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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Drug Companies and Psychiatrists
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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter!
Drug Companies and Psychiatrists
Partners in CrimeEugenia Tsao reports on the upcoming revision of one of the most important books in America, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Here’s where the drug lords, the shrinks and the insurance companies collude in establishing hundreds of bogus psychic conditions requiring the psychotropic drugs from which they reap billions every year. There are about 250,000 migrant laborers in Israel, mostly from the Philippines and Thailand. Meanwhile tens of thousands of Palestinians can’t find work. From Tel Aviv, Yonatan Preminger reports on Israel’s vicious employment strategy. Also in this latest newsletter Andrew Cockburn updates his CounterPunch world exclusive on how the U.S. has secretly helped build Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Get your new 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 t-shirts make great presents.
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Today's Stories July 10-12, 2009 Alexander Cockburn José Pertierra John Ross Conn Hallinan Nikolas Kozloff Clifton Ross / Carl Ginsburg Michael Neumann Gilad Atzmon Ellen Hodgson Brown Jim Goodman Christopher Bickerton Wendell Potter Raymond Lawrence Walid El Houri Stephanie Westbrook July 9, 2009 Ronnie Cummings Jonathan Cook Nikolas Kozloff James Bovard Norman Solomon Afghanistan: the Escalation Scam Allan Nairn Andy Worthington Tomas Borge Nadia Hijab Paul Krassner Website of the Day July 8, 2009 Saul Landau Dean Baker Winslow T. Wheeler Eric Walberg Ray McGovern David Rosen Dr. Mona El Farra Ron Jacobs Benjamin Dangl Alan Farago Website of the Day July 7, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Uri Avnery Brian M. Downing Gary Leupp Gregory A. Burris David Macaray Laura Flanders Alan Farago Greg Moses Dan Bacher Website of the Day July 6, 2009 Patrick Cockburn Diana Johnstone Nikolas Kozloff Gary Leupp Jonathan Cook Tim Wise Franklin Lamb Charles R. Larson Carlos Benemann Shepherd Bliss Jerry Kroth Karyn Strickler Website of the Day July 3-5, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Eamonn Fingleton Jeffrey St. Clair Mike Whitney Pam Martens George Ciccariello-Maher Paul Craig Roberts Patrick Cockburn Anthony DiMaggio Roger Burbach John Ross Nikolas Kozloff Gareth Porter Andy Worthington Saul Landau David Macaray Adam Federman Jane Slaughter Labor's Vague Rally for Health Care Russell Mokhiber Black Caucus Muzzled on Israeli Kidnapping of McKinney Robert Jensen Robert Bryce Belén Fernandez Missy Comley Beattie C. G. Estabrook Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson Lorenzo Wolff Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend July 2, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Nikolas Kozloff Wendell Potter Ellen Hodgson Brown Christian Christensen Iran: Networked Dissent? Patrick Irelan Binoy Kampmark Returning Iraq Nicola Nasser Brian Tokar Dan Bacher Website of the Day July 1, 2009 Vijay Prashad Alberto Vallente Thorensen Paul Craig Roberts Robert Weissman Manuel García, Jr. Victor Figueroa-Clark / Pablo Navarrete Norman Solomon Franklin Lamb Martha Rosenberg Diane Rejman Website of the Day June 30, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Benjamin Dangl Jonathan Cook Franklin Lamb George Wuerthner Todd Gordon Ron Jacobs Kenneth Libby Julian Vigo Website of the Day
June 29, 2009 Ishmael Reed Nikolas Kozloff Clifton Ross Patrick Cockburn Uri Avnery Conn Hallinan James G. Abourezk Ralph Nader Carol Miller Greg Moses Website of the Day June 26-28, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Doug Peacock Daniel Wolff Mike Whitney John Ross David Rosen Emily Ratner Gareth Porter Farid Marjai Nadia Hijab Paul Craig Roberts Fred Gardner Carl Ginsburg Paul Watson David Ker Thomson Farzana Versey Geoff Berne Todd Alan Price Ramzy Baroud Jeff Sher Dr. Carol Paris Despite My Arrest by Max Baucus, I Will Continue to Advocate for Quality Health Care for All Walter Brasch Adultery as Family Value? Glen Johnson Charlotte Laws Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 25, 2009 Kathy Kelly Jack Bratich Wendell Potter Charles R. Larson Alan Farago Jonathan Cook Gareth Porter Bitta Mostofi / David Macaray Mark Schuller Website of the Day June 24, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Dean Baker Andy Worthington James Bovard Diana Gibson / P. Sainath Gareth Porter Robert Alvarez Dave Lindorff Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi Website of the Day
June 23, 2009 David Price Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway / Dave Lindorff Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero Gary Leupp Brian M. Downing Robert Bryce Nicholas Dearden Yousef Munayyer Website of the Day June 22, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Chris Floyd Jack Z. Bratich Atash Yaghmaian Laura Carlsen Paul Craig Roberts Vijay Prashad Fred Gardner Andy Thayer David Macaray Website of the Day
June 19 - 21, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Al Giordano Henry A. Giroux Anthony DiMaggio Paul Craig Roberts John Ross Gareth Porter Carl Ginsburg Tommi Avicolli Mecca Joe Bageant Serge Halimi P. Sainath Jim Goodman Dave Lindorff Rannie Amiri Robert Fantina Harvey Wasserman Walter Brasch David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Ben Sonnenberg Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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Weekend Edition CounterPunch DiaryObama's Biden ProblemBy ALEXANDER COCKBURN Despite our high expectations, Vice President Joe Biden’s first months in office were disappointing. This, remember, is the man who opened the more recent of his two futile runs for the presidency by saying of Obama that he was "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man." Yes, that Joe Biden. The one who hollered at wheel-bound Missouri State Sen. Chuck Graham, to "stand up." The one who plagiarized a speech by Neil Kinnock. In other words a man who has flung himself into one rhetorical pratfall after another with the unswerving momentum of a blind rhino. But then, as Biden and his wife Jill ensconced themselves in the Vice President's official residence at the Naval Observatory in northwest Washington, came a phase of decorum, irksome to those wagering that the former senator from Delaware is incapable of keeping his foot out of his mouth. There were those who said sadly, “Joe just isn’t Joe any more.” They were wrong. Appropriately, it was on the topic of Israel that, as vice president, Biden first tossed aside unmanly prudence. Even given the zeal of almost every member of the US Congress to satisfy the Israel lobby, Biden has always been conspicuous for his slavish posture towards the Holy State. Accepting Obama’s offer of the vice presidential nomination last summer, he announced emphatically that he would not have considered accepting the invitation if he had entertained the slightest suspicion that Obama was not one hundred per cent in Israel’s corner. In fact the Israel lobby did entertain these unworthy suspicions, which is why it pushed strongly for Biden as veep. It wasn’t far into Obama’s first months in the White House that the Lobby began to feel that even though Obama’s chief of staff is Rahm Emanuel, their suspicions were justified. The president dared to mention in public the right of Palestinians to some form of state. He said the settlements on the West Bank had to stop. (True, he didn’t say anything categorical about actually existing illegal settlements.) He seemed too eager to parley with Iran, too demure on the topic of its nuclear program. On July 5 George Stephanopoulos interviewed Biden in Baghdad for his Sunday morning talk show on the ABC network and promptly put the question: “if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat,[and] they have to take out the nuclear program militarily, the United States will not stand in the way?” Biden lunged for the driver’s wheel and swerved US government policy in a whole new direction: “We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.” The White House spent the next two days categorically denying that it was giving – via Biden - Israel the go-ahead to make a unilateral attack on Iran. The United States is "absolutely not" flashing Israel a green light to attack Iran, U.S. President Barack Obama told CNN in Moscow on July 7. "We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East.” Then, in the same Stephanopoulos interview, Biden sucker-punched Obama again, addressing the failure of Obama’s stimulus program to halt the surge in unemployment and prompt recovery, a failure has the president tumbling in the polls. In devising this program, Biden confided to Stephanopoulos, the Obama administration had "misread" the extent of the economic catastrophe it inherited. "The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy. The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there." As Obama made haste to controvert his vice president, Biden fans, lolling on their Sunday-morning couches jumped up and punched high-fives to the heavens. Joe was back, more brazen than ever in his traditional blend of mendacious self-justification. His claim that in late January “we and everyone else” misread the economy was complete nonsense. Our CounterPunch site ran piece after piece by left economists denouncing the stimulus package as way too small and that the White House was squandering irretrievable amounts of political capital and liberal economists like Joe Stiglitz and Paul Krugman did the same. The “realists” argued that it was hard enough to get Obama’s package through Congress. But if the package brokered with the Blue Dog Democrats and Repblicans like Snowe was going to fail, why lash yourself to the mast of a ship heading for the rocks, which what has happened. In stricken Ohio Obama’s approval ratings have dropped into the thirties, according to one major poll. So why did Biden embarrass his boss internationally and then then rub his nose in a catastrophic economic misjudgement? The nose-rubbing isn’t so hard to explain. Biden is a notorious flapjaw. He can always talk his way into a fix. He’s spent his political life doing it. Much of the time it’s an effort to assert that whatever the screw-up, it wasn’t his fault. Maybe he was trying to hint that “we and every one else” actually meant, Everyone else, aside from me. As for Biden crossing Obama regarding Israel and Iran, vice presidents are not supposed to contradict presidential policy. But Biden’s genuflections to the Lobby are so ingrained, he simply can’t help himself. In his mind he’s already campaigning for the nomination in 2012 and wants to make sure the Lobby knows he’s still on board. Obama surely must be thinking - Where is Dick Cheney, now that I need him? As Bush's veep, Cheney gave his boss the limelight, kept his mouth shut for eight years. Everyone said he was really the man running the country. No one thinks Biden is running the country, and maybe this is the core of Obama’s Biden problem. Almost all politicians are narcissists, and Biden, more than most, is narcissistically vulnerable. It’s why he has so often got into trouble for lying about his achievements. It’s why, as a senator, he couldn’t stop talking . Who can forget his amazing performance in the nomination hearings that confirmed Samuel Alito to the high bench. Biden kicked off the hearings with a disjointed, 30-minute essay in self-promotion, as fellow senator Leahy of Vermont sank his head in his hands. All hopes of the Senate Judiciary Committee roughing up Alito shriveled and died. Without Biden, Sotomayor’s hearings will probably move along at a rapid clip. The vice presidential slot is not calculated to make a narcissist happy, least of all Biden who has been given nothing much to do except scan Obama’s face at eagerly for signs of ill-health and preside over commissions like “The Middle Class Task Force”. He dwells in another’s shadow. Shrinks say that those suffering from narcissistic rage yearn, as Heinz Kohut once wrote, “to turn a passive experience into an active one.” If this is true, then Obama can look forward to plenty of strenuous exercise hauling the vice president’s foot out of his mouth. Obama’s honeymoon phase is dwindling to a close. Biden will be there to signal the wrong turns and say that they weren’t his fault. Obama would be well advised to send his vice president on secret peace missions to Afghanistan and hope that the first warlord Biden starts haranguing will saw his head off just to stop him talking. And Talking of Shrinks… In her brilliant expose in our latest CounterPunch newsletter Eugenia Tsao highlights the corrupt ties between the big pharmaceutical companies and the American Psychiatric Association, now preparing to release later this year a draft of its fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, designed to persuade people that if they’re depressed or out of sorts or borderline nuts it’s not because they have three jobs and are shackled by debt, but because they have an individual, biomedical condition that can be salved by buying Prozac or some kindred product. It’s a great piece of work by Tsao. So is Yonatan Preminger’s report from Tel Aviv on Israel’s cynical game with migrant laborers from Thailand and the Philippines. Along with Tsao and Preminger’s important stories we are running an update of Andrew Cockburn’s exclusive report on how the US has helped Pakistan develop and maontain its nuclear arsenal. Only in CounterPunch. A shorter version of the first item appears in The First Post. Alexander Cockburn can be reached at alexandercockburn@asis.com.
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