Today's Stories

September 18-20, 2009

Russell Mokhiber
Meet the Real Death Panels

September 17, 2009

Joshua Frank
Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler

Brenda Norrell
Cry Me a River: Uranium and Genocide in Indian Country

Robert Weissman
The Financial Crisis, One Year Later

Pam Martens
The Filmmakers vs. the Capitalists

Franklin Lamb
Palestinian Camps Are Ready to Erupt

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five: An Insult to Humanity

Jed Bickman
Drone War Over Pakistan

Alan Farago
The Mayor of Coconut Creek Gets Butterflies

Website of the Day
C.R.O.C.

September 16, 2009

Ray McGovern
Torture and Accountability

Stephen Green
America's Strange Health Care Debate

Andy Worthington
Is Bagram Obama's New Secret Prison?

Dean Baker
Short Sellers: the Unsung Heroes of the Financial Crisis

Anthony DiMaggio
Killing the Messenger

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five: The Unheard Call

Benjamin Dangl
Justice Follows Direct Action

Robin Willoughby
The World Seed Conference: Good for Farmers?

Eric Walberg
EuroPeace, the Sounds of Silence

James Ridgeway
Bring That "Boy" Down

Website of the Day
Baucus' Bogus Bill

September 15, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Real Lesson of Lehman's Fall

Mutadhar al-Zaidi
The Story of My Shoe

Marshall Auerback
Government Spending is the Solution--Not the Problem

Afshin Rattansi
The Deal That Led to the Srebrenica Massacre: Former UN Spokeswoman Fingers Holbrooke and the Clinton Administration

Jonathan Cook
How US Tax Breaks Fund Israeli Settlers

Gareth Porter:
Niger Redux? IAEA Conceals Evidence Iran Nuke Docs Were Forged

Dave Lindorff
Congress Needs More Catcalls

Winslow T. Wheeler
Obama and Pentagon Pork

Franklin Spinney
Bin Laden's Latest Message and the Nuttiness of the War on Terror

Karen Korenoski /
Michael Yates
Up in Wood Smoke: Boulder's Dirty Little Secret

David Macaray
Government Cheese

Susie Day
President Mao-bama's Little Red Primer

Website of the Day
The Cotton Pickin' Truth: the Persistance of Slavery in Mississippi

September 14, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
The Health Care Deceit

M. G. Piety
The Danes Do It (Health Care) Better

Shamus Cooke
Wall Street Under Obama: Bigger and Riskier

Bouthaina Shaaban
Three Faces and a Homeland

Alvaro Huerta
In Defense of the Undocumented: Immigrants and Health Care

John Ross
Mexico Loses Its History

Harvey Wasserman
The Supreme Court and Corporate Money

Adam Federman
The Plight of the Bumblebee

Stephen Fleischman
The Federal Twist

Robert Jensen
Can Journalism Schools be Relevant in a World on the Brink?

Website of the Day
The Origin of Sex Offender Registries

September 11-13, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Big Speech: Math Trumps Rhetoric

JoAnn Wypijewski
Trumka Takes Over AFL-CIO

Carl Ginsburg
The Patient as Profit Center

Leonard Peltier
I am Barack Obama's Political Prisoner Now

Franklin Lamb
Ted Kennedy's Changing Take on Israel

Benjamin Dangl
Throwing Bullets at Failed Policies

Mike Whitney
How to Fight Deflation

John Berger
In Search of Antonello

Saul Landau
Watergate and Modern Scandals

Russell Mokhiber
Disgraceful Democrats

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Pryor's Judgment

Felice Pace
NPR's Linda Gradstein Has Done It Again on Gaza

Jordan Flaherty
The Battle Over Discriminatory Housing Laws in New Orleans

Ron Jacobs
It's Time to be Impolite About Afghanistan

David Macaray
The Utility of Boycotts

David Correia
Welcome to the Business-Friendly Carpenter's Union

Robert Bryce
Wind Turbines and Bird Kills

Christopher Brauchli
Defenders of the Classroom

Paul Krassner
Aha! A Few Words About the 9/11 Truth Movement

Charles R. Larson
Deracination

Kim Nicolini
"Extract:" An Exercise in Economic Realism

David Yearsley
Tall Buildings: the Sound and the Silence

Lorenzo Wolff
In Defense of the One Hit Wonder

Poets' Basement
McEnteer and Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Pizarchik: the Wrong Choice

September 10, 2009

Joshua Frank
Inside Hanford's B Reactor: a Tour of the World's Most Toxic Nuclear Site

Dean Baker
Bernanke's Bad Money

Brian M. Downing
The State of U.S. National Security

Franklin C. Spinney
Portrait of an Afghan Firefight: Up Close and Personal

Andy Worthington
No Escape From Guantánamo

Chase Madar
Samantha Power and the Weaponization of Human Rights

Farzana Versey
A Tale of Two Slums

Ronnie Cummins
Whole Foods, Fair Trade and Organics

Binoy Kampmark
Health Care, Obama and the System

Timothy Lebrón
The Conservative Case for Health Care Reform

Charles R. Larson
A Solution to the Health Care Dilemma

Website of the Day
The Debtor's Revolt Begins!

September 9, 2009

Richard Neville
Trigger-Happy in Afghanistan

Melissa Checker
Double Jeopardy: Carbon Offsets and Human Rights Abuses

Nadia Hijab
Settling for ... Settlements?

Robert Weissman
The Stakes at the Supreme Court

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Arabs Call for General Strike

Russell Mokhiber
Pollan, Mackey, Whole Foods and Single Payer

James Ridgeway
The Dotty Factor: Will Demented Geezers Wreck the Economy?

Richard W. Behan
Obama's Imperative in Afghanistan

James McEnteer
The Photo and the Secretary: How to Appall Robert Gates

Martha Rosenberg
Hatchery Horrors

Website of the Day
Belmondo Verité

September 8, 2009

Henry A. Giroux
The Corporate Stranglehold on Education

Stephen Soldz
Psychologist Accused of War Crimes Opposes Investigations

John Ross
Rituals of the Absurd

Jeff Leys
Health Care vs. Warfare: the Future of the Afghan War

Mike Whitney Ashcroft: Repugnant to the Constitution

Shamus Cooke
Obama's Empty Labor Day Speech

Ellen Brown
Did Lehman Brothers Fall or Was It Pushed?

Norman Solomon Men With Guns: In Kabul and Washington

Deepak Tripathi
The Axis of Evil and the Great Satan

Laray Polk
Personality Cults, Indoctrination and Inculcation

Charles R. Larson
Just Who Does He Think He Is?

Website of the Day
The President is Not a Guidance Counselor

September 7, 2009

Vicente Navarro
Obama's Mistakes in Health Care Reform

Bouthaina Shaaban
In Praise of Admiral Mullen

David Macaray
Obama's Labor Day Report Card

Paul Craig Roberts
Indefensible Nation

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Ads Warn Against Marrying Non-Jews

Conn Hallinan
Brazil Flexes Its Muscles

Walter Brasch
The Origins of Labor Day, the Unknown Holiday

Mark Weisbrot
IMF Gives Honduran Government $175 Million

Carl Finamore
China's Birthday Stimulation

C. G. Estabrook
Advance Text of Obama's Big Speech

Website of the Day
One Down, 20,000 to Go

September 4-6, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Deeper Into the Tunnel

Carl Ginsburg
Saving New Orleans' Charity Hospital

Jonathan Cook
The Missing Link in Israeli Organ Theft?

George Wuerthner
The Unintended Consequences of Wolf Hunting

Marc Levy
The Bling They Curse and Carry

Ray McGovern
Holbrooke's Afghan Benchmark

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
It Happened in Miami

Joe Paff
Organizing the Mission

Gareth Porter
Taliban's Tank-Killing Bombs Came From CIA, Not Iran

Devin Beaulieu
Scaremongering About Bolivia and Islam

Anthony Papa
Why Leslie Crocker Snyder Should Not Become New York City's New DA

David Ker Thomson
Love and Dekes in Utopia

Don Fitz
The Case of the Biodevastation 7: What the Police Won't Apologize For

Lee Sustar /
S. Sepehri
The Fallout From Iran's Elections

Jim Goodman
Why Honor Organized Labor?

Wajahat Ali
Domestic Crusaders: Making Muslim American Theater

Ron Jacobs
Agitator Journalism: Remembering Ramparts

Helen Redmond
The Lion Sleeps Tonight: the Crimes and Misdemeanors of Teddy Kennedy

John V. Walsh
Obama to Cindy Sheehan: Get Lost

Charles R. Larson
Mandanipour's Masterpiece: Censoring an Iranian Love Story

Mark Scaramella
Ho-Bleeping-Hum: a Few Well-Chosen Words About Valerie Plame's Book

David Yearsley
Cameron Carpenter's Amazing Organ Transplants

Ben Sonnenberg
Hooking, Breaking Friendships, Cross-Dressing and, Above All, Delphine Seyrig

Poets' Basement
Davies, Orloski and Bready

Website of the Weekend
Architectural Semiotics with Glenn Beck

September 3, 2009

Marcus Rediker
Inside Auburn Prison

Ron Jacobs
Embedded With the Taliban

Mike Whitney
How Bad Will It Get?

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Untold Story of the Cuban Five: Indictment À La Carte

Saul Landau
Moby Dick and Asian Typhoons

Anat Matar
Israeli Academics Must Pay a Price to End Occupation

Tanya Golash-Boza
How Immigration Enforcement is Weakening National Security

Dave Lindorff
Which Side Are You On?

Andy Worthington
The Story of Gitmo's Two Syrians

Website of the Day
Plundering Appalachia

September 2, 2009

John Ross
Mexico's Plagues

Vijay Prashad
Hey Ram, the Things the Financial Times Group Does!

Rev. Jim Rigby
Why is Universal Health Care "Un-American"?

Joanne Mariner
What the Inspector General Found

Missy Beattie
Hejira: At Martha's Vineyard with Cindy Sheehan

Soren Ambrose
Multilateral Money

Diane Farsetta
Water: the Newest Wave of Corporate "Social Responsibility"

Nadia Hijab
Mulling Mullen's Message

Shamus Cooke
How to Lower the Deficit Without Killing Social Security

Charles R. Larson
Is Dick Cheney Running Scared?

Website of the Day
Inside the Egg Hatchery

September 1, 2009

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Wolf at Trout Creek

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Not Sanctions for Israel?

Mark T. Harris
The Whole Foods Boycott: It's About More Than CEO Hypocrisy

Dean Baker
Bank Profits Are Up: Did You Hear Anyone Say, "Thank You"?

Jeffrey Buchanan
Ending the Human Rights Crisis in KatrinaRitaVille

Robin Mittenthal
A Sea of Monocrops: Old MacDonald Never Had a Farm Like This

Ellen Brown
Mercury Mischief

Martha Rosenberg
Vytorin Marketing is Back

Website of the Day
Crazy Town Hall Protester Interviews

August 31, 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the SEC's Revolving Door

Anthony DiMaggio
What Obama Isn't Telling You About Afghanistan

Bouthaina Shaaban
Israeli Bodysnatchers

Ray McGovern
The Press and Torture: Covering for Cheney?

Joseph Shansky
Scenes of Resistance in Honduras

Greg Moses
The Dying Dillos of Austin

Brian McKenna
Pig Sacrifice and Swine Flu Panic

David Macaray
The Tender Trap

Brenda Norrell
Uranium Mining in the Grand Canyon

Paul Craig Roberts
The Environment Loses a Champion

Beth Sherouse
Why I'm Going to the Big Gay March in Washington

Website of the Day
The Failure of the Left Antiwar Movement

August 28-30, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion

Joshua Frank /
Jeffrey St. Clair
From the Ledge to the Edge: How Tre Arrow Became America's Most Wanted Environmental "Terrorist"

Steve Early
Kennedy's Sins Against Labor

Michael Hudson
Learning About Financialization the Hard Way

Carl Ginsburg
Bernanke in Obamatime

Saul Landau
The Nuclear Gang Rides Again

Dave Marsh
Trapped Again: Michael Jackson's Crossover Dream

Mike Whitney
Band-Aids for the Recession

Dave Lindorff
Obama's War

José Pertierra
A Decision in the Posada Case

Joe Bageant
Obama's Fake Fight for Reform

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Spies Without Espionage

Lee Sustar
On Strike for Health Care Justice

David Ker Thomson
Life in the 'Shed

David Rosen
The Silent Slaughter: Sex Wars and Nation-Building in Iraq

Alison Weir
Israeli Organ Harvesting

Ron Jacobs
Will There be Free Speech in Pittsburgh?

David Swanson
Bush Tortured

Udi Aloni
An Appeal to Israeli Filmmakers

Charles R. Larson
Children During Wartime

Kim Nicolini
District 9: Science Fiction of the Now

David Yearsley
The Wagner Cult in Seattle

Lorenzo Wolff
Riding the Rails with King Curtis

Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Marc Beaudin

Website of the Weekend
The Hidden History of Katrina

August 27, 2009

Andrea Peacock
Bearly Making It: How Many Biologists Does It Take to Count a Dead Grizzly?

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Incapacitating the Cuban Five

Ray McGovern
Closing in on the Torturers

Gideon Levy
The Last Refuge: Neve Gordon and the Boycott of Israel

Shamus Cook
World Bankers Agree: the Recession is Over ... Maybe

Norman Solomon
The Afghanistan Gap

Marshall Auerbach
We Already Have a Public Option

Benjamin Dangl
Reclaiming a Continent

Kathryn Gray
The Water Privateers

David Macaray
Please Buy Our Beer (And Join Our Union)

Website of the Day
Stop the Privatization of Ocean Fisheries

August 26, 2009

Gareth Porter
The Leaking Game: Planted News Stories About Iran and Nuclear Weapons

Dave Lindorff
Getting Away With Torture: Holder's Limited, Modified Hangout

Dean Baker
The Reappointment of Bernanke

Laura Carlsen
The Coup and Honduran Women

Paul Craig Roberts
When the Government Comes First

Laura Raymond /
Bill Quigley
Haiti One Year After the Hurricane

Jordan Flaherty
Still Homeless, Still Struggling in New Orleans

Jonathan Cook
The Long Struggle to Reclaim Beersheva's Great Mosque

Robert Bryce
Bamboozled About Energy

Danny Weil
The Future of Charter Schools

Cindy Sheehan
Farewell, Senator Kennedy

John V. Walsh
Cindy Sheehan's Lonely Vigil in Obamaland

Website of the Day
The President's Laugh Line

August 25, 2009

Gabriel Kolko
Israel: A Stalemated Action of History

Danny Weil
The Charter School Hype and How It's Managed

Martine Bulard
China's Wild West

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
The Cuban Five: The Face of Impunity

Bélen Fernández
Why Didn't the Leopard Eat Tom Friedman?

August 24, 2009

Danny Weil
Obama and Duncan's Education Policy: Like Bush's, Only Worse

Neve Gordon
Stopping the Apartheid State
Boycott Israel

John Ross
Mexico's Supreme Court Tosses a Bombshell into Chiapas

Open Letter to Kenneth Roth
Why Has Human Rights Watch Fallen Silent on Honduras?

Dan Bacher
A Burston-Marsteller Greenwash:
Westlands Hoards Surplus Water While Farmers Suffer

August 21-23, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Right Wing's Prince of Gonzo

Patrick Cockburn
The Truth About Afghan Election

Ray McGovern
Unwritten CIA Death Contract Awarded to Blackwater

Carl Ginsburg
Paycheck President

Dave Lindorff
American Justice is Not Blind, But it is Truly Sick

M. Shahid Alam
An "Abnormal" Nationalism

Ron Jacobs
The Continuing Story of Camp Ashraf

Eric Walberg
Russia/Georgia/U.S. One Year Later
Who Came Out Ahead

No War on the Moon!
In Defense of the Dark Side of the Moon

Gilad Atzmon
The Hostage Dream: Loving Oneself at the Expense of Another

Crawdad Nelson
What It's Like to Die

David Yearsley
Why I Chose to Play Scarlatti on Bainbridge Island

Justin Frew
Grim Times for Irish Travelers

Website of the Day
Picket Whole Foods Friday!

August 20, 2009

Eugenia Tsao
Inside the DSM:
The Drug Barons' Campaign to Make Us All Crazy

Dave Lindorff
The Worst and the Best Thing to Happen to the Democratic Party in Years

Yonatan Preminger
The Strategy Behind Israel's Migrant Labor Policies

Wajahat Ali
The Detention of Shah Rukh Kahn

Website of the Day
How to cope with flu pandemics

August 19, 2009

David Michael Green
Guess What? He's a Terrible President

Paul Craig Roberts
Americans: Serfs Ruled by Oligarchs

Marshall Auerback
Debt Revolt? Tax Strike? There are a Lot of Angry People Out There

Franklin Lamb
AIPAC Sends in the Clowns

John Ross
Three Amigos Summit

Marjorie Cohn
Legendary Lawyer Doris Brin Walker Dies; Represented Angela Davis, Smith Act Defendants

August 18, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Specter of Debt Revolt Is Haunting Europe?

Mary Lynn Cramer
Obama-Fraud: Don't Confuse Medicare with Single-Payer

Jonathan Cook
U.S. Turns Blind Eye to Israel's New Separation Policy

Uri Avnery
Whose Acre?

Ralph Nader
Block Obama's Abject Surrender to Insurance and Drug Companies

Bill Quigley & Davida Finger
Katrina Pain Index - 2009

August 17, 2009

Ray McGovern
Can the Washington Post Save Dick Cheney?

Andy Worthington
Bagram Isn't the New Guantánamo, It's the Old Guantánamo

Patrick Cockburn
Life and Death in Baghdad as Americans Leave

Don Fitz
The True Story of Fox's Hero, Kenneth Gladney

P. Sainath
Drought of Justice, Flood of Funds

Helena Cobban
Zionist Pioneer Renounces Zionism

August 14-16, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Health Plans and Death Plans

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Fall of the House of Stanford

Peter Linebaugh
The Commons, the Castle, the Witch and the Lynx

Esam Al-Amin
What Actually Happened in Fatah's Elections?

Marshall Auerback
Why a Debtor's Revolt Would Work

Mike Whitney
Bulletins From Clunkerville

Paul Krassner
Woodstock at Forty

Saul Landau
Health Care and the Seeds of Disunity

Nikolas Kozloff
Colombian Elites Fear Bolivaran Revolution

Henry A. Giroux
Politics After Hope

John Ross
Sleepwalking Through the Minefield

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Land Sale

Isabella Kenfield
Monsanto's Man in the Obama Administration

David Rosen
Sexual Torture, Yet Again

Ron Jacobs
Unconditional Negotiations, Now!

Wajahat Ali
Obama's Immigration Reforms: Neither Humane Nor Thoughtful

David Macaray
Prison Games

Greg Moses
Down in South Texas: the Geometries of Bob Dylan

Charles R. Larson
Egyptian Economics 101

David Yearsley
Stalked by Bill Evans' Ghost: Kind of Blue at Fifty

Lorenzo Wolff
There Ain't Much to Country Livin': the Drive-By Truckers and the Fine Print

Kim Nicolini
Class, Race and Clint

Poets' Basement
Reiss, Ford and Moser

Website of the Weekend
Timidity and Transparency

August 13, 2009

Eduardo Galeano
I Hate to Bother You

Joanne Mariner
Letting Cheney Off the Hook

Michael Donnelly
Burning Forests for Electricity

Norman Solomon
When the Dead Have No Say

Russell Mokhiber
Boycott Whole Foods

Tim Wise
Sick Heil! The Hitlerizing of Obama

Brian M. Downing
Succession and the Pakistani Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Single-Payer and Medicare

David Manning / Miriam Cotton:
Iran Versus Honduras: a Subtle Difference

Martha Rosenberg
John Hughes, Gone With Only 59 Candles

Website of the Day
Congress Can't Find Their As-teroids

August 12, 2009

Michael J. Watts
Nigeria on the Brink

Bouthaina Shaaban
Where are the Arabs to Stand Up for the Hanoun and Ghawi Families?

Ricardo Alarcón
The Cuban Five: Justice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
Terror Australis

Paul Craig Roberts
Concocting the Appearance of Recovery

Alan Farago
Going Down Absurd: the Future of Florida Bay

James Ridgeway
Ghostwriting Your Meds

Dave Lindorff
10 Questions to Ask If You Find Yourself at an ObamaCare Town Hall Meeting

David Macaray
Labor and the Conventional Wisdom

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Assimilation of Niranjan Ramakrishnan

Website of the Day
A Petition in Support of Janice Harper

August 11, 2009

Ricardo Alarcón
Forbidden Heroes

Marshall Auerback
America's Biggest Economic Problem?

Reza Yavari
Inside Iran's Most Infamous Prison

Winslow T. Wheeler
How Congress Pays For Its Pork

Tim Wise
Red-Baiting and Racism

Uri Avnery
A Moral Person

Deepak Tripathi
Getting Away With Torture

Greg Moses
Time to Plan for the Worst

Benjamin Dangl
Boycotting Big Beer

Dave Lindorff
Hecklers Unite! Why Aren't Progressives Disrupting ObamaCare Town Halls?

Website of the Day
What Bush Told Chirac About the Iraq War

August 10, 2009

David Price
Trial by FBI Investigation

Mike Whitney
There is No Recession; It's a Planned Demolition

Alan Farago
Seeds of Destruction: How the National Economy was Wrecked by the Politics of Deregulation in Florida

Conn Hallinan
The Honduran Coup: a U.S. Connection

Russell Mokhiber
Health Care: In Defense of Disruption

Paul Krassner
The Mystery Behind the Manson Murders

Sousan Hammad
Orgy of the Dead: the 2009 Fatah Conference

Jonathan Cook
Israeli School Apartheid

Ira Glunts
Netanyahu's Sister-in-Law Detained by Israeli Police; Calls Evictions an Unjustified Folly

George Wuerthner
Dead Tree Hysteria

Website of the Day
Conyers: ObamaCare is Crap

August 7 - 9, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
It Pays to Have a Nuke

Mike Whitney
Economy on a Scaffold

Elaine C. Hagopian
Obama's Israel Albatross

Carl Ginsburg
RX For Healthcare

Miguel Tinker Salas
Honduras is Only Part of the Story: the Conservative Counter-Attack in Latin America

Saul Landau
The Kidney Broker and the Money Laundering Rabbis

John Ross
The Mexican Genome: Big Science in the Service of Indian Genocide?

Anthony DiMaggio Obama and the Israel Lobby: Origins of Power

John Stanton
Expanding Human Terrain Systems?

Christopher Brauchli Legal Absurdities: Outing Three Strikes

Wajahat Ali
A Muslim American Hero: an Interview with Dave Eggers on "Zeitoun"

Ron Jacobs
As Long as the Wars Continue, We Must Resist Them

Franklin Lamb
Sunday Morning on the Dunes: Cleaning "Free Gaza Beach"

Bruce E. Levine
Protect Us From Our Friends

Michael Winship
Neighborhood Watch for Planet Earth

David Macaray
Glimmers of Hope for Labor?

Stephen Fleischman
Suicide Squad

Robert Bryce
Unplugging the Next Big Thing: the Hype Over Electric Cars

Robert Dodge, MD: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered

Mark Seth Lender
The Message of the Glossy Ibis

David Yearsley
Vaucanson's Faun and the Duck in the Attic

Ben Sonnenberg
Chris Fuller's Brilliant Debut

Lorenzo Wolff
When Music's the Character

Poets' Basement
Dominguez and Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Warren Buffett's Betrayal

August 6, 2009

Ishmael Reed
Let's All Have a Beer

Paul Craig Roberts
The Expiring Economy

William Blum Assassinations and Coups: Keeping Track of the Empire's Crimes

Michael Donnelly
Rod Coronado: the Hardest Working Man in Animal Rights "Terrorism"

Jonathan Cook
Rabbis Ban Marriage for Israeli "Untouchables"

Dave Lindorff
The Health Care Reform Sell-Out

Ellen Brown
The Public Option in Banking

Website of the Day
Ellsberg on Hiroshima

August 5, 2009

Dedrick Muhammad /
Barbara Ehrenreich
The Destruction of the Black Middle Class

Norman Solomon
The Incredible, Shrinking Health Care Plan

William Blum
The Myths of Afghanistan: Past and Present

Gareth Porter
The ISI and the Taliban: US Officials Are Protecting Pakistani Aid to Taliban

Mary Lynn Cramer
The Myth of Medicare for All

Jim Goodman
Obama Needs to Take a Stand on Trade

Nadia Hijab
Playing From Strength in the Middle East

Gretchen Kroth
Guatemala's Garbage Dump Education System

Steve Macek /
Scott Sanders
Privatizing the Airwaves

Sarah Lazare
Inside G.I. Resistance

Website of the Day
The Locavore Myth

August 4, 2009

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Shell Game

Dave Lindorff
The Recession Isn't Over, By a Long Shot

Patrick Cockburn
Did British Bomb Attacks in Iran Provoke Hostage Crisis?

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Campaign to Silence Human Rights Groups

Jeff Sher
Making a Mess of Health Care Reform

Dean Baker
Why Don't We Globalize Health Care?

Andy Worthington
Gitmo as Hotel California

Uri Avnery
A Jeremiad

Mark Weisbrot
U.S.-Brokered Mediation in Honduras Has Failed

Alvaro Huerta
Hold That Dustbin! So Much for the "End of Racism"

Website of the Day
Pentagon to Ban Facebook and Twitter?

Weekened Edition
September 18-20, 2009

Revenge Fantasies

Vengeance, Barbarism and Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds

By GILAD ATZMON

Once again Quentin Tarantino has managed to produce the impossible: ‘an anti Holocaust film’. The Holocaust film genre  can be grasped as a realistic cinematic representation of the ‘Jewish victim’ (innocent and harmless individual) confronted with the ultimate brutal bureaucratic murderous ideology known as Nazism.  The genre can be realised as an intense emotional blackmail that aims to depict the history of the 20th century through an empathetic identification with a phantasmic faultless Jewish  protagonist.  Needless to say,  this genre has been rather successful. Whether it is Schindler’s List,  The Pianist, Everything is Illuminated,  The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas or any other Shoah (Hebrew for Holocaust) film, it is always Jewish innocence that faces institutional state terror.

Tarantino manages to resolve the clear discrepancy between the cinematic ‘Jewish innocence’ and the Jewish nationalist ‘murderous reality’. He does it all through a fantasy. In his imaginary setting, the Jew is a revengeful subject. He is an iconic retaliating scalping savage, Biblically-motivated murderer. In Tarantino’s latest epic, for the first time, the Diaspora Jew resembles his  Israeli nephew. Through a cinematic fictional plot, history has become a homogenous continuum in which Jewish past and Israeli present are unified into a relentless expedition of suicidal vengeance. If films indeed resemble the work of the dream and the unconscious, Tarantino’s latest can be grasped as a wake up call; it illuminates something that we insist to suppress and deny.

On the face of it, Inglourious Basterds follows a typical Hollywood WWII film genre. In the film a special unit of Jewish Americans (the Inglourious Basterds) lands in occupied France just to teach the Nazis what Jewish reprisal is all about. They ambush Nazi patrols and then kill their prisoners, exhibiting  ultimate brutality, whether it is scalping the dead Nazis or killing the rest by crashing their skulls with a baseball bat. The Basterds would always leave one German alive as a witness of their relentless brutality so he can spread out the news of Jewish terror. With a bayonet, they would carve a Swastika into the survivor's forehead in order to make the Nazi identifiable to all after the war. This is presumably a modern take on the mark of Cain  but it is somehow a bunch of ‘inglorious humans’, who take the role of God.

The film’s opening scene takes us to German-occupied France (1941). Col. Hans Landa  (Cristoph Waltz) of the Waffen-SS a.k.a. the "Jew Hunter," interrogates a French dairy farmer about rumors that he was hiding a Jewish family of local dairy farmers . Col Landa manages to break  the French farmer who  admits to hiding the Jews underneath the floorboards. Col Landa orders his soldiers to fire into the floorboards, killing all but the teenage Shoshanna (Mélanie Laurent), who manages to escape to the woods.  (Re dairy farmer, already then and there, Tarantino manages in a very subtle manner to set the template for his fictional fantasy to come. It would be impossible for me to argue that there were NO Jewish dairy farmers operating in occupied France at the time. However, it is certainly true that dairy farming wasn’t exactly a stereotypical Jewish occupation. We also learn at this very scene the names of the children of the Jewish family are Shoshanna and Amos. Again, this may seem to be a minor detail. But in fact it is rather crucial.  Amos is not at all a Jewish Diaspora name. It is actually a biblical name.)

Three years after her escape, Shoshanna reappears in Paris, having assumed a new identity. She also becomes proprietress of a small cinema. The film reaches its climax when Shoshanna, celebrates the opportunity to revenge the death of her family. She commits an heroic suicidal act, burning to death the entire Nazi leadership and high command who happen to gather in her small cinema to watch Goebbels’ latest Nazi propaganda film. While the Nazis burn alive and the theatre is consumed by a blaze, with Shoshanna’s face filling up the screen, laughing satanically, she is informing her Nazi burning crowed, "This is the face of Jewish vengeance." From a Jewish perspective Shoshanna’s suicidal act can be realised in reference to the heroic Biblical Samson who topples the Philistine shrine on himself killing elders, women and children. In Tarantino’s latest, rather than Nazis burning Jews, it is actually the Jew who locks the Nazis behind doors and burns them to death.

Jew Vs Nazi

“Inglourious Basterds just made me smile forever. Quentin Tarantino is righteous and every Jew should write him a thank you note. Here's mine” Sarah Silverman on Twitter.

One may wonder, how it is that a Jewish producer  affiliated with Israel and Zionism is standing behind such a film that portrays the Jews in such a horrifying light. The answer is actually very simple. Zionists love to see themselves as revengeful and merciless. In Israel, Samson who is nothing less than a genocidal murderer is regarded as an eternal hero. He even managed to get an IDF battalion called after him. It is not a secret that the fantasy of retribution is deeply imbued within the Zionist psyche  and Israeli politics. “Never Again” is there to suggest to Israelis that Jews will never again be sent as lambs to the slaughter. What it means in practice is that Jews will fight back and hit as hard as they can. Reprisal is a key element in the understanding of Israeli conduct. As much as the film depicts a horrifying image of the revengeful Jew, Jews and Zionists happen to support the film and even love it.

But Tarantino doesn’t  stop there. He also offers a harsh criticism of Jewish identity by drawing a comparison between the Jewish and Nazi protagonists.

Unlike the single dimensional vengeance ridden Jewish protagonists (the Inglourious Basterds and Shoshanna), Tarantino’s Nazis are mostly complex and multi dimensional.

To start with they present a duality and even a contradiction between individuality and the collective role. While the Jewish protagonists present a conviction that unified the personal and the tribal into retribution, Col. Landa, the SS ‘Jew Hunter’ actually bounces between hedonism and Nazi murderous subservience. Col Landa is also a very well mannered  Austrian, cultured,  charming man. And yet, within seconds he could turn into a monstrous beast. He interprets his behavior in terms of productivity; he is ‘doing his job’. At the end of the day, he is a detective and his task is to locate Jews in their hiding places. Col. Landa is even willing to admit that he is good at it because he is capable of ‘thinking like a Jew’: he can predict how people who ‘lack dignity’ may behave. Unlike the Jewish protagonists who can’t speak any foreign language, Col. Landa is immersed in Western culture. He speaks fluent English, French and Italian in addition to his native German. Unlike the Jewish protagonists who are focused on nothing but revenge, Landa eventually betrays the 3rd Reich just to bring an end to the war and have  peace in  Europe. Needless to mention that he also manages to secure his future in the same breath, negotiating it with a ‘top brass’ American.

Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), is another example of Nazi multi dimensional identity. Zoller is a young German Wehrmacht war hero starring in Joseph Goebbels' newest propaganda film. In spite of Zoller being a decorated killing machine, he is far from being proud of it. He had done it in self-defense. His real affection is cinema. It is in the cinema where he meets Shoshanna and fall in love with her, unaware of her heritage or her revenge plan. While Zoller can easily alienate himself from his role as a  Nazi hero soldier or even a killing machine, Shoshanna is not ready to even consider the possibility. She is set to fulfill her mission. She will eventually shoot him in the back and kill the Nazi leadership. 

Rough guide to Tarantino’s Symbolism

Symbolism and History- as mentioned before During the film, the inglourious Basterds carve swastikas on German soldiers who are allowed to survive their ordeal.

It is not exactly a secret that the history of WWII is far from being widely accessible or freely discussed. Rather than trying to elaborate on the meaning of history and historical dynamic, we are subject to an increasing saturation of symbolism and even legislation that suggests what views are allowed to be held and what aren’t. ‘Terror’, ‘Nazis’ and  ‘Fascism’ are obviously ‘the baddies’. ‘Democracy’ and ‘Freedom’ are the ‘goodies’.  Tarantino is here to offer a harsh criticism of  the above. Carving people’s forehead with symbols (Swastikas) is a form of hegemony maintenance. As it seems, we are just powerful enough to dictate ‘a truth’. If we were instead interested in the meaning of our history, we may be able to stop the English Speaking Empire from repeating its Dresden crime in Hiroshima, Vietnam, Iraq and Gaza.

The Golem- At a certain stage, the Nazi high command is convinced that "The Bear Jew",  a ‘baseball bat-swinging Nazi hunter’ is in fact, a vengeful Golem, summoned by an angry rabbi. In the Jewish legend, Golem is a creature made of clay and brought to life by magical incantations. In the film, “The Bear Jew” is actually Staff Sergeant Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth), second in command of the Basterds. The reference to Golem is rather significant. As it seems, even the Nazis cannot believe that a  human can turn out to be so brutal towards another fellow human being. However, the Symbolism may even be greater. The Golem has the Hebrew word ‘truth’ carved on its forehead. For the Inglourious Basterds the notion of truth is the ‘truth’ they manage to impose on others by carving Swastikas on their foreheads.

The Sabbath Goy- 1st Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), the commander of the Basterds is an American Goy who has nothing to do with Judaism or Jewishness. He is a thick accented, vengeance-driven officer from Tennessee.  It may raise some questions why it is that Tarantino had let a cowboy Goy command the Jewish Basterds. It may be possible that Tarantino is trying to suggest that Lieutenant Raine is just an outlet (or ‘a mercenary proxy’)  for Jewish reprisal. As devastating as it may sound, his relationships with his Jewish subordinates may resemble the relationships between Bush and his Neocon warmongers. It is hard to decide whether Lieutenant Raine is subject to judification or whether it is him, being a blood thirsty savage capitalizing on Jewish vengeance. One thing is rather clear, according to Tarantino’s cinematic imagery, the combination of America and Jews is far from being a healthy humanist adventure.

The Film and the Dream

Rather than looking at the content of a dream, it may as well be possible to imagine the dream looking at us as its ‘content of reality’. As it happens, in the dream, it is usually us and our so called psychic reality that is being watched and even scrutinized.  The interpretation of dreams is, in most cases, based on the assumption that in the dream, some involuntary waves of thoughts are there to throw light on the kernel of our being. It is there to bring to our attention those things we suppress and deny. This idea brings to mind Slavoj Zizek’s  return to the 1960’s slogan that ‘reality is there for those who cannot face the dream’.

The film resembles the role of the dream. As much as we tend to believe ourselves to be the viewers, from time to time, it is actually us who are being watched. Tarantino’s latest is a classic example. It is there to elevate consciousness to the realm of thoughts we insist to avoid.  It raises questions that are regarded as taboo. It provides us with an opportunity to glance at ourselves from the perspective of the unconscious. Through the fantasy it draws our reality. As in the dream, Inglourious Basterds displaces and reshapes events without any commitment to any historical truth, it is not committed to well accepted facts either. It doesn’t follow any recognized narrative, yet, it provides meaning.  The success of the film may be due to its ability to communicate with some pre symbolic reality (The Lacanian Real .  It strips us of our symbolism and symbolic order.  As a work of art it leads us closer to Being. Through violence it touches our ethical kernel and hopefully awakens our craving for kindness. For the first time we transcend beyond the discrepancy we impose on ourselves for turning a blind eye to the origin of Zionist and the barbarism and war mongering on a global scale. Through the fantasy we manage to look at evil in the eye and this is exactly where Tarantino ends his film. In the final scene the Camera takes the role of Lieutenant  Raine’s eyes (a point of view shot). We basically watch Lieutenant Raine sadistically cut with his bayonet onto Col Landa’s forehead. In cinematic language, we basically watch with horror as Lieutenant Raine carves us all with Swastikas.

Unconsciousness, according to Lacan, is the discourse of the other. It is that painful truth one tries to conceal from the other while knowing that this concealing may be impossible. From a Jewish perspective, Inglourious Basterds should have been realised as the nightmare of a bad dream coming true. It is almost impossible to deny that Tarantino is out there shouting ‘The Emperor is Naked’: he is neither a victim nor an innocent. The fact that many Jews fail to see it and instead, end up praising the film,  may stand as another disturbing indication that Zionist collective identity has managed to detach itself  from any recognized notion of humanist reality. As sad as this may sound, it explains world Jewry’s institutional support of Israel. It may also explain why Zionists  as a collective failed to internalize the meaning of the Shoa. Instead of searching for grace in themselves, Zionists keep engaging themselves in Nazi hunting and carving others with different labels and symbols.  

For too many years, Zionist  lobbies around the world have managed to dismantle any criticism of Israel. They have managed to turn the history of WWII into an internal Jewish restricted research zone. They have managed to transform our knowledge of the past into a symbolic exchange, but they somehow failed to silence the dream. This is where Tarantino comes into play. Through the fantasy he manages to tell us what our reality is all about.

As much as the Inglourious Basterds, Shoshanna and the Israelis (who gathered on the hills around Gaza to watch their army spreading death) gain some pleasure out of vengeance, it is possible that through two and half hours of therapy led by Tarantino we may, after all, learn to enjoy our symptoms and say it loudly: E nough is Enough. No more Old Testament vengeance and barbarism. We want grace and mercy instead.  

Gilad Aztmon is a writer and jazz musician living in London. His latest cd is In Loving Memory of America.

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