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February 23, 2007 | Issue 620

NO TO WAR AND OCCUPATION

As Bush's surge begins in Baghdad:
The daily humiliation of life under occupation
The U.S. and its puppet government in Iraq are claiming that the "surge" of U.S. troops into Baghdad is a "success," but it is coming at a terrible price for ordinary Iraqis.

WHAT WE THINK
Two-thirds of people around the U.S. do...
Why can't Congress oppose the war?
Last November's elections sent a clear antiwar message, but four months later, the new Congress hasn't gotten all its members to cast a vote about the war on Iraq.

Agustín Aguayo faces seven years in prison for resisting the war
"I saw countless innocent lives cut short"
Spc. Agustín Aguayo did everything by the book. Now he faces seven years in a military prison for his troubles.

Antiwar vet on why he decided to face the threat of prison
"I wanted to stand with these resisters"
War resister Darrell Anderson explains how he came to oppose the Iraq war--and why he took a stand that could have landed him in a military jail.

FEATURES AND COLUMNS

The real story of the Clintons:
The art of politics without conscience
CounterPunch coeditor Jeffrey St. Clair talks about the story of the Clinton presidency--and the grim record of Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton.

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
Bush's scorched-earth budget
The cuts to feed the war machine
Coupled with whopping military expenditures and permanent tax cuts for the rich, Bush's budget shreds what little remains of the tattered social safety net.

New questions facing immigrant rights activists
Debating next steps for the movement
Amid ramped-up federal raids and a raft of new anti-immigrant legislation at the state level, the immigrant rights movement is building grassroots emergency response networks.

The roots of racism in the U.S.
In an excerpt from his book Black Liberation and Socialism, Ahmed Shawki explains how racial oppression emerged as a consequence of the economic system of capitalism.

THE MEANING OF MARXISM
Can ordinary people run society?
Often, it is workers' hard-won, first-hand knowledge that engineers and managers use to figure out how to improve production--to squeeze as much out of workers as possible.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Conflicts between oligarchy and social movements
Is Bolivia headed for a showdown?
Increasing tensions threaten to shatter the balancing act that Evo Morales' year-old government has tried to maintain between the social movements and the oligarchy.

Two Cochabamba activists speak out:
"The right doesn't care if people die"

WHAT WE THINK
Bush backpedals on North Korea
The terms of the diplomatic "breakthrough" with North Korea have dealt another blow to the fantasies of the neoconservative hawks who once ruled the roost in Washington.

NATIONAL NEWS

New York governor lowers ax on health care
A Democrat targets the most vulnerable
New York's new Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer has proposed his first budget--and it is nothing less than an all-out attack on unions, public education and affordable health care.

Still behind bars on trumped-up charges
Al-Arian collapses during hunger strike
One of the most prominent victims of the federal government's witch-hunt of Arabs was found collapsed in his prison cell, after more than three weeks on hunger strike.

Victim of LA's deadly gang in blue
Los Angeles police in riot gear converged on an eastside housing project to disperse a makeshift carwash intended to raise funds for the funeral of their latest victim.

ON THE PICKET LINE

UFCW votes overwhelmingly to authorize a strike
Stop & Shop out to bust union
Workers in five UFCW locals voted almost unanimously to authorize a strike at all Stop & Shop supermarkets in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

LA teachers make gains after large mobilization
On the first day of balloting for a strike authorization vote, leaders of United Teachers Los Angeles and school officials announced a tentative agreement on a three-year union contract.

Labor in brief
Fight the cuts in Cook County

NEWS FROM OUR STRUGGLE

News and reports
No to war and occupation | Standing up for immigrant rights

VIEWS AND VOICES

Trying to get Teamsters on record against the war
Antiwar voices in our unions
In the run-up to the January 27 antiwar protests, I tried to pass a resolution in my union, Teamsters Local 70.

Cracks at the top over Iraq disaster
I take serious issue with Andy Libson's letter in which he writes that Socialist Worker is in the wrong by recognizing "splits" in the ruling class on the question of Iraq.

Views in brief
NYPD's racist searches | Treating kids humanely | Defending Arabs and Muslims

REVIEWS

"War on terror" turned inward
The expanding regime of incarceration and deportation consuming immigrant communities is the subject of Deepa Fernandes' exhaustively researched book Targeted.

The Fever is Marxism 101--for the well-to-do
Wallace Shawn's one-man show, The Fever, tells the story of the political awakening of an unnamed, comfortable, upper-middle class man.

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