Bear Left!
Where else would you get your leftist bearings every week?
Volume II, Number 472 December 2002
This Week's Article:
An American Myth: Bush is a Conservative
Conservative citizens, beware. The Bush administration is not what you think it is. George W. Bush is not a conservative. The Bush administration does not serve the principles of democracy and liberty, nor does it believe that less government is better government. In both the government and corporate sectors, power is being concentrated in fewer hands. It does not matter that the political concentration of power is blessed by an election instead of a right of birth; elections in the United States of America have been reduced to form over substance. What matters is that the accumulation of political power (legislative, executive, and judicial) and economic power (corporate and cultural) is a threat to both democracy and liberty. True conservatives understand that power corrupts. True conservatives are not blind to the corruption in the Bush administration.
[Click on the link to read the whole article.]
Older Articles:
Articles from previous weeks are in our archives. If you're not careful, you might learn something.
Fact of the Week
In an effort to avoid pressure from corporate sponsors to ease its ban on female members, the Augusta National Golf Club cut ties with its corporate sponsors. Now, press reports indicate that some homeowners, who are used to renting out their homes during "Masters week," are finding no takers for the upcoming tournament.
Don't cry too hard for these poor Augusta homeowners. For years, they have benefitted from a special subsection—280A(g)—of the Internal Revenue Code. Under its provisions, any rent from property rented for 14 or fewer days in a year is not subject to income tax, no matter how lucrative the rent might be. For years, the United States has handed a very special tax subsidy to Augusta residents rich enough to own houses attractive enough for America's corporate elite.
Sources:
New York Times,
17 November 2002;
Baltimore Sun,
24 November 2002;
United States Internal Revenue Code.
Our favorite links regarding Afghanistan
- The Guardian (London)
- The Independent (London)
- Federation of American Scientists (Washington)
- National Security Archive (Washington)
Our favorite links on the impending war with Iraq
- Red Pepper news on Iraq.
- No Rush to War: a collection of articles from The Nation.
- Target: Iraq from Global Security.org.
- Iraq's Nuclear Weapon Programme from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
- Iraq dossier presented to Parliament by Tony Blair.
- New York Times op-ed ad signed by 33 international relations scholars (HTML version of the ad).
- Stand Down cross-ideological, anti-war weblog.
- Alternative Resources on the US-Iraq Conflict: like it says, from the American Library Association.
- Iraq War Debate: a huge collection of links from the University of Michigan.
- Project on Defense Alternatives: analyses of Iraq and Afghanistan.
- More, alas, likely to come.
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"Bear left! Bear left!" / "Right, Frog!" (Kermit and Fozzie, The Muppet Movie)
© 2002, Paul Corrigan and Tim Francis-Wright.
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