New Orleans Forsaken
Gary Younge : One year later, how will we come to terms with what happened when Hurricane Katrina washed up the disenfranchised most people, including the President, have tried to forget?
Adolph Reed Jr. looks at neoliberalism's impact on New Orleans, Philip Weiss examines Israel's human rights record, John Feffer reviews four new books on Korea.
Gary Younge : One year later, how will we come to terms with what happened when Hurricane Katrina washed up the disenfranchised most people, including the President, have tried to forget?
Chris Kromm
:
Activists and residents are struggling to protect New Orleans's
devastated low-income neighborhoods from developers' vision of a
"smaller footprint" for the city.
Michael Tisserand : After the storm hit, the Internet was one of the few reliable sources of information for New Orleans. A year later, it remains a critical tool for citizens' participation in their city's reconstruction.
Adolph Reed Jr.
:
Before the storm, neoliberalism shaped the social and economic
inequities of New Orleans; after Hurricane Katrina, it worsened them
by making government the tool of corporations and investors.
:
Great tragedies call for visionary leadership. This is the moment for
progressives to summon the guts to forge a compelling message not just
about what's come apart in America, but how to pull us back together.
John Nichols : Key primary races in Maryland, Rhode Island and even New York are making the Iraq War what it should be in every 2006 political contest: the central issue.
Philip Weiss
:
The Human Rights Watch reports that were sharply critical of Israel's killing of
civilians in Lebanon represent the latest battle for Jewish hearts
and minds in the ideological war over the Middle East.
Amy Alexander : Journalist, activist, philanthropist and self-promoter, Tavis Smiley has the political clout and the ability to energize and educate the black community in the best tradition of Martin Luther King Jr.
Trudy Lieberman
:
If it becomes a national model, a new, highly touted health insurance
law in Massachusetts would make American healthcare, already on life
support, take a turn for the worse.
John Feffer : Four new books explore Korea's cold war hangover and the indelible mark left by its North-South division.
Marina Harss
:
In Tango: The Art History of Love, Robert Thompson traces the dance's
roots in Afro-Argentine history. Tomas Eloy Martínez's The Tango
Singer appropriates its music to explore the recent past.
John Palattella
:
Nathaniel Mackey's most recent collection of subtle, intricate poetry
weaves images from Arab and African diasporas with a contemporary sense
of dislocation.
Calvin Trillin
:
Here's how Democrats should spin the biggest political question in the
midterm elections.
Eric Alterman : Democracy demands that journalists tell the truth. The success of liars like Bob Novak and Ann Coulter is a greater threat to America than a truck full of terrorists bent on doing us harm.
Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith : The 109th Congress, led by Republican Senators McCain, Warner, and Graham and with the acquiescence of many Democrats, is poised to legalize torture, trials with secret evidence, and annulment of the right of habeas corpus
John Ross : The confirmation of Felipe Calderón's electoral victory signals the end of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's three-year struggle for the presidency and the beginning of a new phase of organized resistance.
Nicholas von Hoffman : If you're depending on private savings accounts to get you through retirement, get ready for a bitter surprise, thanks to the crooks and incompetents charged with selling and running the funds.
Robert Scheer : In Bush-liberated Afghanistan, billions in drug profits are financing the Taliban, proving the President is better at starting wars than winning them.
David Corn : Valerie Plame was no mere analyst or paper-pusher at the CIA. She was an operations officer working on a top priority of the Bush Administration: searching out intelligence on Iraq's weapon's of mass destruction.
Sasha Abramsky : Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson's cachet is growing in the wake of a stem-winding speech in which he called the President to account for lies and ineptitude in Irag, castigated a complaisant media and assailed the electorate for passively consuming government lies.
Michael Tisserand : As New Orleans rebuilds, so does its Internet community. Here's a list of the Big Easy's liveliest sites.
Ross C. Anderson : Through lies, ineptitude and immoral policies, the Bush Administration has led the nation to the brink of disaster, ruined our reputation and sowed hatred that will take generations to uproot.
Laila Lalami : Egypt has been deprived of its greatest living writer, and the world has lost one of its most humane literary figures.
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom : Three new books on China invite the West to give up simplistic dreams and nightmares and come to terms with a complex and rapidly evolving authoritarian state.
Scientists emerge exhausted but visibly excited Friday from a Pasadena Cheesecake Factory.
Cover by Gene Case & Stephen Kling/Avenging Angels