The Wire was an American television drama series set in Baltimore,Maryland, where it was also produced. Created, produced, and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon, the series was broadcast by the premium cable network HBO in the United States. The Wire premiered on June 2, 2002 and ended on March 9, [...]

It’s Not about Zelaya
by David L. Wilson

 
Zelaya (center), in happier times, flanked by Raul Castro and Pres. Chavez.
Manuel “Mel” Zelaya is a rancher and business owner who wears large cowboy hats and, in November 2005, was elected president of Honduras, an impoverished Central American country with a population of 7.5 million.  On June 28 [...]

[CAPTION: ALEXANDER HAMILTON, ONE OF THE PROTEAN FORGERS OF THE NEW NATION, AND AN OPEN ENEMY OF EGALITARIANISM.] Dominance and Plutocracy are –and have long been–the real form of American governance. And history shows representative democracy almost always degenerates into plutocracy. So how do we discard once and for all the myth of elections delivering democratic power in tune with the needs and demands of the majority?

THE HONDURAN COUP—DENIALS ASIDE, US INVOLVEMENT IS CLEAR
While Barack Obama keeps mouthing platitudes, and is (so far) refraining from endorsing the coup, the usual jackals–local and American–are busy doing the dirty work in the shadows to make the coup a success.  Hypocrisy has rarely reached such heights of cynicism in the highest pulpits of US officialdom, [...]

ONCE AGAIN, INSPIRATION FROM ANIMALS
The inscrutable innocence of animals often gives us lessons in charity and acceptance. So it was with the remarkable “odd couple” formed by Owen and Mzee. (As readers may recall, in December 2004, a frightened young hippo, christened “Owen”, separated from his family by a devastating tsunami, bonded with an Aldabra [...]

THE POETRY OF STEPHEN TOSKAR:
My Father Was a Megalomaniac
STEPHEN TOSKAR has lived and taught on the island of Hokkaido in Japan since he wound up there by mistake in 1976. He has published in Japan and India and his work has been anthologized in Manifestations (edited by Gary Corseri) in the States.  He tends a [...]

THE CLASS STRUGGLE HAS TAKEN A DIVE IN AMERICA, SAYS JOE BAGEANT, AND WITH THAT, WORKERS HAVE SEEN THEIR FORTUNES PLUMMET This was the golden age of both trucking and of unions. Thirty-five percent of American labor, 17 million working folks, were union members, and it was during this period the American middle class was created. The American middle class has never been as big as advertised, but if it means the middle third income-wise, then we actually had one at the time.

G O D L Y  by James Doyle
JAMES DOYLE’S LATEST POETRY BOOK, Bending Under the Yellow Police Tapes, is available from Steel Toe Books.  He’s working in quatrains and with irony and humor in his poem, “Godly.”  Big ironies.  Eschatological questions.  He begins thus, “The preacher cornered me in the dark. …” [READ ON]

For those who can see past the con man rhetoric, in less than half a year Obama has given abundant proof that he’s no leader when it comes to the interests of the people, and that his allegiances are clearly on the side of the reigning plutocracy. Even a populist plutocrat, Arianna Huffington, can testify [...]

A “Kill Ratio” of 50 to 1!  Drones, Scattered Computer Chips …

& Losing Hearts, Minds and Bodies in Afghanistan!
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, Jun 12 (IPS) – The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s refusal to share with other agencies even the most basic data on the bombing attacks by remote-controlled unmanned predator drones in Pakistan’s northwestern [...]