Something happened. Somewhere along the line, the environmental movement disconnected with the people, rejected its political roots, pulled the plug on its vibrant and militant tradition. It packed its bags, starched its shirts and jetted to [Washington, DC], where it became what it once despised: a risk-aversive, depersonalized, hyper-analytical, humorless, access-driven, intolerant, centralized, technocratic, dealmaking, passionless, direct-mailing, lawyer-laden monolith to mediocrity.

On Friday an Italian judge ordered 26 Americans, a CIA-led team, to stand trial for kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in 2003. He was brought to Egypt where he says he was tortured as a subject to CIA "rendition". He was later released. Also on trial is Nicolo Pollari, Italy's former spy chief, and members of the SISMI military intelligence agency.

African Americans will pay a special, historical price if a corporate-molded Black politician becomes the titular leader of an unreconstructed U.S. imperial state - and, make no mistake about it, (Democratic Senator & Presidential hopeful) Barack Obama is an imperialist. No one but a deep-fried imperialist could describe U.S. behavior in Iraq as "coddling" the Iraqis, as Obama said to an establishment foreign policy gathering in Chicago...

The NBA (National Basketball Association) banished Tim Hardaway from the all-star weekend in Las Vegas because of his anti-gay remarks..."We removed [Hardaway] from representing [the NBA] because we didn't think his comments were consistent with having anything to do with us," [NBA Commissioner David] Stern [said]...Hardaway['s]...comments...came a week after John Amaechi became the first former NBA player to say he was gay.

In the hugely popular television series 24, federal agent Jack Bauer always gets his man, even if he has to play a little rough. Suffocating, electrocuting or drugging a suspect are all in a day's work...The US military has appealed to the producers of 24 to tone down the torture scenes because of the impact they are having both on troops in the field and America's reputation abroad...(F)orget that the White House has authorised interrogation techniques that some classify as torture, that damned Jack Bauer is giving us a bad name.

Just in case anyone needs reminding that "USA" has always stood for "United States of Aggression," here are a forgotten few from February's Files:

...(T)o anyone not delusional...a massive air assault on Iran...would seem to be an act of madness. It would be immensely destructive to Iran...bloody in its repercussions for the U.S....imperiling to U.S. allies in the region; and, for the global economy, a potential energy catastrophe. A series of explosive events...could unravel the oil heartlands of the planet, making the administration's last several years in Iraq little more than an hors d'oeuvre before a banquet of catastrophe.

"None of [the solutions presented by mainstream groups] address the power structures,"..."None of them address corporations. None of them address a lack of democracy…. The environmental groups are not questioning this larger mentality that's killing the planet."

--Radical Environmentalist Derrick Jensen

The United States now exists as a parasite upon the rest of the world. In this system, this political entity called the United States of America is not only a parasite, but a parasite that is destroying its own host. There is only one outcome in the end for such a relationship; we will all perish together. With the help of the people of the world...we can all escape this fate. Each of us - with the destruction of US imperial power - will be in a better position to work for a sustainable and indpendent future for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren.

A training program in which officers observe volunteers who may be high on drugs, and is used in 30 U.S. states, has the Edmonton Police Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in a public relations nightmare.

This law will be the New Deal of the 21st century if it is passed.

Employee Free Choice Act Hearings Begin in Congress

But the right wing is mobilizing to oppose it.

Canadian citizen Omar Khadr...[faces] terrorist charges at the U.S. military's internationally condemned "Gitmo" prison camp...Khadr was 15 at the time [he was captured by the US in Afghanistan] and has spent more than four years at Gitmo, most of that time without being charged, frequently in isolation, treated shabbily, and denied access to his Canadian lawyers.

As opposition grows in America to the failed Iraq adventure, the Bush administration is preparing public opinion for an attack on Iran, its latest target...As the American disaster in Iraq deepens and domestic and foreign opposition grows, "neo-con" fanatics such as Vice-President Dick Cheney believe their opportunity to control Iran's oil will pass unless they act no later than the spring.

Growing references by the US and Israel to the Muslim Middle East as a collection of failed states are part of the propaganda campaign to strip legitimacy from Muslim states and set them up for attack...But do the US and Israel fit the profile of successful states, or are they failed states themselves?...A compelling case can be made that the US and Israel are failed states.

According to the [Iranian] revolution's first president Bani Sadr and the US Ambassador William Sullivan, the [clerical] dictatorship was, at the very least, encouraged by the US Embassy in Iran, who preferred a military/clerical junta to a left-leaning democratic state. The army's unpopularity made its participation impossible, so the clerics replaced it with the Revolutionary Guard. That dictatorship exists today, albeit in a different form, with the primary difference being that laws are passed by representatives but are subject to the review of the clerics.