Note from the Editor

Have you heard about the New Economy lately? Remember, we've gone through the end of ideology, the end of history, limitless expansion and skies as blue as your eyes could see. Remember? Umm, it kind of went to burst, did it not? Must be due to the evildoers, right? What about another explanation, one that Milo Clark presents with sober clarity. Think Ponzi schemes, a very enronesque behavior. For a more humorous discourse, read Gilles d'Aymery's trilogy. But don't worry; there is nothing that a little big war cannot fix with the help of defense expenditures (see our short dossier on the Defense Budget). War and economy... An old story! Get the flag out, writes Aleksandra Priestfield, push all the buttons of religious and cultural differences, as Naseem Jamali, a new contributor to Swans, shows, throw a few feel-good parades, talk of sacrifice and you have it made.

Then you can carry on with the same policies, destabilize entire countries, vilify any leader that does not agree with you, play the name-calling game in big scarlet letters -- Stephen Gowans writes about the latest candidate to the Hitler-like title, Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe -- without ever looking at yourself in a mirror; an exercise that Philip Greenspan does with interesting and not surprisingly controversial results. Controversy does not seem to particularly scare Michael Anderson (also new to Swans) either. He shares his sentiments provoked by a recent column in the San Francisco Chronicle and the callousness of its author.

In the midst of these gloomy warring and financial chess games another election season is upon us. Michael Stowell and Deck Deckert still hold out hope for election and campaign finance reform. Sandy Lulay sent a heartache poem for Valentine's Day, and we are publishing a correction about a scientific paper on DU that we posted last November.

As always, please enjoy this rendition, form your OWN opinion and let your friends (and foes) know about Swans. It's your voice that makes ours grow.

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Connections with humor

Milo Clark:  Financial Bubbles Track Capitalism

Sometimes called "Dot.coms," "Savings and Loan Scandal," "Recessions," other times maybe "Depressions" if not "Collapses" but rarely, "Failures of Fantasies:" They all share the quality of bubbles;   More...

 

9-11: Overheard on Main Street
Gilles d'Aymery:  Scene I - The Situation

- Hey Joe, still asking about 9-11?   More...

 

Scene II - The Lament

- Oh, Joe, I'm so sorry. How could it be?   More...

 

Scene III - The Solution

- Hey, Joe, about your...   More...

 

 
Cutting to the Chase

Stephen Gowans:  Mugging Mugabe

Zimbabwe's Hitler Wages War Of Land, screamed the headline in The Globe and Mail (Toronto) of April 8, 2000.   More...

 

Philip Greenspan:  A Belated Apology to Adolf

There is a saying to the effect that to understand someone it is necessary to 'walk in their shoes'. Barbara Ehrenreich did just that.   More...

 

Michael P. Anderson:  Keeping a Close Eye on You and Yours

Oh, it's wonderful all right. Yeah, let's talk about that "protecting you and yours" phrase you bandy about.   More...

 

 
Patterns Which Connect

Aleksandra Priestfield:  Flying The Flag

America has always been a flag-flying nation. It even suffers from a charming delusion that it has invented the color scheme of "Red White and Blue." But few other countries have been so sturdily affectionate to the emblems flying from their flagpoles.   More...

 

Naseem Jamali:  Whither Radical Islam After Afghanistan

Religious activism in most Muslim countries ranges from teaching and preaching a narrow and angry interpretation of the faith, to charitable work, community services, street demonstrations, agitation and terrorism. Sometimes this activism has manifested itself in radical application of specific political and social solutions to problems facing the population, not uncommonly by force and violence.   More...

 

 
Society: Elections and Money

Michael Stowell:  Dogpaddling in the Cesspool

Guess what, folks; it's election time, again.   More...

 

Deck Deckert:  No Donations Without Representation

I received a begging letter from a nominally liberal politician the other day, saying all the right things about several issues.   More...

 

 
Poetry

Sandy Lulay:  Cross Fire

Who is she
This woman child
Who comes in visions
Drifting Slowly,
As slips the smoke
From the candle's lip.   More...

 

 
Correction

The Editors:  Erratum on DU Locations in Yugoslavia

On November 26, 2001 we published the article Sweeping the Truth Under the DU Rug: NATO Use of Depleted Uranium in the War Against Yugoslavia by Dr. Vladimir Ajdacic & Dr. Predrag Jaksic. Unfortunately, some of the data presented in the paper is incorrect.   More...

 

 
Dossier

Swans:  US Proposed Military Budget for 2003

Proposed military budget: $396.1 billion -- 17.8 percent of the entire federal budget and 53 percent of total discretionary spending (monies that are controlled by the Congress and the Administration).   More...

 

 

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THE COMPANION OF THINKING PEOPLE

SWANS
URL: http://www.swans.com/library/past_issues/2002/020211.html
Created: February 23, 2002