A diary of 2005

CounterPunch
by Alexander Cockburn

01/01/06

Who are we to complain? It was a bad year for the Empire and not just in Iraq. A half century after Fidel Castro stayed in Harlem, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela came to the Bronx and promised cheap home heating oil from Citgo so the poor could keep warm this winter. He kept his promise. A month later Evo Morales swept to victory in Bolivia. From London the world heard Harold Pinter, Nobel Laureate, broadcast the most savage denunciation of Empire heard since the words Tacitus put in the mouth of Calgacus . It was a bad year for George Bush, humiliated in Buenos Aires, scorned at home, It was a bad year for Tony Blair, his terror laws put to flight. It was a bad year for the Democrats, with only a handful, like Murtha, McKinney, Serrano, and a few others to salvage the party's honor in Congress. It was a bad year too for the corporate press. The New York Times saw Judy Miller turn from martyr to millstone...

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn12312005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp