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Obama’s Team: Pro Biz, Pro War
Did Obama’s progressive base get anything? Is it going to be four years of let-down? CounterPunch editors Cockburn and St Clair take a hard, sharp look at the new line-up. A MUST for all Paul Craig Roberts fans: part one of the shortest, simplest, sharpest outline of economics ever written. Alexander Cockburn’s Trans-America Diary: this time it’s the story of a true conspiracy: the Secrets of Jekyll Island. Get your Legacy Edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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Today's Stories January 21, 2009 Gabriel Kolko January 20, 2009 Chuck Spinney Kathy Kelly Raymond Deane Ralph Nader Audrey Stewart Jonathan Cook Harvey Wasserman Christopher Ketcham Robert Jensen Dave Lindorff David Macaray January 19, 2009 Kevin Alexander Gray Uri Avnery Kathy Kelly Mike Whitney Lawrence R. Velvel Mats Svensson Harry Browne Norman Solomon Jeffrey Sommers Kenneth Libby Peter Ewart Bob Sommer Website of the Day
January 16-18, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Caoimhe Butterly Audrey Stewart / Jeffrey St. Clair Ellen Cantarow Neve Gordon Vijay Prashad Jonathan Cook Rannie Amiri Andy Worthington Joshua Frank Dave Lindorff Brian Cloughley Belén Fernández Missy Beattie Fred Gardner George Ciccariello-Maher John V. Whitbeck Stephen Fleischman Mischa Gaus Saul Landau Norm Kent Alejandro López David Yearsley James McEnteer Lorenzo Wolff Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Day
January 15, 2009 Pam Martens Karl Grossman M. Shahid Alam Jules Rabin Alan Farago Ron Jacobs Timothy Seidel George Ochenski Todd Chretien Bob Fitrakis / Website of the Day January 14, 2009 Henry A. Giroux Kathy Kelly Franklin Lamb Mike Whitney Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Aditya Chakrabortty Dave Lindorff Jonathan Cook David Swanson Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day
January 13, 2009 Norman Finkelstein Jonathan Cook Michael Neumann Coleen Rowley / Robert Sandels Saul Landau David Swanson Wajahat Ali Sam Bahour Stanley Heller Robert Jensen Robin Mittenthal Website of the Day
January 12, 2009 Uri Avnery Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Ewa Jasiewicz Bill Quigley Dave Lindorff Bill and Kathleen Christison Jonathan Cook Andy Worthington Kara N. Tina Brenda Norrell Nour Kharma Website of the Day
January 9/11, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Kathy Kelly Bill Quigley George Ciccariello-Maher Elaine C. Hagopian Mike Roselle Steve Hendricks Gary Leupp Jonathan Cook Karim Makdisi Rannie Amiri Peter Morici Peter Montague Ralph Nader Andy Worthington Nadia Hijab Dan Bacher Catherine Fenton David Macaray Valia Kaimaki Richard Morse David Yearsley Charles R. Larson Richard Rhames Stephen Martin Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend January 8, 2009 Jean Bricmont / Franklin Lamb Paul Craig Roberts Kevin Alexander Gray Chris Floyd Ewa Jasiewicz Steve Conn Harvey Wasserman Wayne S. Smith Linda Mamoun Adam Turl Chris Papaleonardos Website of the Day January 7, 2009 Saree Makdisi Franklin Lamb William Blum Belén Fernández Lawrence Davidson Allan Nairn Jonathan Cook Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Deepak Tripathi Cal Winslow Manuel Garcia, Jr. Dr. Hannah Safran Website of the Day January 6, 2009 Pam Martens Victoria Buch Neve Gordon Tami Sarfatti / Mike Whitney Alan Farago Gary Leupp Larry Everest Ron Jacobs David Macaray Stephanie Basile Stacey Warde Website of the Day January 5, 2009 Paul Craig Roberts Sousan Hammad Wajahat Ali Mats Svensson Jen Marlowe Muhammad Ali Khalidi Brian Cloughley Faheem Hussain William Cook Dr. Trudy Bond Christopher Ketcham Steve Early Dave Lindorff Website of the Day January 2 - 4, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Uri Avnery Jonathan Cook Paul Craig Roberts Brian Eno Ralph Nader Omar Barghouti Graham Usher P. Sainath Belén Fernández Deb Reich Gary Leupp Michael Yates Joanne Mariner Seth Sandronsky Cynthia McKinney Sonja Karkar Deepak Tripathi Robert Fantina John Ross Norm Kent Larry Portis Richard Rhames Dee C. Lubell David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Marc Catone Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
January 1, 2008 Jennifer Loewenstein Oren Ben-Dor Wajahat Ali Saul Landau David Michael Green Website of the Day December 31, 2008 Pam Martens Neve Gordon / Ted Honderich Brian Cloughley Ron Jacobs Vijay Prashad Franklin Lamb Mike Whitney David Macaray Richard Thieme Mary Lynn Cramer Stephen Lendman Worthy Group of the Day December 30, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Tariq Ali Robert Bryce Jonathan Cook Gary Leupp Dave Lindorff Brian McKenna John Walsh Ramzy Baroud Bob Sommer Worthy Activist of the Day
December 29, 2008 Jennifer Loewenstein Neve Gordon Joshua Frank George Salzman / Norman Solomon Ewa Jasiewicz Rob Larson Kenneth Libby Robert Weissman Elsa Johnson Nicola Nasser Belén Fernández Worthy Group of the Day December 26-28, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Dr Eyad Al Serraj Jeffrey St. Clair Bradley Simpson Ralph Nader Gary Leupp Ellen Cantarow Matt Landon David Macaray Patrick Bond Norm Kent Brian T. Ketcham Rannie Amiri Larry Portis Richard Rhames Stephen Lendman James L. Secor Ramzy Baroud Harold Pinter Cpt. Paul Watson Howard Lisnoff Michael Dee Steve Conn Poets' Basement Worthy Group of the Weekend December 25, 2008 Judy Gumbo Albert Rev. William E. Alberts Hannah Mermelstein Worthy Group of the Day December 24, 2008 Bill Quigley Saul Landau Sam Smith Brian Cloughley John Ross Eric Walberg Norm Kent Stephen Martin Worthy Group of the Day December 23, 2008 Michael Hudson Michael Yates Chuck Spinney Vijay Prashad Brian Horejsi David Macaray Neil Watkins / David Michael Green Worthy Group of the Day
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January 21, 2009 Or the Slave's Disdain for LeisureObama's Work EthicBy HARRY BROWNE It wasn’t a very good speech. Even his brother-in-law yawned. The oration’s first problem was accidental: how he must have regretted opening with a reference to all the men who have said the Oath of Office, given that (ouch) his own oath had just got mangled -- but he passed on the opportunity to ad-lib a joke about that. From that point on its larger problems were fundamental to Barack Obama’s politics: CounterPunch readers won’t have been surprised at his dull technocratic insistence that there’s no more room for argument about the path forward; we know the code when he talks of “hard choices” and “unpleasant decisions”; and we’ve seen enough of Washington’s idea of ‘change’ to know that 98 per cent of the speech would have fit comfortably in John McCain’s mouth. But there was one largely overlooked passage that was so stupid, and so disturbing, that I may have to withdraw my standard concessionary, “Well, sure, I admit he’s obviously a smart guy with some decent instincts.”
Okay, partly this passage is standard, put-on inverted snobbery from a man whose own CV is short on making things. The right-wingers who claim Obama is a closet Marxist might find the labor theory of value lurking dangerously in it. But for me its most striking phrase is the denigration, alongside the despised “faint-hearted” and fame-seekers, of “those who prefer leisure over work.” It gets worse, a lot worse, if you follow the rest of the passage logically in terms of the contrast he has set up. The productive good guys of the next sentence, the doers and makers who brought not just prosperity but freedom – those folks clearly must have preferred work over leisure, or maybe they scored them even. And the final sentence tells us explicitly who he is talking about: farmers and settlers, sweatshop-workers and … slaves. The idea that slaves helped build American greatness because (among other things) they preferred work to leisure is so offensively stupid that it clearly wandered into Obama’s speech via sloppiness rather than by design. (This is in itself undermines his reputation for wordcraft and attention to detail: the only reference to slavery in the inaugural speech of the first African-American president was permitted to carry this crazed logic.) Maybe we can just write it off as the sort of thing that happens when you’re absent-mindedly knitting together clichés and you drop a stitch. Nobody seems to have noticed it or taken offence anyway. All the same, I say, in the light of that striking phrase: leisure-lovers of the world unite, and watch out for this guy’s moralizing work ethic. No one would wish to deny the pleasures of a job well done; but so much of the work of the industrial era has been short of such satisfactions, and so many of the great struggles of that era have focused on having the time and money to enjoy the time away from the job. Remember “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what you will”? Those sweatshop workers weren’t preferring work over leisure, they were earning a crust and fighting to get out of there with enough energy left in their bones to enjoy life. Meanwhile, while American capitalist prosperity was built on the blood and sweat of slaves, it was at least partly their leisure-time and that of their laboring descendents that gave us the greatest musical culture we have known. “Those who prefer leisure over work”? You’d want to have some great job (President?) not to be one of “those”. Me, I think I’ve got something approaching the world’s best gig, as a college teacher in a public institution, paid well to talk and think and read and write about stuff that interests me, encouraged to have an active involvement in public affairs, in the company of open-minded young people, never lugging anything heavier than a bundle of student newspapers or an overhead projector. Here’s a partial list of things I like even better: going to the movies; reading John Le Carré; pretending to be a cat with my three-year-old; shopping for pretty things with my 16-year-old; a few pints with pals; a morning in bed with my beloved; a walk on the beach; cooking a needlessly complicated meal; reclining on the sofa with a glass of wine and Wayne Shorter on the stereo…. You get the idea: your basic personal-ads stuff. (As personal ads reveal, we see ourselves as we wish to be seen in our leisure loves, not in our job titles.) I can do all those things because forbears, especially in the trade-union movement, fought for my wages and my leisure. Leisure should be a crucial political priority, especially in recession. There’s not enough work for everyone to do? Sure there is, if everyone worked less. Our preference for leisure, frankly confessed and proclaimed, can serve the common good, and point the way toward a more equitable distribution of hard-work, soft-work and no-work in our societies. A leisure rebellion in the US would also help to break the world’s most enduring stereotype of Americans: that they ‘live to work.’ Meanwhile, in Washington, at the end of his big day, Obama couldn’t be bothered to party. His visits to inaugural balls were supposed to finish at 2:55am, but he rushed through and wrapped up more than two hours early, before 12.45. One hopes he eschewed a late night of pleasantries, and messed with his supporters’ and donors’ timetables, because he and his wife longed for some intimate leisure after their long, extraordinary public day. But I’m worried he just wanted to be well-rested for work. Harry Browne lectures in the School of Media at Dublin Institute of Technology and is author of CounterPunch’s Hammered by the Irish. Contact harry.browne@gmail.com
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