions |
by Diego Cevallos
Conditions in
Mexico's "maquiladoras," or foreign assembly
plants, became even more exploitative in 1999, and
workers' complaints rose by 25 percent, according
to an independent trade union
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Trafficking of Women on Increase |
by Brian Kenety
Every year hundreds of
thousands of young women and girls from
less-developed regions are lured with misleading
promises of conventional employment to work in
brothels and nightclubs in Western Europe
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Mystery Ship Worries African Enviros |
by Amadou Sakho
A ship lingering off the Senegalese coast has caught the attention of local environmentalists, who worry that it contains potentially hazardous cargo.
Since October 1999, the 170-meter vessel has been bobbing in the waters. Its hull appears to be sprouting seaweed and its cockpit is rusting into oblivion
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Growing Call For Reparations of U.S. Slavery |
by Katherine Stapp
The apology from Aetna Inc., the nation's largest health and life insurer, and possible restitution in the form of a scholarship fund for black students, represents a small victory in a low-intensity war that has been simmering for years: that of an effort by African Americans to receive reparations for the U.S. legacy of slavery and segregation
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Error 404: News Not Found in Your Daily Paper |
Does Project Censored have a future? Leonard Peltier gets medical treatment; Nazis on the march; the census squawk | |
Congress Report Blasts IMF for Failures |
by Mark Weisbrot
New report of a Congressional commission that harshly criticizes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will add fuel to the firestorm of controversy that has surrounded the institution since its mishandling of the Asian financial crisis two and a half years ago. Together with the unprecedented public dispute over the leadership of the institution, and Seattle-like demonstrations planned for April in Washington, DC, the IMF is under siege as never before in its 56-year history
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IMF Polices Damaged Environment, Group Says |
Enviros want IMF to be removed from long-range development
planning and, instead, be confined to making
short-term loans to countries in financial trouble
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Leaded Gas Still Sold Throughout Third World |
by Jamie Lincoln Kitman
Because of the marketing drive of Ethyl and Octel in the Third World, as of
1996 93 percent of all gasoline sold in Africa contained lead, 94 percent in
the Middle East, 30 percent in Asia and 35 percent in Latin America
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A Year After NATO Bombings, Trauma Lingers |
by Vesna Peric Zimonjic
The first anniversary of the NATO air campaign against Serbia on March 24 finds a country still visibly scarred by the fierce 11-week assault. A year later, people still jump at the sound of a dumpster lid slamming or a car alarm going off. Children play a game called "run to the shelters," and many have turned to experts for help to overcome the stress
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U.S. Aid Money Will Worsen Colombia's Internal Conflicts |
by Yadira Ferrer
"Plan Colombia" does not attack the roots of the
drug trade problem, as the government claims, but
instead will intensify the country's decades-long
internal conflict, resulting in thousands more
displaced persons, continued human rights
violations and worse environmental damage, the
specialists say
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Fears of Kosovo-Style War in Colombia |
by Kintto Lucas
Analysts
and rights groups in Ecuador and Colombia fear that renewed efforts to crack down on drugs in Colombia will trigger an exodus of drug traffickers and guerrillas across the border to Ecuador and lead to a situation similar to the 1999 bombing of the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo
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Colombia Anti-Drug Aid is Replay of Reagan's Mistakes |
by Randolph T. Holhut
If a civil war spills out from Colombia, with thousands of
refugees flooding into neighboring Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Peru and
Panama -- democracies that are as fragile and impoverished as Colombia --
who knows what happens next?
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Colombia, U.S. Both Hooked on Drug War |
by Andrew Reding
We are a "godly" nation that periodically seeks scapegoats for the human inability to live up to otherworldly standards. In the 17th century that meant hunting witches; in the 20th, communists. Now, in the 21st century, communists are going out of style and drug traffickers are becoming the new moral enemy of choice (though it is still convenient to have "communist drug traffickers")
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Colombia's Child Soldiers |
by Yadira Ferrer
The Colombian Institute for Family Welfare
estimates that around 2,000 minors are still active
in Colombia's insurgent organizations, while around
3,000 participate in right-wing paramilitary
groups, despite repeated calls by human rights
groups and international bodies for an end to the
use of child soldiers
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Dr. Laura Retreats From Anti-Gay Rhetoric Under Pressure |
by Donna Ladd
Dr. Laura Schlessinger is the successful radio talk-show host who started out years ago yelling at listeners to take responsibility for their actions and blossomed into a Bible-thumping conservative who uses her radio show for an ugly pulpit. The lecture queen has shown a particular disdain for homosexuals, often referring to them as "biological errors." The evidence was right on her Web site (www.drlaura.com) in transcripts where she condemned the homosexual lifestyle and activism -- that is, the words were there until last week. Now those pages are blank. On Friday, March 10, all of Dr. Laura's anti-gay, and even unrelated comments about pedophilia, suddenly vanished from her Web site. In its place, an apology of sorts appeared
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Media Ignores African Disasters: "Been There, Done That" |
by Danny Schechter
Africans only make the news as victims, when they suffer calamities, coups and conflicts. TV news lives for powerful images, and in this case, the graphic pictures meant more than a mere thousand words. They were a substitute for words and explanation and analysis and context. As a result, charity, not change, defined the response. Images without interpretation go in one eye and out the next. The famine was the story du jour; the follow-up was not
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A Nasty Campaign Against Organic Food |
by Donella H. Meadows
Organic farmers do not lose more to pests or weeds than other farmers. They do not get lower yields, though Dennis Avery (who was in the Agriculture Department under Reagan, who now works at the right-wing Hudson Institute) constantly claims otherwise
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Bush Flubs Embarass Us All |
by Molly Ivins
Some joker from a Canadian radio comedy show told Bush he had been endorsed by "Prime Minister Poutine of Canada." Where upon Bush thanked the prime minister for his support and said how important our neighbors to the north are to us all. Unfortunately, poutine is a form of Canadian junk food made with potatoes, cheese and brown gravy
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Repubs Attack, Then Retreat, on Gas Tax |
by Molly Ivins
You may recall that this buffle-headed suggestion was made last week by Gov. George W. Bush, backed by some Senate Republicans. Dubya, as we know, has little interest in policy, but excellent political skills. And what could sound better, as prices at the pump soar across the nation, than an offer to cut 4.3 cents a gallon off the total? Great politics: Vote for that guy, or you'll have to be Bill Gates to fill up the pickup, not to mention those monster SUVs
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Bush's Phony Education "Solutions" |
by Molly Ivins
One of George W. Bush's big applause lines is: And if a school is failing, we should cut its money. He wants to take all Title I money away from low-performing schools -- and give it in the form of vouchers to the families of disadvantaged students. The parents could then use the vouchers (worth about $1,500 per student) to pay for after-school tutoring or to help pay for private-school tuition. The "socioeconomically disadvantaged," who are still called poor folks in Texas, really do need more than tougher school standards
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Huh? It's Over? |
by Molly Ivins
This rush to front-load primaries shuts out more and more people from getting the kind of intensive, personal campaigning that lets people really get a look at the candidates -- and lets the candidates hear from the country. Once they get past New Hampshire, it now looks like a general election -- all negative ads, spin and money, money, money
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Politics = Money |
by Molly Ivins
Into our laps falls Sam Wyly, a Dallas billionaire, spending $2.5 million for a television ad full of grossly distorted claims. Of course the Bush campaign had no knowledge of Wyly's ad.
Came as a complete surprise to them.
Not since the happy events of '96, when the R's and the D's both took contributions from Asian businessmen, have we seen such a splendid demonstration of what the problem is. Said George W., "That's what free speech is all about." So you just take $2.5 million out of your billions and go run your own ad
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Bush Donor Behind Sham Ad |
by Molly Ivins
The mystery of "Republicans for Clean Air" was solved Friday when The New York Times revealed that Dallas billionaire and Bush pioneer Sam Wyly was fronting the money for this singularly hilarious example of what is called the "sham issue ad."
And just the other day I was noting that one loophole in Bush's campaign finance reform is that it doesn't address sham issue ads
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Granny D, A Woman Who Walks the Walk |
by Molly Ivins
The
trouble with Granny D, the 90-year-old crusader who walked across the entire country to support campaign finance reform, is that she makes the rest of us look like such schlumps. Whew, what a record for citizen action: 3,200 miles
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Bush Fibs on Patient-Protection Claim |
by Molly Ivins
George W. Bush is now running a TV ad around the country that claims: "While Washington was deadlocked, he passed a patients' bill of rights. Under Gov. Bush, Texas enacted some of the most comprehensive patient-protection laws in the nation."
He never even signed the patients' bill of rights, and you can look it up. Claiming that "he passed" or "delivered" the patients' bill of rights is turning the truth on its head
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Photojournalism and Poverty |
by Norman Solomon
Looking at American mass media, how do we reconcile the occasional tugs at
heartstrings and compassion with the ongoing appeals to vanity and
acquisitiveness?
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Media Plays Executioner's Song |
by Norman Solomon
The prison- industrial complex encounters little skepticism in medialand.
The dominant scenarios of crime and righteous retribution offer the kind of
climaxes that scriptwriters crave. The legal system's revenge is dramatic
-- and in the case of capital punishment, absolutely final
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Media Shadowed by Self-Censorship |
by Norman Solomon
Self-censorship has long been one of journalism's most ineffable hazards. The current wave of mergers rocking the media industry is likely to heighten the dangers.
To an unprecedented extent, large numbers of American reporters and editors now work for just a few huge corporate employers -- a situation that hardly encourages unconstrained scrutiny of media conglomerates as they assume unparalleled importance in public life
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Media Skirts Link Between Shootings and TV Hype |
by Norman Solomon
On the last day of February, the shocking news was that a 6-year-old boy
in Michigan killed a classmate. How would a little boy get the impression
that pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger is appropriate
behavior? Not exactly a tough question.
But it's too tough for the nation's up-to-the-minute TV journalists --
especially when their jobs involve playing dumb
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CNN Worked With Army PSYOPS Group |
by Alexander Cockburn
A handful of military personnel from the 4th Psychological Operations Group (i.e. PSYOPs) based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina have until recently been working in CNN's headquarters
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Bashing Art Becomes Giuliani Hallmark |
by Alexander Cockburn
Last year, Giuliani put the Brooklyn Museum on the map with his denunciation of the "Sensation" exhibition, which featured various calculated affronts to polite taste, including a Madonna reposing on elephant dung. Now, New York's latter-day Savonarola is ensuring success for the Whitney's upcoming biennial exhibit
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Eugenics: The Impulse Never Dies |
by Alexander Cockburn
Bush wants to kill people. He's hastened the appeals process, and vetoed a law to replace the legal-resource centers eliminated by Clinton and Congress. His staff says he spends between 15 and 30 minutes on each case, and of course, Bush declares his confidence that no innocent person has been executed on this watch
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The War on Youth |
by Alexander Cockburn
The so-called gang violence and juvenile-crime prevention initiative derives from the great mid-1990s panic about feral youth, when crime pundits like Professor John DiIulio were rampaging across the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, raising the alarm about a coming wave of youthful super-predators robbing and killing the older citizenry at will.
It's turned out that DiIulio and his fellows were spectacularly wrong in their predictions, and in a just world, would be relieved of tenure status and sentenced to 5,000 hours of community service
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Night Shift at the GOP Phone Bank |
by Michael Finley
What an odd situation, I thought. In a boom economy, the
Republican Party has to recruit underage punk rockers at high wages to
call people and complain about what the world's coming to
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Albion Monitor Issue 73 (http://www.monitor.net/monitor)
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