Today's Stories

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be "Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U.S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N.D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on "Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

June 30, 2008

Peter Lee
Did a Plutonium Generator End Up in the Ganges?

Jeff Sommers
Burying the Bloody Shirt; A New Age for Latvia Dawns? "Astatu Loskutovu!"

David Macaray
The AFL-CIO Votes to Endorse Obama

Martha Rosenberg
Sex Work is Different from Sex Slavery, aver Carnal Toilers

David Price
Blind Whistling Phreaks and the FBI's Historical Reliance on Phone Tap Criminality

Alexandra Early
Report from El Salvador: Why They All Keep Coming

June 28 / 29, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Guess What "Surprise" Republicans Yearn For

Jeffrey St. Clair
Nike's Bad Air

Joan P. Mencher
The Human Right to Eat

Nikolas Kozloff
Nader, Obama and White Talk

Jason Hribal
Tillie, Elephants and the Zoo

Alan Maass
Obama Swerves Right

Robert Fantina
Iraq and the New York Times

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
It Was Oil, All Along

Mike Whitney
A Glimmer of Light in Television Wasteland

Justin E. H. Smith
Collective Guilt and the Fate of Kosovo

Pham Binh
The Mendacity of Hope

David Yearsley
The Rest is Noise

Christopher Ketcham
19 Aphorisms

Jeremy R. Hammond
Bush and the Press vs. the Constitution

Kathleen M. Barry
An Open Letter to Barney Frank on Israel

Walter Brasch
Politics and Animal Cruelty in Pennsylvania

Brett Drugge
A Field Trip to the Reagan Library

Susie Day
Sex Sans the City

Website of the Day
How to Expose a Hypocritcal Politician

June 27, 2008

Franklin C. Spinney
The Defense Reform Trap

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Encaging of Gaza

Brian Cloughley
Chaos in Afghanistan

Saree Makdisi
Occupation by Bureaucracy

Liliana Segura
Reactionary Change: Obama and the Death Penalty

Paul Krassner
Remembering George Carlin

William S. Lind
The War and the Yellow Press

Candace Cohn
Embracing Big Brother

Ron Jacobs
What's a Voter to Do?

Binoy Kampmark
Beached in Chile

Website of the Day
Zoom Uganda

June 26, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Who's Actually Winning in Iraq?

Nikolas Kozloff
Kinder and Gentler Assassination Techniques? Obama Waffles on School of the Americas

William P. O'Connor
The Drone of Experts

Saul Landau
McClellan's Mini Mea Culpa

Ashley Smith
Which Way Forward for the Antiwar Movement?

Dave Lindorff
Our Kids and Their Kids: Terrorists or Victims?

David Macaray
A Brief History of Union Negotiations

Binoy Kampmark
Warming Seats at the Hague: John Howard and War Crimes

Matt Reichel
There's No Hope at the Ballot Box

Remi Kenazi
You Don't Mess With the Racism!

Website of the Day
A Movement Afoot in the Heartlands

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Weekend Edition
July 12 / 13, 2008

CounterPunch Diary

Lock and Load--It's the Law!

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

For millions of Americans, the political highpoint of 2008 is now behind them. The precise day is forever inscribed in their hearts as one of glorious ratification of one of America’s core freedoms: on June 26 the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time affirmed, by a narrow majority of 5-4, the Second Amendment to the U.S, Constitution: “A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

He went to the big armory in the sky a few years ago, but on the evening of June 26, 2008 here, in Petrolia, I could almost hear the joyful salvoes that my neighbor, Curly Wright, half a mile down Conklin Creek Road, would have loosed off into the hillside the other side of the Mattole.

The last time Joe Paff and I visited Curly, then in his early 80s, his literal reading of the Second Amendment was visible in every cranny of his home. Without twisting my head, as I sat on the couch, I think I counted around 30 long guns disposed about the premises. Tucked between the cushions of the couch itself and in a planter or two, there were small handguns available for swift deployment. Curly was an unregulated militia all on his own. 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision was a frightful blow to the gun controllers. “This is a decision that will cost innocent lives, cause immeasurable pain and suffering and turn America into a more dangerous country,” wailed the New York Times in an editorial. “A frightening decision and a return to the days of the Wild West,” said Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago, a city to which gunfire has been street muzak  for many decades.

The Court’s decision was written by the court’s peppery ultraconservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who became positively lyrical in his paean to the handgun: “There are many reasons that a citizen may prefer a handgun for home defense: It is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency; it cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away by an attacker; it is easier to use for those without the upper-body strength to lift and aim a long gun; it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police. Whatever the reason, handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid.”

Thinking of Curly’s well-defended home, I remain astounded by the tiny number of weapons allegedly seized by the Feds in their recent execution of 29 search warrants here in Humboldt county, on California’s North Coast,  commencing on June 24. The 250 agents from Operation “Southern Sweep,” mustered from the DEA, FBI, BNE, and other heavily armed detachments of the sovereign power, like the Post Office inspectors, managed to dredge up a mere 30 firearms in the course of their operations.

Only thirty firearms seized in southern Humboldt County! Mr. McGregor probably had better home defense against Peter Rabbit. If that’s all that a passel of alleged cultivators can muster in SoHum (as locals call this chunk of the Emerald Triangle), heaven help us when the Chinese declare World War Three. They could land at Shelter Cove and scythe their way through the woods to Garberville, with only token resistance from pacifists bunkered down in their plastic green houses flourishing watering cans. The red flag would be flapping over Willits by sundown, with San Francisco, right down Highway 101, waiting to drop into the hands of the Commie-Capitalists like a ripe plum.

Oddly enough, considering the endless political battling over gun rights, the nation’s highest court has only once before ruled on the citizens’ inherent right to bear arms, and this was in the Roosevelt era. Gun control was one of the prime goals of the New Deal, partly as a backlash from the Tommy Gun era of Prohibition and the roaring twenties; also because in those distant days there was a very large and militant left, of which FDR was afraid. The New Deal was a desperate attempt to stave off much more far-reaching challenges to business-as-usual.

Cunningly, FDR’s strategy was to attack gun rights not by a head-on assault on the Second Amendment but by the devious and always deadly route of taxation. Taking weapons across state lines and even transferring ownership became costly activities. The Supreme Court affirmed this in 1939  in US v. Miller, ( a decision set up by Roosevelt’s Justice Department), simultaneously emphasizing that the Amendment confirmed the collective rights of a militia, not individual citizens, and that the arms did not include sawn-off shot guns or assault weapons.

For the next half century, the gun controllers pushed steadily forward, given helpful shoves by the assassinations of the Sixties, Reagan’s narrow escape, and the crack wars of the Eighties. The Democratic Party, listening particularly to its liberal, urban and feminine base, made gun control a major plank. The recoil came in 2000, with Al Gore’s defeat at the hands of George Bush. Guns, not Nader, were a prime factor in that narrow loss. Gore’s endorsement of gun control cost the Democrats Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Colorado and the mountain states. The Democrats began to sideline the issue. The gun lobby weathered the crises of school shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech. The Bush presidencies saw membership of the U.S.  Supreme Court swing steadily to the right.

Europeans, snootily aghast at America’s 50 million households holding about 250 million guns, usually miss two important points. “Home defense” is a phrase with profound reverberations, as Scalia emphasized strongly in such paragraphs as the one cited above. How much it all had to do with killing Indians is for you to decide. And the gun lobby has been successful in anchoring their cause in the notion of a basic “freedom,” in an era when Americans correctly feel that freedoms – against unreasonable searches and seizures, or to a speedy trial – are being relentlessly eroded by government.

Looking for silver linings the day after the decision, gun controllers pointed to Scalia’s acknowledgment that cities and states can still pass laws denying weapons to the unsuitable, ban them altogether near schools, prohibit bazookas on front lawns, and so forth. But, in response, the exultant gun owners point to the all-important footnote 27 in Scalia’s decision, declaring flatly that laws impinging on the Second Amendment can receive no lower level of review than any other “specific enumerated right” such as free speech, the guarantee against double jeopardy, or the right to counsel. June 26 truly did open a new page in American judicial history, as politicians quickly recognized.

In contrast to the New York Times’ editors, the Democratic nominee for the presidency, Barack Obama, took a modulated position but one which prudently avoided any whisper of criticism of the Court, or of Scalia. Obama is from Mayor Daley’s city, but, in contrast to Daley, he emphasized that the Court had indicated that prudent restrictions on gun ownership are not at risk. (Of course, they are and, indeed, are already the object of legal challenge in Chicago.) But his voice was at its most forceful when he said that he entirely agreed with the Court that Americans have the right to bear arms. The National Rifle Association is raising the prospect that Obama, as president, might sponsor legislation to nullify the Court’s decision. Don’t believe it. The NRA needs a threat to keep the membership high and the donations rolling in. Obama, as candidate or president, is not stupid. He’ll leave the gun issue lie. That particular liberal cause will be on the shelf for many years to come.

The Great Oil Swindle

The American people are being cruelly bamboozled about the cause of soaring oil prices,. If they knew how easily the Bush administration could cut the oil price in half, there’d be a million-prson march on Washington DC by the end of the month.

You want to get the real story? CounterPunchers already know Michael Hudson’s brilliant economic analyses. His article in our latest newsletter is terrific. Hudson lays it all out  in crystal clear detail, with regard to the oil price hikes, the role played by  Bush’s war in Iraq, the cliff-edge game beig played by Bush and Cheney with China.

Newsletter subscribers also get my  review of the latest book from  the slippery Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International and a relentless self-promoter. Coleen Braeckman gives subscribers a detailed look at  the international corporate mining giants, battling over the Congo’s vast mineral resources.  You’re only a few clicks away  from subscribing to our biweekly newsletter,  starting with  this latest terrific issue.  Subscribe now!

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