New Constitution Escalates Polarization

by Ben Dangl, Upside Down World

"Let's go unblock the road, compañeros!" a man in an old baseball cap yells as he joins a group of people hauling rocks and tires from a central intersection in Cochabamba. This group of students and union activists are mobilizing against a civic strike led by middle-class foot soldiers of the Bolivian right. These actions in the street are part of a political roller coaster which is dramatically changing Bolivia as it enters the new year.

Moribund National ID Act Revived by Spitzer-Chertoff Love Fest

By A. Kronstadt, The Shadow

Toward a People's Agenda for Climate Justice

by Brian Tokar, Toward Freedom

With all the fanfare that usually accompanies such gatherings, delegates to the recent UN climate talks on the Indonesian island of Bali returned to their home countries declaring victory. Despite the continued obstructionism of the US delegation, the negotiators reached a mild consensus for continued negotiations on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, and at the very last moment were able to cajole and pressure the US to sign on.

An ominous Nov. 2 Jerusalem Post article on September's apparent Israeli bombing raid on a Syrian nuclear facility uses ambiguous language (highlighted below): the planes "carried" nuclear weapons, and the site was "totally destroyed" by "one bomb"—but it is not said explicitly that the bomb was nuclear. Is this psy-ops against Iran, showing that the US and Israel can bomb effectively in tandem—and are ready to use their nukes? Or perhaps the Arab sources (none of them named) quoted by AlJazeera were Syrian, making excuses for why nuclear material would be found at the bombed site?

Setting a new standard for accuracy in the blogosphere, the New York Times editorial board makes a major error in their Oct. 31 blog post, "A Visit From: Eli Khoury, Lebanese Activist." On "The Board," the editorial staff of the newspaper of record declares: "Israel, which is pounded daily by Hezbollah rockets coming across its northern border with Lebanon..."

Sam Spade Meets Emiliano Zapata in Mexico's Twilight Zone

by Chesley Hicks, WW4 REPORT

Book Review:
The Uncomfortable Dead (What's Missing is Missing):
A Novel of Four Hands
by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Subcomandante Marcos
Akashic Books, New York, 2006

The search for the "Evil and the Bad" is the quest that underlies The Uncomfortable Dead, an epistolary mystery, leftist political primer, and love letter to Mexico's eternal soul.

by Jason Wallach, Upside Down World

Global Capital Connives with African Genocide

by Ba Karang, The Hobgoblin, UK

Going by the most recent estimates, in Darfur more than 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced as refugees. But, despite rhetorical pronouncements against the genocide, the world seems to be more preoccupied with other business and "values" (sic) than the lives of Black Africans dying in the desert.