With the Free Market, dirty money becomes clean and in so doing it reinforces the spiral of perversion of unrestrained capitalism. We learn today that Enron Corp. donated over $1-million to Prince Charles' charity to help disadvantaged youth. We learn also that these donations prompted Prince Charles to meet with senior Enron executives in Houston and Europe.

Reference: Enron Gave to Prince Charles Fund, February 3,2002

Enron was the spinoff of the CIA/Pentagon operations.

Enron is not an isolated phenomenon of the Free Market. Journalist Larry Chin documents the birth of Enron as an offshoot of the CIA/Pentagon operations in foreign affairs. Former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay was a Pentagon official; influential Enron members had ties with the CIA and with the axis of goodness, that is the Bush/Cheney oligarchy. The California energy crisis was a manufactured Free Market service conceived and delivered by the influential political power of Enron. Larry Chin relates the world wide energy policies of the United States with the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Reference: Enron: Ultimate agent of the American empire, by Larry Chin, Online Journal, February 2002

The issue of the definition of Economics.

Economist Marc Lavoie writes: "Mainstream economics is the science of scarcity, the study of the optimal allocation of scarce means... By contrast, post-Keynesian economics is concerned, as the classical authors were, with production and distribution. The major issue is not how to allocate resources but rather how to get rid of unemployed resources and how to increase production and living standards." The application of the principles of mainstream economics is the major culprit of the Argentina's crisis.

Reference: The Tight Links Between Post-Keynesian and Feminist Economics, by Marc Lavoie (University of Ottawa, Canada), Janauary 2002

Defending the Free Market with military power.

The Bush administration will be proposing yearly increases in the Pentagon's spending of some $120 billion for the next five years. The proposal would bring total military spending to $396 billion for the fiscal year 2003, and it would include the creation of a $10 billion contingency fund for the discretional use of the presidency against the war on terrorism. The military spending of the United States is approaching to become 50 percent of all military spending in the world.

Reference: THE MILITARY BUDGET. Bush Sees Big Rise in Military Budget for Next 5 Years, by JAMES DAO, February , 2002, The New York Times

The fallacy of President Bush's 'axis of evil.'

Professor Stephen Zunes provides a detailed critique of foreign policies as transpired by Bush's speech to the Nation. Bush singles out the 'axis of evil' composed of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, without realizing that these countries have no ties to Al-Queda, and that unlike America's allies Marocco, Israel and Turkey these singled out countries don't occupy regions belonging to other countries. Bush charges the 'axis of evil' to seek weapons of mass destruction, while at the same time the U.S. rejects calls for the creation of a zones free of weapons of mass destruction for East Asia, the Middle East and Asia and while the U.S. feels free to bring nuclear weapons all around the world with its ships and planes. The speech never touched the real dangers in American and the world such as AIDS, environmental destruction, growing inequalities. Anti-America extremism is increasing in many parts of the world because of the U.S.'s hypocritical stance to fight for the freedom of the world while supporting dictatorships in country such as Saudi Arabia, Sultanate of Oman, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan.

Reference: STATE OF THE UNION: POINT/COUNTERPOINT, By Stephen Zunes, Foreign Policy in Focus, February 2, 2002

What others say about Bush's 'axis of evil.'

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called Mr Bush's comments "a big mistake... First of all they (Iran, Iraq and North Korea) are very different from each other," and Nato's Secretary-General Lord Robertson has warned the US it will have to provide evidence to justify any action against Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

North Korea has accused the Bush administration of "political immaturity and moral leprosy," Iran's influential cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati has called Bush a "bloodthirsty maniac." Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has stated "It is unacceptable in any circumstances for the fight against terrorism to be conducted with the aim of achieving one or another political aim concerning specific states or regimes." Iraq's vice-president, Taha Ramadan, described Bush's speech as "stupid" and the al-Iraq newspaper called the US "the sole evil on earth." Most moderate and radical Arab newspapers complained President Bush's failure to mention Israel as the main cause of the Middle East's conflict. The Syria Times has stated "It is hard to understand why the United States prefers to hide the evil face of Israel."

References: Bush's 'evil axis' comment stirs critics, BBC News, February 2, 2002

Bush repeats warning to Iran, Iraq and North Korea, by Anton Ferreira and Sayed Salahuddin, February 2, 2002

Arab states see the at 'slap in face' from Bush, Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, February 1, 2002