Today's Stories

June 18, 2008

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Genuflections

June 17, 2008

Conn Hallinan
The Brain Trauma Vets

Wajahat Ali
Chomsky Speaks: On Iran and Iraq

Marjorie Cohn
Reviving Habeas Corpus

Uri Avnery
Two Professors: Mearsheimer and Walt in Israel

David Macaray
Adversarial Relationship

Rannie Amiri
Forgotten Lives in a Forgotten War

Website of the Day
Pentagon Money

June 16, 2008

Uri Avnery
An Apology

Corey D. B. Walker
The Racial Politics of Symbols

Howard Lisnoff
Files Upon Files

Dennis Loo
2008 Elections: Of Whales and Worms

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama and the Fall Into Tyranny

June 13 / 15, 2008

Douglas Valentine
McCain: War Hero or Go-To Collaborator?

Alexander Cockburn
Change, What Change?

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft

Peter Linebaugh
On Wat Tyler Day

Ishmael Reed
The Colossus: Sonny Rollins, Take One

Joe Bageant
Old Dogs and Hard Time

Harry Browne
Ireland Shows the Way!

Andy Worthington
The Supreme Court's Gitmo Decision: What Does It Mean?

Jeff Sharlet
The F-Word

Binoy Kampmark
They Gassed Us: Agent Orange in OZ

Alan Farago
His Little Piece of the Pie

Brian Cloughley
America the Detested: the Pakistan Airstrikes

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
How to Stretch Gasoline

Reza Fiyouzat
Oil and Racism

Patrick Bond /
Richard Kamidza
How Europe Underdevelops Africa

David Yearsley
Music in the Rubble

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Thank You, Dennis Kucinich!

Ronnie Cummins
Don't Panic; Go Organic

Dan Bacher
Bush Tries to Raid Salmon Disaster Funds

Michael Dickinson
Jesus in Megiddo Prison

Seth Sandronsky
My Father's World

Poets' Basement
Tu Fu / Rexroth

Website of the Weekend
Torture and the American Psyche

June 12, 2008

Judith Levine
As Cranes Fall and People Die

Patrick Cockburn
Amid Iraqi Fury, U.S. Offers Concessions on Military Bases

Saul Landau
The Iraq War Becomes Suicidal

Christopher Brauchli
Bush Bling-Bling: Government by Crony

Norman Solomon
Deadly Diplomacy

Helen Redmond
Why Can't We All Get KennedyCare?

Laura Carlsen
No Rest for the Working Poor

Jeremy R. Hammond
Threats Against Iran Escalate

Anne Landman
Pinkwashing: Can Shopping Cure Breast Cancer?

Website of the Day
Fire in Watts

June 11, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Oil Prices Are So High

Ralph Nader
Wall Street Gamblers

Joshua Frank
Why I Can't Support Barack Obama

Clifton Ross
Conversation in Miami: the Neoliberal Left and Socialism

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Whatever Happened to "Democracy Now?"

Stephen Lendman
Exposing Pentagon and CIA Corruption

Diane Farsetta
Talking Back to Bill O'Reilly

Ron Jacobs
The Sixties Painted Black

Deborah Rich
Hay Belly Nation: the FDA and the O-Word

Hop Wechsler
A Friend of Women? My Bill Clinton ... and Ours

Website of the Day
A New Path to the Waterfall

June 10, 2008

Alan Farago
John McCain and the Company He Keeps

James G. Abourezk
Deadly Fallout From Obama's Groveling Before Israel Lobby

Saree Makdisi
Banned in the U.S.A. (Almost)

Malini Johar Schueller
A Picture From Beirut

John Ross
Killing Foods, Killing People

Wajahat Ali
Rumi and Sufism

Peter Morici
Bernanke Aggravates Recession Risks

Jordan Flaherty
Inside Angola Prison, Louisiana's Last Slave Plantation

Gary Macfarlane
Collaboration on the Clearwater: Is It Legitimate?

Joanne Mariner
The Gitmo Trials: an Inglorious Start

Website of the Day
The End of the Clinton Machine?

June 9, 2008

Uri Avnery
No, I Can't: Obama, Israel and AIPAC

Nikolas Kozloff
McCain & the Republican Insitute: Promoting Iraqi Occupation for "a Million Years"

Allan Nairn
Drawing Your Last Breath Hungry

Dennis Loo
Threats on Iran and the "Batterer's Defense"

Harry Browne
Irish Euro Vote Comes Down to the Wire

C. Hand
U. S. Bid to Hike Iran's Gas Prices Seems Doomed

Peter Morici
An Unsustainable Trade Deficit

Kenneth Couesbouc
A Ripe Time for Inflation

Martha Rosenberg
The Inconvenient Senator Grassley

James L. Secor
Chinese Superstition or Unconscious Oracle?

Website of the Day
Pay Bo Diddley!

June 7 / 8, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Obama Goes Over the Top

Ishmael Reed
How Miles Davis Changed My Life

Jeffrey St. Clair
What a Miner's Life is Worth

Nikolas Kozloff
Meet the King the Beers: John McCain and Latin America

Dave Lindorff
The High Cost of a Single War-Like Remark: Oil Prices, Israel, Iran and the U.S.

Robert Fantina
When Truth is the Casualty

Conn Hallinan
Iran and Rumors of War

Neve Gordon
The Occupation and the Politics of Death

Tom Barry
The Deterrence Strategy of Homeland Security

Patrick Irelan
Raiding the Packing House

Tim Wise
Your Whiteness is Showing

David Ker Thomson
The Hard Question

Joshua Frank
"Socialist" Wins Republican Nomination in Montana

David Yearsley
Disaster Music

James T. Phillips
1968: Year of the Rat

Joe Allen
The Real Bobby Kennedy

P. Sainath
Making Life Brighter in Kondapur

David Macaray
Should Unions be More Democratic?

B.R. Gowani
Experience and the Two-for-One

Fred Gardner
What Happened (at the DA's Office)

Peter Harley
Technology to the Rescue? Kurzweil and the Human Machines

Michael Dickinson
Surrender the Bones of Geronimo!

Jen Roesch
Where are the Real Women in Sex and the City?

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Landau, and Buknatski

Website of the Day
Partying with the Waltons

June 6, 2008

Frank Barat
An Interview with Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky on the Future of Israel / Palestine

Patrick Cockburn
U.S. Extorts Iraq to Approve Military Deal

Gary Leupp
Cheney Enrages Iraqis Over Security Deal

James Abourezk
Name That Terrorist

Peter Morici
Recession Grips the Jobs Market

Faheem Hussain
What is NATO Doing in Afghanistan?

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Britons Go on Hunger Strike

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
How Will Musharraf Go? Impeachment or Safe Exit?

Dave Lindorff
Congress Needs to Defend Itself

Website of the Day
Backstage with Bo Diddley

June 5, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Bush's Secret Deal Would Ensure Permanent U.S. Occupation of Iraq

Sharon Smith
Hillary's Wreckage

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's Electoral Dilemma: Latinos or Reagan Democrats?

Linn Washington, Jr.
Police Brutality and Cover-Up in Philly

Omar Barghouti
60 Years of Nakba, 41 Years of Occupation ...

Scott Pellegrino
Jim Crow Radio: Bob Grant's Lifetime Achievement Award

John Walsh
Obama Woos AIPAC

Dan Bacher
The Parching of California

DC Larson
Nazi Rockers ... F-Off

Robert Jensen
Masculine, Feminine or Human?

Website of the Day
Ohio Cops Attack Long Walkers

June 4, 2008

Eric Walberg
Princess Patricia and the Taliban

Gary Leupp
Iran and EFPs: Chronology of a Lie

Ralph Nader
Disenfranchised Youth

Dave Lindorff
Of Whiners and Poor Losers

George Wuerthner
Farm Economics

Victor M. Rodriguez
The Puzzle of Race and Politics

Remi Kanazi
Why a Cultural Boycott of Israel is Needed

Stephane Luçon
Renault's Romanian Fairyland Suspended

Farzana Versey
The Tablighi Jamaat Movement

Laray Polk
The Militarization of Space

Website of the Day
Red State Rebels

June 3, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts /
Lawrence M. Stratton
Legislating Tyranny

Mike Whitney
The Withering Economy

Steve Early
San Juan Showdown

Manuel Otero
Why Hillary Won Puerto Rico: the View from the Colony

George Bisharat
The Hope of a Victimized People

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's VP Quandry

Dan Bacher
Death on the Salmon Highway

Website of the Day
Censoring Bill Knott?

June 2, 2008

Uri Avnery
The Olmert Scandal

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's Latino Problem Getting Worse

Allan J. Lichtman
Revisionist History: Bush, Borah and Hitler

Malini Johar Schueller
The Color of Randomness: Returning to the US From Beirut Via Syria

Robert Weissman
What's Driving Skyrocketing Oil Prices?

Peter Morici
Bailing Out Wall Street

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Don't Get Burned: How to Protect Yourself From Raytheon's Pain Gun

John Ross
Celebrating Catholic Fanaticism in Mexico

Ahmad Al-Akhras
Encounters with the Watch List

Website of the Day
Man on Earth

May 31 / June 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Worst is Yet to Come

Jeffrey St. Clair
Arkansas Bloodsuckers

Gary Leupp
How McClellan Prettifies Bush

Stan Cox
Broken Agriculture

Rannie Amiri
Lebanon: the Domino That Wouldn't Fall

P. Sainath
A Guaranteed Day's Work--in the Fields, at 110 Degrees, for $2 a Day

Binoy Kampmark
Going Bankrupt in Vallejo

Robert Fantina
Bush, Rice and McClellan

Seth Sandronsky
Will There be Water Riots, as Sacramento Goes Dry?

Corporate Crime Reporter
Death Penalty for Bush?

Anthony DiMaggio
Gaming the Ghetto: Grand Theft Auto IV, Racist Media and the Concrete Jungle

Karl Grossman
A Half-Trillion for Nukes

Matt Reichel
From Vegas to the Heartland and Back Again

Paul Myron Hillier
Of Gas and God

Andy Worthington
Suicide at Guantánamo

David Yearsley
And the Winner is ... Wayne Shorter

Daniel Cassidy
Free Lunch

Charles Thomson
If Hitler Had Been a Hippy ...

Gary Corseri
A Dream Deferred: Activism and the Arts

Wajahat Ali
Sex and the City Through a Man's Eyes

Ron Jacobs
Robins Weep

Poets' Basement
McNeill and Davies

Website of the Day
Last Charge of the Light Horse

May 30, 2008

Bassam Aramin
Here's the Truth You've Been Running From

Andrew Cockburn
Petraeus' Iran Obsession

Saul Landau
How We Got Into This Mess

Nikolas Kozloff
Meet South America's New Secessionists

Robert Sandels
Turning Back the Clock on Cuba

Dave Lindorff
Talk is Cheap

Martha Rosenberg
Raiding Big Meat; Arresting the Wrong People

Harvey Wasserman
Lieberman & McCain: Linking Internet Censorship and Atomic Reactor Terror

Doug Giebel
A Plague on Both Your Houses (of Congress)

Shaun Harkin
The Trial of the Raytheon 9

Website of the Day
The Once and Future Environmental Movement

May 29, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Bill Clinton and the Rich Women

Nikolas Kozloff
Puerto Rico, Obama and the Politics of Race

Col. Dan Smith
Deceiving the Dead

Karl Grossman
The Most Lucrative Incentive for Nuclear Power in the History of the United States

William S. Lind
Inside the Washington Game

Robert Weissman
What to do About the Price of Oil

Dave Lindorff
Why Puerto Rico Won't Matter

David Macaray
A Union Fable

Chris Genovali
Fear and Loathing in the Northern Rockies

Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Battle Over Oil

Website of the Day
Support Antiwar.com

May 28, 2008

Wajahat Ali
The Libertarian Dark Horse: An Exclusive Interview with Ron Paul

Ralph Nader
What's Really Driving the High Price of Oil?

Brian McKenna
Why I Want to Teach Anthropology at the Army War College

Corporate Crime Reporter
Why Vincent Bugliosi Wants to Prosecute George W. Bush for Murder

Brian Cloughley
The Attack on Damadola

Eric Walberg
Opium for the Masses from Afghanistan

Michael Dickinson
Raytheon's Pain Ray: Coming to a Protest Near You

Ijaz Khan
Opening Windows in Pakistan

Website of the Day
Older Than America

May 27, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
In Her Mind She's Killed Before: the Plot to Assassinate Ralph Nader

Greg Kafoury
Is Obama Turning (Further) Right?

Jean Bricmont
Western Delusions

Tim Wise
Farrakhan is not the Problem

Ricardo Alarcón
Puerto Rico's Turn

Stephen Soldz
APA Supports Psychologist Engagement in Bush Regime Interrogations

Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo 16

Alan Singer
Vapid, Stupid and Insulting: Chuck Schumer Speaks to the Graduates

Richard Neville
Storm in an A-Cup

Susie Day
Gone with the W

May 26, 2008

Uri Avnery
The Syrian Option

Bill Quigley
War Immemorial Day

Col. Dan Smith
Retreating from Hell: a Different Memorial Day

Cindy Sheehan
Why Memorial Day is a Double-Whammy for Me

Marjorie Cohn
Hillary's Assassination Politics: Her Last Shot?

Fred Gardner
Does the VA Care?

Raymond J. Lawrence
Pain Pays: Getting Rich at NY Presbyterian Hospital

Harvey Wasserman
Mugging the Election System

Moncia Benderman
Truth Matters

David Rovics
In Praise of Utah Phillips

Website of the Day
Fox News Jokes About "Knocking Off" Osama and Obama

May 24 / 25, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Death-Wish Hillary Primes Manchurian Candidate

Jeffrey St. Clair
Yellowstone: How Sununu Shrank the Ecosystem

Barbara Rose Johnston
Dam Legacies, Damned Futures

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Fourth Fleet in Venezuelan Waters

Adriana Kojeve
The Environment and the 2008 Elections

Robert Fantina
Justice Department's Revelations on Torture

Dave Lindorff
Bush's War on Children in Iraq

David Yearsley
The War on Kitsch

Nelson P. Valdés
The Buying of "Democracy" Agents in Cuba

Kathleen M. Barry
Celebrating Ethnic Cleansing

John Ross
Mexico's Narco Opera Reaches for High Point

Allison Kilkenny
Apathy Doesn't Live in Bronx

Fred Gardner
Orangeburg, 1968

Elizabeth Schulte
Can the Whole World be Fed?

Daniel Gross
Remembering the Wendy's Massacre: the Dangerous Side of Retail Work

Christopher Brauchli
The Search for a Token Right-winger

Richard Rhames
A Nation of Sheep

Daniel Cassidy
My Mother

Poets' Basement
Davies, Klipschutz and Willson

Website of the Weekend
Happy Birthday, Bob

May 23, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
War Abroad, Poverty at Home

Alan Farago
The Radical Extremists of the Building Industry

Conn Hallinan
Ballots and Bullets: From Beirut to Bolivia

Mark Engler
The World After Bush

George Wuerthner
Cars and Cows: Living Large in America

Kamran Matin
The Kurds and American Neo-Imperialism

Sandy Boyer /
Shaun Harkin
The Long Incarceration of Pol Brennan

Robert Weitzel
A "Holey" Instrument of Peace in Iraq

Cindy Sheehan
An Uphill Battle

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Futile Constitutional Amendment

Website of the Day
A Message from the Moral Compass of the McCain Campaign

May 22, 2008

Vijay Prashad
Racist Grammar

Joanne Mariner
A Military Commissions Cheat Sheet

Sharon Smith
60 Years of Apartheid

Jeff Birkenstein
Disaster Redux: Some Early Thoughts on the Earthquake in China

Brendan McQuade
From Obama to the PRTs in Iraq

Peter Morici
The Sorry State of the Banking Industry

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Restoration Boulevard

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What I Want to Ask Mary Tillman

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CPR for the Antiwar Movement

Stephen Lendman
Immoral Hazard

Website of the Day
Hagee: God Sent Hitler to Drive the Jews to Israel

May 21, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Gothic Politics of Hillary Clinton

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Military Bases in South America

Alan Farago
Miami, Cuba and the Presidential Campaign

Dave Lindorff
Big John and the Scary, Scary Iran Threat

David Model
Genocide in Iraq?

Eric Walberg
Afghanistan: Who is the Enemy?

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Lebanon Gets a President

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Tax Against Tyranny

Website of the Day
Child Labor and War-Affected Children: a Photo Essay

May 20, 2008

Ralph Nader
A Trip Inside Google

Uri Avnery
With Friends Like These

Patrick Irelan
The Empire and the Fleet

Ray McGovern
Come Out, Admiral Fallon, Wherever You Are

David Macaray
The UAW Strike Against American Axle

Chris Genovali
Big Oil on the Water: Skating Around the Tanker Issue

Ibrahim Fawal
Birmingham, Israel and the Nakba

Christopher Ketcham
Let Us Now Praise Famous Suicides

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo Trial Delayed

Martha Rosenberg
Merck is a Repeat Offender

Website of the Day
Defend the Students Who Pied Tom Friedman

May 19, 2008

Saul Landau
Cuba Will Live

Paul Craig Roberts
The Metamorphosis of the Conservative Movement

Brian McKenna
Brotherly Love in Philly's Badlands

Patrick Cockburn
City of the Dead: Mosul on Lockdown

B. R. Gowani
The Central Problem Pakistan Needs to Tackle

Dr. Trudy Bond
Psychologists and Torture: If Not Now, When?

Cindy Sheehan
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Evolve or Die

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The Editorial Sins of Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright

The "F" Word and the White Press

By Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS

Two of the most important prophets confronting the oppression of black persons in America are Minister Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr.  They are black-chosen not white-approved leader.  Thus their unique prophetic authority is revealed in the intense negative reactions to them by mainstream media, which are the guardians of America’s white-controlled hierarchy of access to political and economic power.  The fact that the dominant press have singled them out for vilification is evidence of their validation as prophets speaking truth to power—rather than conventional religious leaders finessing compromise with the hierarchical status quo.

Mainstream media continue to disclose their traditional function as the “white press” in demonizing Minister Farrakhan, and now Rev. Wright.  The focus here is primarily on Farrakhan because of his longer prominence and power to overcome and achieve in the face of a longstanding journalistic lynch mob.  (For a commentary on Wright, see Alberts, Jeremiah Wright and America’s Continuing “Separate and Unequal” Societies, Counterpunch, Apr. 19/20, 2008)  The following scourging of Farrakhan by mainstream media reveals the guardian role of a “white press” in denial of America’s racial hierarchy with its embedded “separate and unequal” societies, about which the Kerner Commision warned in 1968, and one of the clearest and most forthright critics of which most black people hail Farrakhan to be.

The dreaded “F” word intruded into the 2008 presidential campaign with headlines: “Farrakhan hails Obama as ‘hope of entire world.’” While not formally endorsing Senator Obama, Minister Farrakhan was reported to have spent most of a two-hour address praising him before an audience of 20,000 people: “This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better” [italics added].  “This young man,” Farrakhan continued, “is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. . . . those people are being transformed. . . . A black man with a white mother,” Farrakhan prophesized, “could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall.”2

Minister Farrakhan’s blessing of Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was seen as a curse by the Obama people.  A kiss of death that had to be quickly and publicly and emphatically rubbed off the face of the campaign.  Thus came the immediate denunciation.  “Said spokesman Bill Burton: ‘Sen. Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan’s past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister’s support.’”3

But the “F” word was out of the box and into print.  Tim Russert, NBC Washington Bureau chief and co-moderator of MSNBC’s February 26 Democratic primary debate, ran with it.  He repeatedly grilled Senator Obama about Minister Farrakhan lauding his presidential campaign as “the hope of the world.”  “On Sunday,” Russert said to Obama, “the headline in your hometown paper, Chicago Tribune, ‘Louis Farrakhan backs Obama for President at Nation of Islam Convention in Chicago.’  Do you accept the support of Louis Farrakhan?”  Obama replied, “You know, I have been very clear on my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic comments.  I think they are unacceptable and reprehensible.”  He had not solicited Farrakhan’s support, he said, and that the Nation of Islam leader “expressed pride in an African-American who seems to be bringing the country together.”  But, Obama emphasized, “It is not support that I sought.  And,” he added, “we’re not doing anything, I assure you, formally or informally, with Minister Farrakhan.”

As if not hearing Senator Obama, Tim Russert continued his fixation on the “F” word: “Do you reject his support?”  Obama responded, “I have been very clear in my denunciations of him and his past statements.”  Russert’s preoccupation with the “F” word became more obvious: “The problem some voters may have, as you know, the Reverend Farrakhan called Judaism a ‘gutter religion.’” The real “problem” for Russert seemed to be the “F” word, which led Obama to answer by repeating himself: “I am very familiar with his record, as are the American people.  That,” Obama reminded Russert, “is why I have consistently denounced it.”

But Tim Russert wasn’t through.  It was time to bring up Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Senator Obama’s pastor and Trinity United Church of Christ’s Trumpet News magazine, which in 2007 awarded Minister Farrakhan its “Lifetime Achievement ‘Dr. Jermiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpet Award’” for “epitomizing greatness.”  Russert set the stage: “The title of one of your books, ‘Audacity of Hope,’ you acknowledge you got from a sermon from Rev. Jeremiah Wright the head of the Trinity United Church.  He said that Farrakhan ‘epitomizes greatness’” Then the question close to home: “What do you do to assure Jewish-Americans that, whether it’s Farrakhan’s support or the activism of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, your pastor, you are consistent with issues regarding Israel and not in any was suggesting that Farrakhan epitomizes greatness?”  Obama evidently felt the need to provide a lengthy response. “Tim, I have some of the strongest support from the Jewish community . . . And the reason is because I have been a stalwart friend of Israel’s.  I think they are one of our most important allies in the region, and I think that their security is sacrosanct. . . And,” Obama went on, “the reason that I have such strong support is because they know that not only would I not tolerate anti-Semitism in any form, but also because of the fact that what I want to do is rebuild what I consider to be a historic relationship between the African-American community and the Jewish community.  You know, I would not be sitting here if it were not for a whole host of Jewish Americans . . .” 4

Why did Minister Farrakhan receive Trinity United Church of Christ’s Lifetime Achievement Empowerment Award?  Who cares?  Tim Russert did not care.  But countless black people deeply care, including offenders and ex-offenders and their families, and so many others who have been empowered by Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.

According to Rev. Wright:

When Minister Farrakhan speaks, Black America listens. . . . Everybody may not agree with him, but they listen. . . . His depth of analysis when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye opening.  He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest.

Minister Farrakhan will be remembered as one of the 20th and 21st century giants of the African American religious experience. . . . His integrity and honesty have secured him a place in history as one of the nation’s most powerful critics.  His love for Africa and African American people have made him an unforgettable force, a catalyst for change and a religious leader who is sincere about his faith and his purpose.5

Like Tim Russert, Senator Hillary Clinton could care less why Minister Farrakhan received Trinity United Church of Christ’s Empowerment Award for embodying greatness.  Her own fixation on the “F” word led her to follow Russert’s interrogation of Senator Obama with, “I would not be associated with people who said such inflammatory and untrue charges against either Israel or Jewish people in our country.”  Tim Russert seized on her comment: “Are you suggesting Senator Obama is not standing on principle?”  “No,” she smudged, but “there’s a difference between denouncing and rejecting.”  Obama did not “see a difference between denouncing and rejecting, . . . but if the word ‘reject’ Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word ‘denounce,’ than I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.”  Clinton replied, “Good. Good.  Excellent.” 6

Senator Clinton’s strongest supporter for her presidential candidacy in Pennsylvania is Governor Edward Rendell, who, in 1997, neither “denounced” nor “rejected” Minister Farrakhan.  In fact, as mayor of Philadelphia at the time, Rendell shared a pulpit with and lauded Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam for helping to defuse racial tensions following severe incidents of racial violence in the mostly white working class Grays Ferry neighborhood in the city.  The “F” word was safe in Rendell’s mouth that day:

As I said in my letter to Minister Farrakhan, I did not know Rodney Muhammad [Nation of Islam minister in Philadelphia] except by reputation.  And over the past three or four weeks my respect for him has grown: for the intensity of his beliefs, for the decency of his soul, and for the strength of his courage. [The audience and Farrakhan, sitting directly behind Rendell, vigorously clapped.]

Senator Clinton’s most prominent Pennsylvanian supporter continued his rousing affirmation of Minister Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, eliciting considerable applause:

And next I would like to thank the Nation of Islam here in Philadephia. . . for what you stand for . . . and all the good it does to so many people in Philadelphia.  And if there is anybody out here in Pennsylvania or in the United States of America who doesn’t know, this is a faith that has as its principle, the family.  This is a faith that doesn’t just talk about family values, it lives family values.  This is a faith where men respect their women and children and they manifest that faith by staying in the home with them.  This is a faith that doesn’t just talk about being against drugs, but is out there every single day and night fighting against drugs.  This is a faith that doesn’t just talk about the value of education, it imbues in their children and schools that education is the way to opportunity, a lesson that all Americans could learn.

Senator Clinton’s Edward Rendell saved some of his best for last:

And above and beyond all these thank yous, I want to thank each and every one of you for being here. . . . That you are talking about our differences, trying to do something about our differences, about taking the next step on the long road to ending racism and bigotry, not just in Philadelphia but throughout the United States of America. . . . There were many people who said we were running a great risk by sharing this platform with the Nation of Islam.  But you know, I know and everyone here knows the terrible toll racism has taken in our city.  And we know the real risk is not being able to talk about our differences and try to make progress.  And if everyone cares about ending racism, and I believe they do, if everyone cares, they should have been here.  They should have been here ready to talk and they should have been ready to listen. 7

A New York Times story reported that the event “was all the more unusual” with Mr. Rendell, who is Jewish, sharing a podium with Minister Farrakhan, who “is widely regarded as anti-Semitic” [which is not how most black people regard Farrakhan].  The story also reported, “Representatives from the city’s leading Jewish and Roman Catholic organizations were invited to participate in the rally, but all declined.” 8

In a Washington Post op ed piece called “Farrakhan’s Pennsylvania Admirer,” columnist Colbert I. King exposes the hypocritical double standard dogging Senator Obama.  King concludes, “Consider what the Clinton camp and the media have put Obama through because of Farrakhan’s unsolicited endorsement.”  He then asks rhetorically, “Did Clinton demand that Rendell ‘denounce’ or ‘reject’ his association with Farrakhan?”  He then answered his own question: “Can a mule whistle?” 9   

The hypocrisy of those mainstream media demonizing Minister Farrakhan is their decision not to mention or publish the extent to which Rendell praised him and the Nation of Islam.

Pummeled by mainstream media for past sermons in which he called on God to damn America for its murderous foreign and dehumanizing domestic policies, Senator Obama’s pastor finally broke his silence and, in the process, not only uttered but affirmed the “F” word.  After addressing the National Press Club, Rev. Jeremiah Wright was asked by the moderator, “What is your relationship with Louis Farrakhan . . . [and] do you agree with, and respect his views, including his most racially divisive views?”  Wright responded, “ . . . So what do I think about him? . . . How many other African-Americans or European-Americans do you know that can get one million people together on the mall?  He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century.  That’s what I think about him.”  Wright added, “As I said on Bill Moyer’s [program], when Louis Farrakhan speaks, it’s like E. F. Hutton speaks, all black America listens [italics added].  Whether they agree with him or not, they listen.”

Rev. Wright was not done:

Now, I am not going to put down Louis Farrakhan anymore than Mandela would put down Fidel Castro.  Do you remember that Ted Koppel show, where Ted wanted Mandela to put down Castro because Castro was our enemy?  And he said, ‘You don’t tell me who my enemies are.  You don’t tell me who my friends are.’  Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy.  He did not put me in chains.  He did not put me in slavery.  And he did not make me this color. 10

Rev. Wright could have provided more examples of the extent to which black people recognize Minister Farrakhan as a prophetic leader.  In 2005, Black Entertainment Television chose him as the Person of the Year for “mak[ing] the most positive impact on the Black community over the past year,” and doing “what no other African American leader has: ‘mobilize hundreds of thousands of Blacks around the issues of atonement and empowerment, and to convince the masses of our people that we must be the primary catalysts and engines for positive change in our communities.” 11  

Along with the Million Man March, Farrakhan’s inspiration and leadership are seen in other marches that followed, including the Million Woman March, the Million Family March, the Million Youth Movement and March, and the Millions More March, the advance publicity tour for which Farrakhan received the keys to various cities, with the March held on the tenth anniversary of the amazingly successful and greatly lauded Million Man March.

Rev. Wright could have told the National Press Club audience that none other than Senator Clinton’s husband endorsed Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam’s 2005 Millions More March. “I think this is a very positive idea,” former president Clinton said in an interview with the Amsterdam News, from his Harlem [italics added] office.  And he remembered the Million Man March as “a very positive event.  They were basically standing up for the dignity of the family and asking African American men and fathers to be more responsible.  It was totally non-violent . . . all these people . . . advocating a responsible agenda and not just asking for something.” 12  

On the day of the Million Man March, Clinton was a thousand miles away, being forced by the highly publicized March to give an address on the country’s increasingly visible racial division, to a predominantly white University of Texas student body, and being quoted repeatedly by mainstream media as saying, “One million men are right to be standing up for personal responsibility.  But one million men do no make right one man’s message of malice and division.  No good house can be built on a bad foundation.” 13   What a difference a decade makes—from the White House to Harlem.  Location! location! location!  Ironically, as will be seen, Farrakhan’s speech that day also referred to a “bad foundation”—“white supremacy . . . that undergirds the setup of the Western world.”

Rev. Wright’s affirmation of Minister Farrakhan at the National Press Club helped to lead Senator Obama to completely “reject” and “denounce” Wright, and also led the white-racial hierarchy’s guardian press to swing into action.  A New York Times editorial, called “Mr. Obama and Rev. Wright,” began, “It took more time than it should have, but on Tuesday Barack Obama firmly rejected the racism and paranoia of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. . . . In a series of shocking appearances,” the editorial continued, “ he embraced the Rev. Louis Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism . . . said the government manufactured the AIDS virus to kill blacks . . .[and] suggested that America was guilty of ‘terrorism’ and so had brought the 9/11 attacks on itself.” 14  A Boston Globe editorial, entitled “Rev. Wright, the sequel,” followed with, “When Wright repeated, among other things, his past praise for hatemonger Louis Farrakhan [italics added], the preacher made clear that the politically expedient move for Obama—ditching a nettlesome supporter—was also the right one.” 15   In a piece called “Praying and Preying,” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd chimed in, “. . . [on] the video of Wright at the National Press Club . . . [Obama] again heard the preacher turning Farrakhan into an American idol, and his flame-throwing assertions that the U.S. government had infected blacks with the AIDS virus and had brought terrorist attacks on itself by practicing terrorism abroad.” 16

To editorially write off Rev. Wright’s prophetic condemnation of the American government’s sins as “appalling . . . bigoted and paranoid rants”17 is to reveal a glaring ignorance of or indifference to many black people’s previous mistrust of the government, the medical profession and mainstream media, created by the Tuskegee experiments and other unethical experimentations on and abuses of black populations.18  Included here also is the far greater infection of black persons with hypertension, anxiety, high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney failure, heart disease, other illnesses and lower life expectancy than white persons, resulting largely from a white-favored hierarchy with its economic- and health care-access gaps. 19  

Similarly, the slow and inadequate response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina is another example of the often historic indifference of the US government toward black persons—and similarly economically and politically powerless white persons.  The exception is the Army where they are welcomed to “be all you can be”—in the service of an imperialistic foreign policy, like the criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq.  Buttressed by the ethnocentric, dominant media-reinforced belief that America is God’s chosen country—a self-deceiving belief that will continue to have tragic 9/11-type consequences.

Rev. Wright’s so-called “bigoted and paranoid rants” became the objects of considerable ranting by the “big-time news media” especially The New York Times.  A front-page story containing a photograph of him speaking at the National Press Club began with a sarcastic headline: “Not Speaking for Obama, Pastor Speaks for Himself, at length.”  The piece soon told its readers, “Mr. Wright, Senator Obama’s former pastor, was cocky, defiant, declamatory, inflammatory and mischievous, but most of all, he was all over the place, performing a television triathlon of interview, lecture and live news conference that pushed Mr. Obama aside and placed himself front and center in the presidential campaign. . . . Mr. Wright,” the story stressed, “revealed himself to be the compelling but slightly wacky uncle who unsettles strangers but really just craves attention.”20  

The same day a belittling piece by columnist Bob Herbert appeared on the op ed page of the Times.  Called “The Pastor Casts a Shadow,” Herbert began, “The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him.”  Herbert proceeded to bury Wright with sarcasm: “Smiling, cracking corny jokes, mugging it up for the big time news media [italics added]—this reverend is never going away.  He’s found himself a national platform, and he’s loving it.” 21   So much for an “F” word-affirming, America-bashing “egocentric” minister.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, a long-time guardian of America’s white-controlled hierarchy, jumped on the “F” word-lauding Rev. Jeremiah Wright early on.  In a piece called “Obama’s Farrakhan Test,” Cohen wrote that Wright’s “church launched Trumpet Newsmagazine . . . ,” which “last year . . . gave the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. Trumpeter Award to a man it said ‘truly epitomized greatness.’  That man is Louis Farrakhan.”22   Cohen continued to show his “colors” as a representative of a “white press” oblivious to black people and their “separate and unequal” reality.  “Maybe for Wright and some others, Farrakhan ‘epitomized greatness,’ Cohen said, and then engaged in projection: “For most people, though [italics added], Farrakhan epitomizes racism, particularly in the form of anti-Semitism.” 23

Not for most black people!  Recall the words of that “slightly wacky,” “bigoted and paranoid rant[ing],” “nettlesome [Obama] supporter,” Rev. Jeremiah Wright: “How many other African-Americans or European-Americans do you know that can get one million people together on the mall? . . . When Louis Farrakhan speaks . . .all black America listens.”

In 1995, Minister Farrakhan spoke on the Washington Mall, and over a million black persons listened 24—with “2.2 million households tuned in to Mr. Farrakhan’s . . . speech . . . more people watched . . . on CNN than any other speech this year, including Mr. Clinton’s State of the Union Message and the Pope’s address to the United Nations.”25 The Million Man March provides a classic example of a guardian “white press” denigrating the “F” word to tell black people who their leaders should and should not be—and in the process revealing their obliviousness to the “separate and unequal” reality of black persons in America. 26

The success of the Million Man March is all the more amazing when the intense opposition to it by mainstream print media is considered.  Months in advance of the planned March, the dominant press began to engage in a feeding frenzy in their criticism of Minister Farrakhan as a divisive force.  He was constantly portrayed as “anti-white,” “anti-Semitic,” “anti-gay,” “anti-Catholic,” “anti-Asian,” “racist,” “sexist,” “bigot,” “hate-monger,” “separatist,” “ . . . and God knows what else,” Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote. 27   The editorialized lynching of Farrakhan’s reputation was so pervasive that even a news reporter could write, “Organizers backed off the assertion that support for the march equaled support for Mr. Farrakhan, fearing that larger issues might be obscured by Mr. Farrakhan’s reputation among many blacks and whites as a racist and hatemonger” and four paragraphs later the reporter added, “Despite the calls to separate the leader from the event, the march . . . could prove a turning point for Mr. Farrakhan, who is known by many Americans mostly for his racist comments” [italics added]. 28

The dominant print media’s obvious aim was to discredit Minister Farrakhan, “the event’s controversial originator,” 29   and to undermine the March.  The repeated vilification of Farrakhan, “who has been criticized for years as a divisive force for espousing anti-Semitism and black separatism,” 30  communicated to black men that attending the March would be tantamount to endorsing and enhancing the Nation of Islam leader’s polarizing views.  Opposition of traditional black civil rights and political leaders and feminists to Farrakhan and the March was solicited, featured and emphasized.  A national debate was facilitated, if not orchestrated, between opponents and organizers over “whether the march will serve as a unifying or divisive force [which] is perhaps the event’s central unresolved question.” 31  That question was answered repeatedly by print media, which used various mainstream black leaders, editorials, op ed pieces and selected quotes of news reporters to assert that the March’s “message” of hope could not be separated from the “messenger” of hate.  Predictably, when the Washington Mall overflowed with black men, the media found various ways to separate the “message” and the marchers from “the messenger.”

In a commentary called “Farrakhan’s Marathon,” Washington Post writer Ken Ringle wrote, “The heartbreaking thing” was that Minister Farrakhan provided no powerful “phrases to be remembered along with ‘Four score and seven years ago,’ and “Ask not what you country can do for you’ and ‘I have a dream.’” 32   Here Ringle discloses his own glaring failure to realize how heartbreaking it must be for African Americans and other black persons that the very “Four score and seven years ago”president, who is credited with freeing them from slavery, occasionally stated that he did not believe they were equal to white persons, which fact Farrakhan pointed out in his speech: “Abraham Lincoln, when he saw the great divide, he pondered a solution of separation [italics added].  Abraham Lincoln said he never was in favor of our being jurors or having equal status with the whites of this nation.  Abraham Lincoln,” Farrakhan went on, “said that if there were to be a superior or inferior, he would rather the superior position be assigned to the white race.”33

Minister Farrakhan spoke powerful “phrases to be remembered.”  Like:

The real evil in America is the idea that undergirds the setup of the Western world, and that idea is called white supremacy. . . . White supremacy is the enemy of both white people and black people, because the idea of white supremacy means you should rule because you are white.  That makes you sick, and you produce the sick society and a sick world. . . And in light of today’s global village, you can never harmonize with the Asians . . . you can’t harmonize with the dark people of the world who outnumber you 11 to 1, if you’re going to stay in the mind of white supremacy.  White supremacy has to die for humanity to live. 34

And:

I stand here today, knowing that you are angry, that my people have validated me.  I don’t need you to validate me.  I don’t need to be in any mainstream.  I want to wash in the river of Jordan.  And in the river that you see, and the sea that is before us and behind us and around us is validation.  That’s the mainstream.  You’re out of touch with reality [italics added].  A few of you in smoke-filled rooms, calling that the mainstream, while the masses of the people, white and black; red, yellow and brown; poor and vulnerable, are suffering in this nation. . . . All of these black men that the world sees as savage, maniacal and bestial, look at them.  A sea of peace.  A sea of tranquility.  A sea of men ready to come back to God, settle their differences and go back home to turn our communities into decent and safe places to live. 35

Another of Minister Farrakhan’s “phrases to be remembered” summarizes many of his statements and is very applicable to mainstream media: “The power and the arrogance of America makes you refuse to hear a child of your slaves pointing out the wrong in your society.” 36 Prophetic words still for a country suffering from “separate and unequal” societies.  A country also afflicted with an ethnocentric foreign policy that believes “America is the greatest nation in the world,” with its benediction of “God bless America.”  A country greatly needing its “white press” to become a free press if it is to fulfill its hope of becoming “a more perfect union”—and a peacemaker in the world.    
Senator Obama’s selection as the Democratic nominee for president does not in itself change America’s white-controlled hierarchy of access and power, or imperialistic foreign policy.  He could represent substance or appearance, which an entrenched hierarchy is adept at using to disguise and maintain its power. Whether he represents equalizing change here and humanizing change abroad remains to be seen.

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain, and a diplomate in the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy.  Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion.  He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org

End Notes

1. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Bantam Books, 1968, pages 366 and 374.
2. “Farrakhan hails Obama as ‘hope of entire world,’” Associated Press, msnbc.com, Feb. 25, 2008.
3. Ibid.
4. “Complete transcript of MSNBC’s Democratic Debate,” nbc24.com, Feb. 26, 2008.
5. “An Empowerment Interview: The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan,” by Rhoda McKinney-Jones, Trumpet, Nov./Dec. 2007,  www.trumpetmag.com.
6. “Complete transcript of MSNBC’s Democratic Debate,” op.cit.
7. “Pennsylvania Governor Rendell Praises Farrakhan, and Nation of Islam,” YouTube, Added Apr. 20, 2008
8. “Philadelphia Mayor Joins Farrakhan to Calm Ethnic Tensions,” by Michael Janofsky, Apr. 15, 1997.
9. Apr. 26, 2008.
10. “Rev. Wright Delivers Remarks at National Press Club,” transcript, washingtonpost.com, Apr. 28, 2008.
11. “Min. Louis Farrakhan 2005 ‘Person of the Year,’” by Tracy Stokes, BET.com. American Renaissance News, Dec. 19, 2005.
12. “Clinton Endorses Farrakhan March,” newsmax.com, May 7, 2005.
13. “Rift Between Blacks, Whites ‘Is Tearing at the Heart of America,’” address on race relations delivered by President Clinton yesterday at the University of Texas, The Washington Post, Oct. 17, 1995.
14. Apr. 30, 2008.
15. May 1, 2008.
16. Apr. 30, 2008
17. “Sen. McCain’s Agents of Intolerance,” editorial, The New York Times, May 24, 2008.
18. “Sour legacy of Tuskegee syphilis study lingers,” CNN, May 16, 1977.  See also, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington, Doubleday, 2007; Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, by Gary Webb, Seven Stories Press, 1999; Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press, by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Verso, 1998; and Rogue State, by William Blum, Common Courage Press, 2000.
19. See, “Racism blamed for health disparities,” The Boston Globe, July 20, 2005; and “Declare War on Diabetes,” editorial, The New York Times, Feb. 5, 2006.
20. By Alessandra Stanley, The TV Watch, Apr. 29, 2008.
21. Apr. 29, 2008.
22. Jan. 15, 2008.
23. Ibid.
24. “BU analysis says Washington march may have drawn 1.1 million,” The Boston Globe, Oct. 20, 1995.
25. “After March, Lawmakers Seek Commission on Race Relations: Farrakhan Eager to Stay in National Spotlight,” by Steven A. Holmes, The New York Times, Oct. 18, 1995.
26. See Mainstream Media as Guardian of Racial Hierarchy: A Study of the Threat Posed by Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Million Man March, by William E. Alberts, research reportpublished by the William Monroe Trotter Institute, Univ. of Massachusetts, Boston 1995.  Yvonne Gomes-Santos contact person at yvonnegomes-santos@umb.edu.
27. “What Was Jesse Jackson Thinking,” Oct. 18, 1995.
28. “Debate on March, and Farrakhan, Persists as Black Men Converge on the Capital,” by Michael Janofsky, The New York Times, Oct. 16, 1995.
29. “March’s Direction: Unifying or Divisive?”  by Michael A. Fletcher and Hamil R. Harris, The Washington Post, Oct. 15, 1995.
30. “Wary of Divisions, Leaders of Million Man March Play Down Farrakhan Role,” by Michael Janofsky, The New York Times.
31. “March’s Direction: Unifying or Divisive?,” op.cit.
32. Oct. 17, 1995.
33. “We Must Accept the Responsibility That God Has Put Upon Us,” Excerpts from the Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan’s speech yesterday at the Million Man March, The Washington Post, Oct. 17, 1995.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.

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