Today's Stories

October 2-4, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Geezer Renditions

Saul Landau
News From Raul Castro

Diana Johnstone
After the German Elections: Is Socialism Really Dead in Europe?

Greg Moses
Cramming for the Downside

William Blum
The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Another Cold War Myth

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Nuclear Program: Where's the Proof?

Russell Mokhiber
Welcome Back, Michael Moore

John Ross
Chomsky in Mexico

Ellen Brown
IMF Catapults From Shunned Agency to Global Central Bank

David Ker Thomson
Cop Shocks

David Macaray
The Audacity of Toyota

Gary Engler
Unions in a Rut

Robert Fantina
Meet the New Boss (Same as the Old Boss)

Lisa Stolarski / Naomi Archer
Pittsburgh: Still a (Coal) Company Town

Anthony Papa
Here is Your Chance to Help End the Failed War on Drugs

Joe Allen
The Good Wife: Bad View of a Corrupt System

Harry Browne
Tarantino Scalps His Audience

Ron Jacobs
Collective Fiction

David Yearsley
Hanns Eisler's Great National Anthem for East Germany is Available: Make It America's

October 1, 2009

Andy Worthington
A Truly Shocking Gitmo Story

Carl Ginsburg
The Great Marginalization

Mary Lynn Cramer
Seniors on the Chopping Block

Col. Douglas Macgregor
The Bog of History in Afghanistan

Brian M. Downing
The Paradox of Financial Disorder

John V. Walsh
Mao's China at 60

Ramzy Baroud
The Big Diversion

Norman Solomon
Starting Another Year of War in Afghanistan

Dan Bacher
Undamming the Klamath

Brenda Norrell
Lazy Journalists are the Darlings of the Corporations

Website of the Day
Neoliberalism as Water Balloon

September 30, 2009

Vijay Prashad
McChrystal's Afghan Desolation

Gareth Porter
U.S. Story on Iran Nuke Facility Doesn't Add Up

Andy Thayer
The Fiasco Behind Chicago's Olympics Bid

Paul Craig Roberts
Another War in the Works

Dean Baker
Medicare Buy-In: What's Wrong With Giving People a Choice?

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Mission Impossible

Laura Flanders
Punch in the Streets, But Not in the Suites

Dave Lindorff
The Baucus Excuse

Seumas Milne
Why British Workers Are Angry

Martha Rosenberg
What Integrity Means to Pfizer

Website of the Day
Why You Should Boycott Hyatt Hotels

September 29, 2009

Marshall Auerback
A Neoliberal Hijacking

Alan Farago
Recovery Without Feeling

Jeff Sher
Shopping for Health Care

Bruce Jackson
60 Minutes and the General

Gareth Porter
Fears of Defeat in Afghanistan

Jonathan Cook
Palestinians in the Israeli Army

Bouthaina Shaaban
Arabs in the International Balance

Dave Lindorff
Looking Under the TARP

Stephen Soldz
Spreading Hysteria About Swine Flu "Hysteria"

Sara Mann
The Party of No Meets the Island of No

Website of the Day
Cosmos, Autotuned

September 28, 2009

Laura Carlsen
The Sound and Fury of the Honduran Coup

Anthony DiMaggio
The U.S., Iran and Nuclear Terror

Paul Craig Roberts
More Lies, More Deceptions

Neve Gordon
On Palestinian Civil Disobedience

Bill Quigley
Street Report From the G20

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's LBJ Moment

Nicola Nasser
Stuck Between Two Failures

Ben Rosenfeld Murder in New Orleans: Remembering Kirsten Brydum

Website of the Day
The Short March

September 25-7, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Ruin of His Presidency

Daniel Wolff
Speculating on Education

Rev. William E. Alberts
How "White Magic" Makes the Ism of Race Disappear

Mike Roselle
Send Lawyers, Guns and Money

Saul Landau
Covert Memories From Miami

Eshan Azari
Why Afghan Intellectuals Live in National Despair

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Pentagon Feedlot

Robert Jensen
Is Obama a Socialist?

Jonathan Cook
Sleeping with the Enemy

Nelson P Valdés
Cuba, Hurricanes and the Internet

David Michael Green
Dumping Dubya

Ramzy Baroud
The Goldstone Report and Israeli Impunity

John V. Whitbeck
The Partition Straightjacket

Andy Worthington
Gitmo Trial Delayed ... Again

David Ker Thomson
The Lady Vanishes

Seth Sandronsky
Obama and Race Management

Jim Goodman
Why are Farmers Afraid of Michael Pollen?

Charles R. Larson
From Oppression to Opportunity

David Yearsley
Froberger's Travels

Kim Nicolini
Hardcore Capitalism

Lorenzo Wolff
Transparent Pink

Website of the Weekend
An Emergency Appeal in the Fight Against Big Coal

September 24, 2009

Steven Higgs
Even in Indiana, Doctors Support National Health Insurance

Christopher Brauchli
Death Pays

Marshall Auerback
The Shortfall at the FDIC

Stephanie Westbrook
Italy's Fallen Soldiers

Nadia Hijab
Know Your Dictator

Sen. Russell Feingold
Fixing the Patriot Act, Restoring the Constitution

David Macaray
Goodbye "Norma Rae"

Binoy Kampmark
Curry Bashings in Oz

Joe Allen
Dancing With the Hammer

Website of the Day
The Most Corrupt Members of Congress

September 23, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
The Economy is a Lie, Too

Gabriel Kolko
The United States in Afghanistan: Eight Years Later

Uri Avnery
The Waldorf-Astoria Summit

Shamus Cooke
The First Shots of the Trade War

Missy Beattie
The Sound of Money

Gareth Porter
Taliban Rising

Mark Weisbrot
How Much Repression Will Hillary Clinton Support in Honduras?

Dr. Susan Block
The Murder of Annie Le

Norm Kent
Pot and the Right to Pursue Happiness

Richard Neville
Apocalypse Porno

Website of the Day
In Carver Country

September 22, 2009

Franklin C. Spinney The Huge Hole in Gen. McChrystal's Afghan Counterinsurgency Strategy

Russell Mokhiber
Who's the Pimp?

Greg Grandin
Zelaya's Brazilian Gambit

Nikolas Kozloff
Salvaging Democracy in Honduras Will Be Tricky

John Ross
Mexico Convulsed by Paranoia

Ron Jacobs
Gen. McChrystal's Salespitch

Tariq Ali
The Afghan Folly

Dave Lindorff
NYT Trashes Single-Payer

Harvey Wasserman
Tom Friedman's Idiocy Atomique

Vijay Prashad
Is Anything Better Than Nothing?

Kareem Shora
After the CIA Torture Report

Website of the Day
Did a State Dept Official Sell Nuclear Secrets?

September 21, 2009

JoAnn Wypijewski
Will Trumka or the Steelworkers Push Labor Into Battle?

Carl Finamore
Backstage at the AFL-CIO Convention

Uri Avnery
Sliming Goldstone and His Report

Nikolas Kozloff
Joe Wilson's Immigration Hypocrisy

Paul Simpson, M.D.
Why Your Doctor May Have PTSD

Alan Nasser
New Deal Liberalism Writes Its Obituary

Ray McGovern
CIA Torturers Running Scared

Dave Lindorff
Thoughts on Saving an Old Barn

Lina Thorne
Women, War and Afghanistan

Jeb Sprague
Confronting the G20

Website of the Day
Petition: Save the Yellowstone Grizzly

September 18-20, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
When Gossip Came Back and Our Modern Age was Born

Russell Mokhiber
Meet the Real Death Panels

Mike Whitney
The Post-Bubble Malaise

David Michael Green
Can America be Salvaged?

Jonathan Cook
Boycott Derails Jerusalem Rail Line

Nadia Hijab
Sinking the Goldstone Report

Mark Weisbrot
Recession, Recovery and Reform: Will Anything Change?

Michael Winship
Let's Make a Deal, Beltway Edition

Michael Leonardi
The Nuclear Dump in the Mediterranean Sea

Andy Worthington
The Kuwaiti Who Met Bin Laden

Fred Gardner
The Prohibitionists' Manifesto

David Macaray
What Happens in Congress Stays in Congress

David Rosen
System Failure and the Garrido Case

Jason Mark
Hacking the Sky

Mike Ferner
In Praise of Senator Baucus

Farzana Versey
The Great Indian Rope Trick

Ron Jacobs
Dr. Guillotin and Dr. Faustus: an Interview with Marc Estrin

elin o'Hara slavick
Flags for Hiroshima: Artist's Statement

Gilad Aztmon
Vengeance, Barbarism and Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds

David Yearsley
Mendelssohn as Organ Maestro

Charles R. Larson
Darkness, Dignity and Hope in Liberia

Lorenzo Wolff
Dialing Up The Clash

Website of the Weekend
Meet Your Conservative Movement

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

Weekend Edition
October 2-4, 2009

CounterPunch Diary

Geezer Renditions

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

It’s piquant to think of Roman Polanski, a Polish Jew whose mother died in a concentration camp, being dragged back in chains to the US at the age of 75 to face the music, passing in the airport terminal some even older German being hauled out of the US to stand trial in Europe for the crimes buried in his past as a concentration camp guard.

Putting the distant past on trial is, in terms of ratings, a chancy business. These days the 85-year old bit players in the Final Solution don’t arouse the passions they used to. So far as old Nazis are concerned, geezer renditions now prompt a certain embarrassment at the trouble and expense involved. Why not leave the ancient camp guard to rot in his nursing home in Cleveland, goose-stepping into oblivion, arm-in-arm with Herr Alzheimer?

Not so Polanski. The passions his case arouse here are vivid because sexual tolerance has shriveled so fiercely since 1977 when Polanski fatefully crossed paths with the 13-year old Samantha Geimer.

Is it possible that today in the United States lawyers for a 44-year old film director would be able to negotiate 45 days in jail on charges of rape of a 13-year old girl, admitting to vaginal, anal and oral invasions after feeding the young woman champagne and Quaaludes? Polanski signed a court document admitting to these activities at Jack Nicholson’s house on Mulholland Drive. Defense and prosecution lawyers agreed he could avoid trial, and Ms Geimer be spared courtroom interrogation, if he pleaded guilty to one charge of unlawful sex with a minor. It’s surmised that a hefty pay-off was also made to Ms Geimer’s family.

The answer is that money can still talk persuasively but such a deal would be next to impossible, particularly if the charges slithered into public view.

Back in 1977 Polanski’s fear was not so much that Superior Court Judge Lawrence Rittenband (now dead) would throw out the plea agreement and force him to stand trial, but that he might tack on another 45-days on top of the 45 he had already served in the prison hospital where he’d been held for psychiatric observation. For the second six weeks he might be put in the general prison population, where “short eyes” – as child molesters are called – get very rough treatment from other inmates, are often raped and in many cases don’t get out of state prison alive.

Websites here featuring internet commentary on the Polanski case tilt 99 per cent ferociously against the Polish film director. Many citizens openly express the hope that he will be brought back for prolonged incarceration, with punishment as described in the preceding paragraph.

Savage denunciations of “left-wing Hollywood” – now rallying in support of Polanski -- indicate that this is all part of the ongoing demonization of the Sixties and all that ebullient decade spawned. Caught in the line of fire is Samantha’s mother, retrospectively savaged for letting her daughter go alone into a modeling session with the director of Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown.

Samantha herself, married with three children, says she’s no particular interest in seeing Polanski put away, and is now in a different space. But she does add that she would like the moral concerns aroused by the case should be focused on similar exploitation of young girls now.

A case that often comes up is that of Neal Goldschmidt, the youngest mayor in the history of Portland, Oregon. In his single term as mayor in the mid-70s, when he was in his 30s, he initiated an affair with his 14-year old babysitter that lasted three years, with many years of hush-money payoffs thereafter. Goldschmidt never faced charges because details of the relationship only came to light in 2003, when the statute of limitations had come into play. But disclosure did finish off Goldschmidt’s career in public political life beyond bottom feeding as a lobbyist.

Not so lucky have been several female school teachers in the past few years, given savage sentences for initiating sexual relations with students, one of them a sixteen-year old fortunate enough – so many an American man ventured to admit, if only to himself or boon companions – to have been waylaid by a spectacularly attractive pedagogue in her middle thirties.

Many states have reverted to moral/legal postures that would be the toast of seventeenth century Puritans with parents racing to lawyers and prosecutors as soon as they hear their teenage child might have been involved in some sexual activity. The exceptionally wimpish Obama White House, thoroughly cowed by the crazed Beck is no doubt about to succumb to the right-wing assault on Kevin Jennings, who runs the Education Department's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Jennings will be tossed to the wolves, just as surgeon general Jocelyn Elders was swiftly axed by Bill Clinton after she said masturbation wasn’t such a bad way of relieving sexual frustration. Given the timidity of the Obama crowd, over the counter sales of vibrators will probably soon go the way of ephedrine or placed on the same level as Schedule 1 narcotics, with prescriptions and parental permission required.

The new prudery is in full swing in the court room and the day time tv shows, even as teenagers swap pictures of their breasts and genitals on their cellphones. If only Polanski and Samantha had I-phones back in 1977 perhaps he would not be sitting in a Swiss jail right now. But no. Polanski wouldn’t have settled for mere imagery. After all, he did have John Huston say in Chinatown, “Most people never have to face the fact they are capable of anything.”

Footnote:

I write here as one of only two lads in the history of my Scottish public school faced with expulsion for heterosexual activities, having been caught in the headmaster’s study, having a sadly blameless tea party with Warden Barlow’s two Swedish aupair girls and my schoolmate, the late Freddy Fitzpayne. Warden Barlow had returned early from some weekend headmasters’ conference. These days I probably would have had to endure years of compulsory counseling. The school has since gone coed, as I note from the brochures I occasionally get asking me for money or inviting me to reunions.

In those days the Swedish girls were the only available and in any way desirable targets. There was regular direct sexual contact with Matron, whose task it was to seize our genitals at the start of each term in an icy grip and ask us to cough. Probably some boys found in later life that this procedure had become an essential preliminary to any sexual relations. Mostly it was a matter of finding solace in the school library, where a dog-eared copy of Psychopathia Sexualis was in hot demand. I remember the case of the man who went to Krafft-Ebing and described once walking along a steep cobbled street in Vienna when a violent thunderstorm broke out. Suddenly a runaway horse and cart came barreling down the hill. The horse’s shoe struck a cobblestone and drew a spark at the precise moment of a lightening flash. “I experienced an orgasm,” the man told Krafft-Ebing. “Your problem?” asked the famous author of Psychopathia Sexualis. “I am finding it hard to reduplicate these conditions.”

Three Interesting Letters

From: Richard Greener
Subject: Obama's "Ghost" Ayers...

(This was prompted by an item in last week’s Diary noting a claim made in Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage by Christopher Andersen, that in preparing Dreams from My Father Obama had made taped interviews with relatives about his family history, and, according to Andersen, those "oral histories, along with a partial manuscript and a truckload of notes, were given to Ayers".)

As an author and novelist (The Knowland Retribution, The Lacey Confession), I know the process for deducting a writer's expenses when figuring taxable income rather than simply paying tax on gross advances and royalties. Obama's tax returns have been made public and they show no deduction for a "ghostwriter" and no future royalty payments to one either. Since Obama has now reported more than $8 million in book earnings, one would have to believe he has either paid his accused ghost - Ayers - nothing whatsoever, or that he has paid taxes on 100% of his earnings when he had a perfectly legal deduction for whatever he paid to a "ghostwriter."

As a point of comparison, look to John McCain who deducts 50% of his book earnings — the money he paid to Mark Salter - and Hillary Clinton who also reports deductions of more $2.5 million for her "ghostwriter."

It's more than just silly to say William Ayers wrote Obama's books. It's absurd. In addition to the financial evidence, I can tell you for certain that if Ayers was that good — he'd be cashing in to the tune of millions writing similar books for others. I'm sure my agent would love to have such a successful "ghost" on her client list.

If the "Birthers" are idiots and morons... the "Bookers" are so stupid maybe they neglected to deduct things as simple as mortgage interest on their own IRS tax returns.

Richard Greener
Roswell, GA

From: Martin Murie
Subject: Anti-war

I agree wholeheartedly with your [gloomy] assessment of the anti-war organizations. However, there are still local gatherings that are and have been solidly anti-war during this long honeymoon period. Just recently at the Yellow Springs, Ohio demo. we had a visitor from a town, population 800, who stood with us for a while, just passing through. He has an anti-war demo going in his village. The great thing about these spontaneous uprisings is that they usually don't have big names, nor meetings to attend, nor dues, nor a reach into the mainstream. But the advantages outweigh all that: honks amd V-signs from a good fraction of passing vehicles, even from motorcycles and big trucks.

I think there is a new wind struggling to be born: local demos. For a long agonizing period of months Alison and I endured the ending of the Malone, New York village's anti-war protests. They simply stopped. But now, a few protesters have begun showing up at Veteran's Park in Malone & plan to keep it up on a weekly basis. It's finally sinking in: the Obama presidency simply keeps the wars going. And the mish-mash that Obama gave a few days ago, on health care, was a dead give-away.

I know, it's hard to keep track of local anti-war protests across this beautiful land, but I wanted to speak up for local demos. They are the little kernels that might lead to greater results. We can keep up the struggle, even manage to get local coverage by local media. Big statements by big outfits suck energy from localities. They ought to be supporting protests at the grassroots level, instead of huge marches into the heart of oblivion, Washington, D.C. These are barely mentioned in mainstream, corporatized media and then forgotten. Meanwhile, we contact citizens, challenge them, every week.
Peace/Resist
Martin Murie

From: Jordan Bishop
Ottawa.

This morning's Ottawa Citizen (Sep 21) has a story to the effect that the Canadian government will "fast track" Canadian citizenship for Afghans who worked with Canadian troops. This is apparently official, coming from a statement by a minister (Stockwell Day). And as it is well-known here, no minister in the present Canadian government is allowed to say anything without direction from the PMO.

You wrote that with mercenaries the US now has more troops in Afghanistan than did he Soviet Union. Yes..but! With the Soviets largely conscript army there was much rotation, which had the effect of publicizing the disaster more widely within the USSR. John C. Griffiths says that some 600 000 Soviet troops had experience in Afghanistan. The US runs a much tighter ship.
Jordan Bishop
Ottawa

The Wal-Mart Model of Education

In our latest newsletter, hot off the press, you can read Danny Weil on the latest big chapter in the smash and grab saga of neo-liberalism: privatizing Public Schools. Goodbye unions; hello “private contractors”. Now it’s Los Angeles’ turn. But, yes, we can fight back. Weil tells how. Also in this exciting issue, Eamonn Fingleton on how the SEC helped Madoff steal $50 billion and has now covered its tracks. First the Swindle, Now the Whitewash. And P. Sainath reports from India. “All I ask is that the poor family I give the cow to promises never to send it to the abattoir.” Meet Lachchu, the man who saves cows. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683

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Alexander Cockburn can be reached at alexandercockburn@asis.com

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Humanitarian Imperialism
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