“The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas… And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.”
— Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree
NJOKI NJOROGE NJEHU, SOREN AMBROSE
Njehu is director of the 50 Years Is Enough Network, which scrutinizes the policies of the IMF and World Bank. Ambrose is the group’s senior analyst. They are in contact with analysts and activists from around the world in Washington this weekend and have produced four demands for the IMF and World Bank as those global institutions meet in the nation’s capital.
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ERIC LeCOMPTE
Outreach director for the School of the Americas Watch, LeCompte said: “Two of the leaders of the attempted Venezuelan coup, army Commander in Chief Efrain Vasquez and General Ramirez Poveda, received training at the notorious U.S. Army School of the Americas. This seems to be the latest in a long list of U.S. government-backed interventions for the benefit of a tiny group of oligarchs in Latin America.”
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PHYLLIS BENNIS
A fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN, Bennis said today: “The U.S. government has been undermining international law and the UN in a variety of ways. It continues to give billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and sells it F-16s, helicopter gunships, missiles, all being used against Palestinian civilians in an illegal occupation; it has used its veto to prevent the UN from even sending observers to the occupied territories.”
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KEVIN GRAY
A contributing editor to Black News in Columbia, S.C., Gray is author of the forthcoming The Death of Black Politics. He said today: “The root of America’s problems both domestically and internationally rests on one word: hypocrisy…. In the case of Israel, the U.S. ought to cease all aid to the apartheid state.”
ROBERT JENSEN
Author of the recent pamphlet “Citizens of the Empire: Thoughts on Patriotism, Dissent, and Hope,” Jensen, who is professor of journalism at the University of Texas, said today: “George W. Bush has called Ariel Sharon a ‘man of peace’ — that’s not surprising since both of them share a disregard for humanitarian concerns while using force against civilians, all the while pretending they are pursuing peace and security. Both want to usurp what does not justly belong to them through military power…. As Thomas Friedman has acknowledged, ‘The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.’ Militarism and capitalism, joined at the hip, are the exact opposite of true peace and security…”
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MARA VERHEYDEN-HILLIARD
Verheyden-Hilliard is a lawyer with the Partnership for Civil Justice, which is representing protesters.
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
