Anonymous Comrade submits:

"The Masters of the Universe"

Pepe Escobar, Asia Times

It may be instructive to learn what US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the "Prince of Darkness" Richard Perle were doing last weekend. From May 15 to 18 they were guests at the Trianon Palace Hotel, close to the spectacular Versailles palace near Paris, for the annual meeting of the Bilderberg club.

Depending on the ideological prism applied, the Bilderberg club may be considered an ultra-VIP international lobby of the power elite of Europe and America, capable of steering international policy from behind closed doors; a harmless "discussion group" of politicians, academics and business tycoons; or a capitalist secret society operating entirely through self interest and plotting world domination.

Full story is at Asia Times

"Empire and the Capitalists"

Immanuel Wallerstein, May 15, 2003

No doubt, George W. Bush thinks he is in the forefront of those sustaining the world capitalist system. No doubt, a large part of the world left thinks that too. But do the great capitalists think so? That is far less clear. A major warning signal has been launched by Morgan Stanley, one of the world's leading financial investor firms, in their Global Economic Forum. Stephen Roach writes there that a "US-centric world" is unsustainable for the world-economy and bad in particular for the United States. He specifically takes on Robert Kagan, a leading neo-con intellectual, who has been arguing that American hegemony can only increase, particularly vis-a-vis Europe. Roach could not agree less. He sees the present world situation as one of "profound asymmetries" in the world-system, one that cannot last.

California Town Criminalizes Compliance with Patriot Act

ARCATA, California (AP) -- More than 100 cities and one state have passed resolutions condemning the USA Patriot Act, saying it gives the federal government too much snooping power. But in this liberal fold of Northern California's Redwood Curtain, a simple denouncement just doesn't go far enough.

To cooperate with the act, the City Council says, is criminal.

9/11 Investigation Public Hearing Agenda Detailed

NOTE: Despite an expressed commitment to investigate (during these May hearings) the failure of the National Air Defense  and the collapse of airspace security over our Nation's capital and the Pentagon, the commission has apparently elected to only have one witness to testify regarding this very well documented line of inquiry.