By Dave Lindorff

I was a speaker last night at an anti-war event sponsored by the
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County, Progressive
Democrats of America and Democrats For America in Lincroft, NJ, near
the shore. It was a great group of activist Americans who want to see
this country end the Iraq War, turn away from war as a primary
instrument of policy, and start dealing with the pressing human needs
of the country and the world.

Yet even in this group of committed people, one woman stood up
during the question-and-answer session and said, “I want to get
involved in writing emails to members of Congress urging them to cut
off funding for the war and other things, but if I do that won’t I end
up getting put on a `watch list’” or something?”

By Dave Lindorff

We’ve come a long way towards imperial government in the US—towards
a view of the relationship between the federal government, and
especially the administration, and the citizenry that has more of a
ruler-subjects than a democratic feel to it.

Now I know it is easy to gloss over the way things were, and since I
spent a few days in federal prison for protesting the Indochina War at
the Pentagon in 1967, after being beaten by federal marshals for doing
nothing more than exercising my constitional right to protest on public
ground, I am well aware that 40 years ago we were also often treated
like serfs. But that said, there was something different back then—a
sense that you could deal with powerful officials as an equal.

By Dave Lindorff

    American Secretary of War Robert Gates knows a real leader when he sees one.  “Clearly, as far as I’m concerned,” he said, Vladimir Putin, and not President Dmitry Medvedev, "has the upper hand right now."

     Well hell, Gates should know. After all, he deals on a daily basis with the same peculiar situation here in the US, where the president also is a figurehead and the real power lies in the hands of Vice President Dick Cheney.

By Dave Lindorff

On Monday last week, something important happened in Washington.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic representative from Cleveland, OH,
who early in the primary season won some of the biggest applause lines
in the Democratic presidential candidate debates, introduced 35
articles calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush for
high crimes and misdemeanors.

You'd be excused if you didn't know this happened. There was almost
no reporting on the event that day or the next, which took several
hours to accomplish, along with several hours Tuesday for to be read
into the Congressional Record. Kucinich's address to the House was
broadcast live on C-Span. But it was not announced in advance or
highlighted on the C-Span website, and there were not many news reports
on the historically significant fact that articles of impeachment had
been filed against the president during subsequent days.

By Dave Lindorff

The last couple of weeks have brought confirmation—as if it were needed—even in the corporate media, that President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the gang of thugs and sycophants around them in the White House, engaged in a massive conspiracy to lie the country into a war in Iraq.

Protect your right to Biological privacy! Oppose DNA Database Act!

By Dave Lindorff

Back in late 2006, it was widely reported in the Latin American media that President Bush, or perhaps his old man, had bought a 100,000-acre farm in a remote area of Paraguay.

What struck people at the time was the choice of country. Paraguay, of course, has gained a certain Club Med status among the world's villains and criminal elements as the place to go when the law's on your tail. The country, ruled for six decades by the dictatorial and fascist Colorado Party of Gen. Alfredo Stroesser, an almost cartoon charicature of a Latin American dictator, has no extradition treaty with any nation.

That's why it has long harbored aging Nazis, bank robbers, and a string of ousted or retired Latin American dictators and their assistants over the years.

By Dave Lindorff

With a viral campaign underway via email, right-wing radio, and on the street suggesting that Barack Obama is a black “Manchurian Candidate,” secretly trained as a Muslim fanatic who will insinuate himself into the White House, thence to undermine all that we hold dear, perhaps it is time to look at the Manchurian Candidate we already have in the White House, who, together with his handler over in Blair House, has pretty much done all the damage already.

George Bush came to office in 2001 promising a new era of integrity, civility and “compassionate conservatism,” an era of humble American foreign policy, and a bi-partisan approach to government.

What did we actually get?