“Impressions of Gaza”

Khaleej Times article, The Disconnect in US Democracy (October 29, 2004): "Last month a Gallup poll asked Americans why they're voting for either Bush or Kerry. From a multiple-choice list, a mere 6 percent of Bush voters and 13 percent of Kerry voters picked the candidates' "agendas/ideas/ platforms/goals." That's how the political system prefers it. Often the issues that are most on people's minds don't enter at all clearly into the debate."

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Democracy Now video interview, On the State of the Nation, Iraq and the Election (October 21, 2004): "There are serious problems here. One problem is almost a total disillusion, disappearance of the basis for a democratic society. I mean, if we compare, say, this election with elections in, say, the second biggest country in the hemisphere, Brazil. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. They have actual elections where there are issues and where they can elect some mass popular organizations. They can elect, as presidents, one from their own ranks, a man whose background is a peasant, steelworker, union organizer, no higher education, very impressive figure."

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Tehran Times interview, Money Determines U.S. President, with Mehr News Agency (October 11, 2004): "The US is a very free country, perhaps uniquely so. It is also, to an unusual extent, dominated by a highly class conscious business sector, so much so that America's leading social philosopher, John Dewey, described politics as "the shadow cast by business over society." That is not much of an exaggeration. On the eve of the year 2000 presidential elections, a large majority of the population dismissed it as unrelated to their interests and concerns, regarding it as a game played by wealthy contributors and the Public Relations industry, which trains candidates to focus on "values" and "personal qualities," and to keep away from issues."

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Introduction to Doug Stokes, America's Other War: Terrorizing Colombia (December 2004): "As I write, I have just received the most recent of the regular notices from the Jesuit-based human rights organization Justicia y Paz in Bogota, directed by the courageous priest Father Javier Giraldo, one of Colombia's leading defenders of human rights, at great personal risk. This notice reports the assassination of an Afro-Colombian human rights activist, Yolanda Ceron Delgado, as she was leaving the pastoral social office near the police station. Justicia y Paz reports that it is a typical paramilitary operation, in association with the government security forces and police. Regrettably, the event is not remarkable."

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Information Clearing House brief article, Understanding the Bush Doctrine (October 2, 2004): "Perhaps the most threatening document of our time is the U.S. National Security Strategy of September 2002. Its implementation in Iraq has already taken countless lives and shaken the international system to the core."

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