:: United States

Between March 25 and May 1, 2006 close to 5 million migrant workers and their supporters marched through nearly 100 cities of the United States. This is the biggest and most sustained workers? demonstration in the history of the US.

The arrest of two leading members of the principal pro-Israel lobby AIPAC for procuring confidential information from a leading Pentagon official and passing it to an Israeli spymaster seems to be an open and shut case of espionage.

No sector of the US economy, in recent years, can match the rate and size of profit which have accrued to the biggest financial institutions.

In August 2004, the FBI and the US Justice Department counter-intelligence bureau announced that they were investigating a top Pentagon analyst suspected of spying for Israel and handing over highly confidential documents on US policy toward Iran to AIPAC which in turn handed them over to the Israeli Embassy.

The most difficult prediction for the year 2006 is the direction and trajectory of the US economy. In 2005 the US economy defied all the known tenets of economic theory: In the face of record high trade deficits, monstrous budget deficits, a failed war and major political scandals involving presidential aides, the dollar strengthened against the Euro and the Yen, the economy grew at 3.4% and all the major investment houses had record profits.

The question of war and peace evokes many conflicting responses. For the ideologues and civilian militarists in Washington ?peace? can be secured with the consolidation of a world empire, which in turn implies? perpetual wars throughout the world.

The national debate, which the indictment of Irving Lewis Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice has aroused in the mass media, has failed to address the most basic questions concerning the deep structural context, which influenced his felonious behavior.

The most striking aspect of the US (and European) trade conflict with China is Washington?s systematic rejection of the free market and its resort to heavy-handed dependence on state intervention.

On September 19 the first federal conspiracy trial of civilian war resisters to the US invasion of Iraq will take place in Binghamton, New York, a declining and decaying city in upstate New York, 3 hours northwest of New York City.

Briefly, but dramatically, the political failures that turned New Orleans and many other Gulf cities and towns into a human catastrophe, shattered the bonds of conformity between the mass media and the government.

It is ironic and tragic that at a time when the Federal Government is spending tens of billions on ?homeland security?, employing an army of 100,000 functionaries, hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans have died because of the absence of homeland security.

\”Marty, what do you think of the corruption scandals in Brazil? Do you think we should pull out?\”

The US labor confederation, the AFL-CIO, is in a deep crisis. Following a recent split, it lost over 3 million members, reducing it to a mere 9% of the labor force and 7% of the private sector.

The rise of the extreme right to power in the US ? the control of Congress and the Executive by civilian militarists, Zionists and neo-liberals has met virtually no resistance from the working class or from the ?trade union? elite.

Let me begin by saying there are serious political issues that raised by the Lula regime in Brazil. One is the notion that the business of government is to guarantee the interests of the financial ?markets? (financiers, bankers, speculators, creditors etc) before any social or economic policy or reform can be considered.

Paradoxically the defeat of Communism led to the relocation of imperial capital, which in turn led to a decline of domestic manufacturing and high technology industries in the ?advanced countries?

It is a well-established fact that US intelligence and state agencies have penetrated civil and political society directly or via intermediary organizations, foundations and other ostensible private groups.

Cuba?s living example of 45 years of successful resistance to US military aggression and economic boycott is extremely damaging to Washington?s goal of world empire for several reasons.

The mass media in the US and Europe has given prominence to the ?new style? foreign policy approach of the Bush Administration: Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice visits European capitals and meets with European leaders, declaring that a new era of co-operation is at hand.

This paper will discuss the social, political, economic, psychological and ideological causes and impacts of war in contemporary history. Obviously we cannot explore all of these dimensions in detail; instead we will focus on what we consider the most important dimensions of these general categories.

World developments in 2005 will be determined by the major events and tendencies in 2004. First and foremost, 2004 demonstrated in the most dramatic and definitive manner that the US imperial military machinecould be defeated.

I am reading William Shirer\’s Berlin Diary, a journalist\’s account ofNazi political propaganda during the 1930\’s, as I watch the US\’news\’ reports of the violent assault on Fallujah.