All of us -- including Paris herself-- agree, there are more important issues to cover than this made-for-tabloids saga. But note that no one -- especially the average media egghead -- is making the same argument about the wall-to-wall Sopranos coverage.

Endlessly analyzing the metaphysical and cultural significance of the ending of an HBO mob series is A-okay even when there are folks dying on the streets of Baghdad.

But it's a crime against humanity to waste so much ink on the antics of some blonde bimbette.

Hmm, the right priorities or just pop culture snobbery? Not that there is anything wrong with the latter, but in the midst of all this self-righteous indignation, it's good to remind ourselves that pop culture is still just pop culture, even when it involves eight-letter words.   more »

The façade of conservative

political dominance is crumbling

The disintegration runs deeper than

public disaffection with the Bush Regime’s

catastrophic failures and is more fundamental than

the political realignment of the 2006 election

   more »

Keywords: conservative, progressive, rightwing

A real solution to the planetary environmental crisis cannot be accomplished simply through new technologies or through turning nature into a market.

It is necessary to go to the root of the problem by addressing the social relations of production.

We must recognize that today's ecological problems are related to a system of global inequality that demands ecological destruction as a necessary condition of its existence.

New social and democratic solutions need to be developed, rooted in human community and sustainability, embodying principles of conservation that are essential to life.

But this means stepping outside the capitalist frame and making peace with the planet — and with other human beings.   more »

Gore points out in his book that the two stereotypes of George W. Bush as a dimwitted stooge or as a religious fanatic are flat out wrong. Rejecting the idea that Bush is either stupid or truly religious, Gore characterizes Bush in a nutshell like this:

I’m convinced that most of the president’s frequent departures from fact-based analysis have much more to do with his right-wing political and economic ideology than with the Bible….

Now, with the radical Right, we have a political faction disguised as a religious sect, and the president of the United States is heading it.

The obvious irony is that Bush uses a religious blind faith to hide what is actually an extremist political philosophy with a disdain for social justice that is anything but pious by the standards of any respected faith tradition I know.   more »

Keywords: religious, right, privilege, gore, bush, ideology, wealth

Avraham Burg never minced his words, but, in an interview published on Friday, 8 June in the Haaretz daily [excerpts below], this politician turned businessman goes so far as to characterize Israel, the country he left to live in France, as "Zionist ghetto."

He believes that it is time to denounce the theory of Theodor Herzl, reckoning that, after the creation of Israel, Zionism should have been abolished.

When asked what he thinks of a democratic Jewish State, he says: "People find this very comfortable. It's lovely. It's schmaltzy. It's nostalgic. It's retro. It gives a sense of fullness. But 'Jewish-democratic' is nitroglycerine."

Author of a book, Defeating Hitler, this ex-pillar of the pacifist movement Peace Now plans to call into question the Law of Return which makes it possible for any Jew to come to live in Israel.

He feels that this law is "the mirror image of Hitler": "I don't want Hitler to define my identity."   more »