Let’s face it, most people just don’t think President Bush tells the truth. A new poll conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal shows that 59 percent of Americans refuse to describe Bush as "honest and straightforward." The poll also showed that Americans regard the Iraq war and jobs as the main area of concern. Why are they concerned?

By speaking out for the political soul of the sports we love, we do more than just build a fighting left that stands for social justice. We also begin to impose our own ideas on the world of sports – a counter morality to compete with the rank hypocrisy of the pro leagues. These are ideas that can embrace and cheer competition.

The Stop CAFTA coalition is a loose network of solidarity organizations working with partners in Central America to further opposition to the Central America Free Trade Agreement. The coalition will be holding a press conference and rally in front of Cannon Office building to denounce on going human rights violations, on Thursday July 14 at noon.

The White House’s abrupt switch from dismissive boasting to contrite silence speaks volumes. Like corporate executives or major league baseball players who take the Fifth rather than testify before Congress about their malfeasance or steroid use, the White House’s sudden resort to “no comment” amounts to a silent admission of wrongdoing

Over 1500 have been killed ...the vast majority in attacks that targeted civilians, not soldiers in the foreign occupying forces. One Iraqi preacher, explaining the vastly different levels of global concern, said, “This is because Iraqis are like chickens and nobody cares about the killing of a chicken, but the British are the lords of this world.”

Saturday, July 23 is the three-year anniversary of the meeting between high-level U.S. and British officials that the Downing Street Memo summarizes...On that day, all over the country, there will be town hall meetings, dramatic readings of the Downing Street Minutes, study circles, and house parties. Congressman John Conyers and others will be on a conference call that people at house parties can call into from their events.

Bolivia’s Congress voted July 5 to hold general elections this coming December instead of in 2007 as previously had been scheduled. Much to Washington’s dismay, Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) leader Evo Morales announced his candidacy for the presidency the following day.

In an opinion released in late May, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, a group created by the UN Commission on Human Rights, criticized the treatment of five Cuban men arrested in Miami in 1998 as "arbitrary."

The U.S. corporate media has begun to awaken to the fact that top Bush adviser Karl Rove exposed an undercover CIA agent’s identity and then lied about it. But reporters, editors, and producers remain slow to pick up on the heart of the story, namely that this was part of an extensive campaign to deceive the media, the public, and the Congress about the justifications for an unjustifiable war.

What can Marxists say about the issue of “terrorism?”... Such actions were not only destructive and counter-productive, Lenin argued, but an expression of petit bourgeois class arrogance, the belief that the working class will respond to those who commit individual acts of violence in their name.

Trade union organizations are fundamental to the development of secure, prosperous and democratic societies. They are the bedrock of civil society. I strongly believe that a truly free and democratic society will not exist anywhere in the world without a democratic labour movement...

"The leaders of the capitalist countries can never adopt policies that would undermine the economic system of capitalism of which they are the captains. They will never act against their system. It is their system that creates poverty... They have failed, their policies have failed, their system is a failure."

The biggest challenge facing the US economy this year is the continuing increase in world oil prices. The world petroleum prices hit many records since the beginning of this year and are now hovering at about 60 US dollars a barrel

If Buenos Aires and Brasilia fail to improve on their cooperative efforts, they would not only inhibit the potential success of both of their respective countries, but also undermine the diplomatic leadership of the new autonomy movement which is attracting more and more Latin American countries to its roster.

Siegel calls his book The Prince of the City, the title of a famous 1990s crime film. Actually, what Giuliani represented for New York, at least from my vantage point in New Jersey, could be summed up in a line from a much greater crime film of the 1970s, The Godfather Part II. I am thinking of the scene on the hotel balcony in Batista’s Cuba shortly before the revolution when, as the gangsters are cutting up a cake with the map of Cuba on it, Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) tells Michael Coreleone (Al Pacino) “we have here what we have always looked for – a government we can really work with.”

Ultimately the life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than the life of an oyster-- David Hume

Two pieces in the Times last week finally resolve, for me at least, the question of the relation between a scientific outlook on the world and the outlook of the Catholic Church.

The Working Group notes that it arises from the facts and circumstances in which the trial took place and from the nature of the charges and the harsh sentences given to the accused, that the trial did not take place in the climate of objectivity and impartiality which is required in order to conclude on the observance of the standards of a fair trial, as defined in Article 14...

The imperialist wars of conquest are waged to safeguard US control of scarce energy resources and to enhance Washington's global hegemony... Those who respond by attacking soft civilian targets are ruthless, reactionaries who are out of step with all decent human beings... Tony Blair must answer for his role in fanning the flames of this disastrous conflagration

Many in the Haitian bourgeoisie have accused the U.N. troops - led and dominated by Brazilian, Argentinian, and Chilean contingents - of being ineffective and not repressive enough against rebellious slums in the capital like Belair and Cité Soleil, where resistance to last year’s coup d’état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide runs deep

Foreign Affairs Minister Nasser al Kidwa said that the countries must not recognize the illegal status result[ing] in the construction of the apartheid wall and should ensure the Israeli compliance with the international humanitarian law in the letter of the Geneva Convention and the United Nation...