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Today's
Stories
March 20, 2008
Millet / Toussaint
The
Triple Falling of the Big Private Banks
Mike Whitney
Winding
Up Bear
March 19, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
A
War of Lies
Robert Fisk
The Little Men and the Inferno
Jeff Taylor
Five Years of War in Iraq
Ed Ruggero
From Pinkville to Iraq: the Dark Anniversary of My Lai
Ron Jacobs
Who'll Stop the Rain?
Christopher
Fons
Obama Takes the Race Bait
Sherwood Ross
In Defense of Rev. Wright
Cynthia McKinney
An Urgent Crisis: Confronting America's Racial Disparities
Joshua Frank
The Kool-Aid That Kills
Robert Weissman
Monsanto's Genetic Food Gamble
Walter Brasch
It's a Welfare State--If You're Rich
Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation
Andrew Wimmer
War Demands Its Due
Website of
the Day
Glimpses of Nature
March 18, 2008
David Price
The
Military "Leveraging" of Cultural Knowledge
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Collapse of American Power
Tim Wise
Of National Lies and Racial America: Jeremiah Wright, Barack
Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth
Patrick Cockburn
One of the Most Disastrous Wars Ever Fought
Conn Hallinan
Afghanistan, a River Running Backward
James T. Phillips
Monsters: Past, Present and Wannabe
Uri Avnery
The Killing in Bethlehem
David Macaray
Could Wal-Mart Revive the Labor Movement?
Marjorie Cohn
Beware an Attack on Iran
Peter Zinn
Obama in New Orleans
Dan La Botz
The Economic Crisis, Labor and the Left
Monica Benderman
Where are We Going?
March 17, 2008
Pam Martens
The
Fed's Wall Street Dilemma
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The US, Iran and the Policy of Dual Containment
Nelson P. Valdés
The Imperial Branding of Simon Bolivar and the Cuban Revolution
Peter Morici
The Corrosive Consequences of the Trade Deficit
Wajahat Ali
Disrobing the Nine: a Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on the
Supreme Court Since 9/11
Ronnie Cummins
Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma
Shaun Harkin
Saint Patrick's Day in Fortress America
Ali Khan
No Pardon for Musharraf
Robert Jensen
Beyond Peace
P. Sainath
Oh, What a Lovely Waiver!
Greg Moses
Jeremiah was a Bullhorn
Dr. Susan Block
Advice for Eliot Spitzer
Website of the Day
No Cowboys
March 15 /
16, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
How
to Destroy a Country in Five Years
Mike Whitney
Bearly
Alive: Investment Giant Rushed to ICU by Panicky Fed Chief
Ralph Nader
Of
Laws and Men
Robert Pollin
It's Still the Economy, Stupid
Diane Christian
The Poetics of Perversity: From Boccaccio to Spitzer
Wajahat Ali
Faking the Hood: a Conversation with Ishmael Reed
Tom Wright
/
Therese Saliba
Rachel Corrie's Case for Justice
Alan Farago
Back to Florida: Where Bushtime Began
Greg Moses
Raiding the Family Room in Texas
Michael Hudson
A Grand Global Bargain?
Martha Rosenberg
Why Hillary's Favorite Chicken Company is Eying China
John Goekler
Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict
Uzma Aslam
Khan
A Letter to Barack Obama: Where's the Change, Barack?
Oren Ben-Dor
The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon
David Underhill
Mammon, Morals and the Mobile Tanker Deal
Fred Gardner
The Education of Eliot Spitzer
David Michael
Green
Why Spitzer Should Have Resigned (and Why He Shouldn't Have)
Rev. William E. Alberts
Jesus, Entombed in Heaven
Gail Dines
It's All About the John: Prostitution and Male Power
David Yearsley
Conducting, Anarchy and the Problem of When to Begin
Chris Clarke
Walking with Zeke: the Luckiest of Dogs
Poets' Basement
Anderson, Lodge & Subiet
Website of
the Day
Deviant Art
March 14, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Watching
the Dollar Die
Don Santina
Vichy
Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons
Tim Rinne
StratCom
Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska
Robert Fantina
In
Torture We Trust
Saul Landau
Letter
to the Presidents-in-Waitings
David Macaray
Common
Myths About Labor Unions
Franklin Lamb
Is
the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon
Michael Neumann
The
One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics
March 13, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Republicans
and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America
Mike Whitney
Meltdown
Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze
Assaf Kfoury
"One-State
or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives
Andy Worthington
Afghan
Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story
Adam Federman
From
Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road
March 12, 2008
Dave Lindorff
Bringing
Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US
R.F. Blader
The
Spitzer Backlash
Yonatan Mendel
How
to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or
"Palestine"
Jonathan Cook
One
State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Fallon
and Gates -- At Least One Cheer
James J. Brittain
Was
the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders
Ron Jacobs
"All
the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul"
March 11, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
to End the Subprime Crisis
Ed O'Loughlin
How
Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal
Ramzy Baroud
'Unwavering
Commitment' to Inequality
Kathy Christison
One
State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine
China Hand
PRC
Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran
John Joslin
Thank
You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette
Mike Averko
Serb
Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide
Ben Rosenfeld
Gavin
Newsom's Kneejerk Plan
Thierry Paquot
High
Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block
March 10, 2008
Uri Avnery
"Kill
A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza
Col. Dan Smith
Scoring
the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond
R.F. Blader
Why
"Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its
Sheen
Michael Neumann
The
One-State Illusion: More is Less
Bob Fitrakis
and Harvey Wasserman
Did
the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?
James J. Brittain
Anti-Uribe
Protests in Colombia and the World
Missy Comley
Beattie
The
Passion of John McCain
March 8-9,
2008 Weekend Edition
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Only Way to Fight the Clintons
Mike Whitney
Sorting
Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America
Peter Morici
Fed
and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets
Ralph Nader
The
Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore
Jonathan Cook
The
Meaning of Gaza's Shoah
Steve Niva
Behind
the Israeli Escalation in Gaza
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Crisis
over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax
Hervé
Do Alto and Franck Poupeau
Bolivia:
Morales is Checked
Eric Walberg
To
Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…?
Scott Johnson
City
of A Thousand Foreclosures
Mark Scaramella
James
Brown's Gate
Bill Clinton
President
Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force
Chairman
Poet's Basement
St.
Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson
Website of
the Weekend
Hillary
Blackens Barack
March 7, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face
Robin Blackburn
Question
for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the 'Right War'?
Saul Landau
The
Stupid Economy
Binoy Kampmark
When
Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats
Chris Floyd
Crushing
the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire
Andy Worthington
Spanish
Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo
Britons
Will Potter
Before
the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word
March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008
Vincent Navarro
The
Next Failure of Health Reform
Forrest Hylton
High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President
Peter Morici
Why the Dollar is So Cheap
George Ciccariello-Maher
Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats
John Ross
Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars
Jacob Hornberger
No Standing to Lecture on Justice
Paul Watson
Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers
Dan Bacher
Off the Deep End
Website of the Day
A Katrina Reader Online
March 5, 2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader)
Joanne Mariner
After Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa
Christopher
Brauchli
The Turkish Invasions
Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left
Dave Lindorff
Busting Bush & Co. in New England
James Murren
Bombing Somalia
Adam Engel
Necropolis Now
Website of Day
Remember Song
March 4, 2008
Wajahat Ali
Mumbo
Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed
William Blum
How Could Hillary Have Known?
Bill Quigley
The Cleansing of New Orleans
Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution
Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela
James J. Brittain
/
R. James Sacouman
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
Norman Solomon
The War Election
Jacob Hornberger
Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the European Parliament
Mike Averko
Kosovo and the Press
Website of the Day
Tex-Mex Primary
March 3, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Gazan Holocaust
Alan Farago
American Politics and the Faltering Economy
Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador
Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup
Poll with John Esposito
Paul Craig Roberts
The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution
Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu
Uri Avnery
Good Morning, Hamas
Martha Rosenberg
When Your Meat is a Downer
Eva Liddell
Leave the Next Dance for Bill
Michael Donnelly
Will Ferrell Does Flint
Website of the Day
Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues
March 1 / 2,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Race Card
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Political Trial of Don Siegelman
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism
Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba After Fidel
Christopher Brauchli
Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick
Ron Jacobs
Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge
John Ross
The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico
Robert Fantina
Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins
Robert Weissman
Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy
Mohammed Omer
Fear in Gaza
Remi Kanazi
Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia
Bob Jackson
Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd?
Richard Rhames
Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole
Rannie Amiri
Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon
David Michael
Green
The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam
Conn Hallinan
Notes from the Southern Cone
Faheem Hussain
Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!
February 29,
2008
Matt Gonzalez
The
Obama Craze
Jonathan Cook
Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel
Joshua Frank
Obama and Israel
Anthony DiMaggio
The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback
of American Law
Linn Washington, Jr.
Cop Abuse in America
Binoy Kampmark
Hubris and Nemesis
Robert Bryce
Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy
Use
Sonja Karkar
Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel
Dave Lindorff
A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush?
Website of
the Day
Olduvai George
February 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
"Iraq"
Falls Apart
Fred Gardner
The Birth of NAFTA
Michael Levitin
The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning
William S.
Lind
The Fake State of Kosovo
David Macaray
A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor
Stephen Fleischman
Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod?
George Wuerthner
The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron
Laura Carlsen
The North American Union Farce
Carl Finamore
Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off
Michael Dickinson
The Day I Bombed the House of Commons
Website of the Day
Plane Stupid
February 27,
2008
David Rosen
Playing
the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political
Dirty Tricks
Vijay Prashad
Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War
Harvey Wasserman
Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink?
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns,
Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's
Military Economy
Peter Morici
The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal
Stephen Philion
Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement
Michael Donnelly
Obama by Unanimous Decision
Erica Rosenberg /
Janine Blaeloch
After the Land Deals: Will There
be Any Wilderness Left to Protect?
Website of
the Day
Dress Blues
February 26,
2008
Debbie Nathan
Confessions
of a Gitmo Guard
Alan Dershowitz
v. Frank Menetrez
On Finkelstein
Harvey Wasserman
How Ohio Got Nuked
Michael Colby
Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals
Gary Leupp
Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade
David Orchard
The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan
Martha Rosenberg
The Big HRT
Fran Shor
The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow
Serge Halimi
The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan
for the French Left
Global Balkans
Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans:
an Interview with Tariq Ali
Website of
the Day
Texistentialism
February 25,
2008
Roger Morris
A
Death in Damascus
Anthony DiMaggio
Military
Bases, the Media and the Democrats
Ralph Nader
Why I'm Running
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Broils
Paul Craig Roberts
Kosovo and the Empire Crazies
Peter Morici
Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms
Dave Lindorff
General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That
Minot Nuke Incident
Saul Landau
/
Farrah Hassen
Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film
Heather Gray
James Orange, Civil Rights Legend
Robert Weitzel
Accomodating Torture
John Halle
Kucinich Goes Down
Website of the Day
Do the Trunk Monkey!
February 23 / 4, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain
Paul Craig
Roberts
Obama
and Global Trade
Wajahat Ali
Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon
on the 9/11 Commission
Ralph Nader
Neutering the FDA
Jürgen
Vsych
"What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?"
Fidel Castro
Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana
Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo
David Macaray
Unions Under Assault
Jeremy Scahill
The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence
David Krieger
Stanley Sheinbaum
Caging the Cold War Monster
Ron Jacobs
Building for the Future
Michael Garrity
The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies
Brian McKenna
Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down
Missy Beattie
Over the Hill with John McCain
Fred Gardner
American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly)
Boris Kagarlitsky
The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement
Mike Ferner
Kick That Barrel
Dan Bacher
On the Trail with the Border Angels
Christopher
Ketcham
Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread
Poets' Basement
Davies and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Obama
Mariachi
February 22,
2008
Mike Whitney
The
Bonfire of Capital
Jason Hribal
Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet
Liaquat Ali Khan
Arresting Musharraf
Joshua Frank
That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child
Dave Lindorff
Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for
Her!
Liliana Segura
When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion
Robert Fantina
Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen?
Yifat Susskind
The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women
Norm Kent
Pushing 60 with Pot
Website of
the Day
Bush Gets Down in Liberia
February 21,
2008
Saul Landau
Fidel
Steps Aside
Elizabeth Schulte
Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed
Helen Redmond
Health Care as a Human Right
Benjamin Dangl
Undermining Bolivia
Michael Levitin
Kosovo's Dilemma
Liam Leonard
Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle
Patrick Irelan
Land and Food in Venezuela
Linn Cohen-Cole
Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto
Michael Simmons
Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music
CounterPunch
News Service
A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs
Website of the Day
Cop Abuse in Shreveport
|
March
20, 2008
Mamet, Enter Stage
Right
Apostasy
Now!
By STELLA DALLAS and
JENNIFER MATSUI
In his trenchent dissection of Christopher
Hitchens' conversion from Trotskyite leftist to neoconservative
apologist for American imperialism, Norman Finkelstein notes
that political apostasy always seems to turn in one direction--to
the right, which happens to be where the power is: "The
would-be apostate almost always pulls towards power's magnetic
field, rarely away. However elaborate the testimonials on how
one came to 'see the light,' the impetus behind political apostasy
is--pardon my cynicism--a fairly straightforward, uncomplicated
affair: to cash in, or keep cashing in, on earthly pleasures."
(Finkelstein, "Fraternally yours, Chris.")
David Mamet's recent announcement
of his own apostasy ("Why
I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal" Village Voice,
Mar. 11, 2008) has little of the fanfare that surrounded Hitchens'
hitching of his caboose to the Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz train, just
before it disappeared over the cliff and into the abyss of Iraq,
but it does confirm Finkelstein's observation, in his Hitchens'
piece, that political apostasy in American culture is less about
a revolution in principle than about the absence of any principle
at all. Mamet's new conservatism revolves around the same center
of gravity that shaped his former brain-dead liberalism--his
ego--and thus represents less a change of heart than a repackaging
of his vanity in a more attractive, if not more lucrative, get-up.
It's hard to miss the real
subject of Mamet's latest advertisement for himself: after citing
Norman Mailer's critical about-face on Waiting for Godot,
Mamet begins his article with two entirely gratuitous paragraphs
about a prize he once won for writing "the world's most
perfect theatrical review" for New York Magazine. He then
proceeds to write an entirely favorable, if not perfect review
of his own very theatrical sense of self-congratulation, suggesting
that the sham political stance that Mamet has now discarded was
less an adherence to a certain set of principles, or even doctrine,
than the calculated pose of an ambitious young careerist who
pantomimed the opinions of his peers in the manner of a young
trophy wife taking a superficial interest in her mogul husband's
hobbies and business ventures. "When in Rome. . ."
could have been Mamet's career-defining mantra while he was weighing
his Hollywood options.
While never a keen observer
of politics, young Mamet was undoubtedly shrewd enough to notice
that his chosen vocation, with its poor at best prospects for
financial success and its roots in revolutionary social movements,
was hardly hospitable terrain for the conservative viewpoint.
He might have bristled at its "fey" conventions, striking
the occasional "maverick" pose by admitting to his
misogyny and his "liberal" use of the F bomb, but he
was content it seemed, to align himself with his left leaning
peers, no doubt daunted by the critical fall out that would ensue
had he pursued his long held dream of re-working Beckett into
a vehicle for Jerry Bruckheimer.
That the author of a body of
work best summed up as "Penis Monologues" is not only
a dick head, but a paid shill for neo-con cause shouldn't come
as any real surprise for anyone who has seen "The Unit",
Mamet's prime time wet kiss to US military interventions, and
the highly trained grunts who commit its most egregious abuses,
with the added twist of focusing in part on the wives holding
down the fort as their menfolk battle evil-doers and the neglected
household chores that await them after each mission.
Mamet's rather unspectacular
public denouement of his former political stance has all the
controversy of Paris Hilton announcing that her next career move
involves a stripper's pole. His conversion to the "dark
side' should hardly elicit shock to anyone who doesn't define
a political ideology to a set of superficial lifestyle choices
and the casually formed, inconsistent opinions one develops in
the course of a lifetime devoted to non-thinking. Even low-rent
turncoat David Horowitz could lay claim to an element of surprise
in his public apostasy stunt, had his irrelevance not gotten
in the way of an otherwise lucrative career "outing"
academics and baiting Muslims.
In summary--and it's very easy
to summarize--Mamet's transformation from "brain dead liberal"
to mature, thoughtful conservative is based on the following
clichés:
As a "child of the '60s,"
the "liberal" Mamet assumed that the government was
corrupt, that big business exploits human beings in the name
of profit, and that "people are generally good at heart."
At some point, Mamet's wife
helped him (although it's not at all clear how, or why), as they
were riding in their car, to the realization that he was a "brain-dead
liberal," and that "NPR" (i.e., National
Public Radio") really stands for "National Palestinian
Radio." (Note: The reference to Palestinians, and the bizarre
implication that the mass media is biased in favor of the Palestinians,
and therefore, in the minds of the brain-dead, "anti-Semites,"
is not pursued in Mamet's essay; rather, it dangles awkwardly
in the wind, like a smelly sock.) At that moment, Mamet understood
the essence of the liberal position--"that everything is
always wrong"--and it conflicted with his growing sense
that everything is not wrong, indeed, lots of stuff
is quite right as rain!
As if to demonstrate the profound
truth of this life-transforming insight, Mamet proceeds with
an enumeration of various matters that seem, from his perspective,
good and righteous about America, but there is something unsettling
about his list of things that aren't totally fucked up--perhaps
because the list might as well have been cribbed from a high-school
freshman's civics homework.
For example, Mamet helpfully
observes, the Constitution establishes a separation of powers,
and that's a good, no, a "brilliant" thing (when it
isn't being subverted by our President with the rubber-stamp
endorsement of both houses of Congress); similarly, the current
President isn't really all that bad, and not all that
different from Presidents Mamet used to admire when he was
still brain-dead; and, "the Corporations" (Mamet's
quotation marks--as if now, now that he's grown up, any
reference to corporate greed and exploitation is necessarily
tongue-in-cheek) can't really be so terrible because, after all,
they satisfy Mamet's "hunger for those goods and
services they provide" (emphasis added).
The newly matured and brain-functional
Mamet realizes that just as corporations are actually A-OK, so
he was mistaken in believing that people are pretty good overall.
Unlike corporations and the military, he now sees that people,
in general, "behave like swine"--greedy, lustful, duplicitous,
and corrupt.
Finally, Mamet, having outgrown
his youthful brain-dead innocence and embraced a healthy, mature
skepticism, describes how he began to "question" his
youthful distrust of the "Big Bad Military" which is,
after all, made up of soldiers "who actually risk their
lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world"--such
as, presumably, Iraq's fearsome arsenal of weapons of mass destruction--and
concludes his list of feel-good juvenile clichés and slogans
with the rather bizarre but no less juvenile, nonsensical and
entirely empty observation that the government, the military
and the corporations (this time, sans initial capitalization
or quotation marks; this time, he really means it!) "are
just different signposts for the particular amalgamation of our
country into separate working groups, if you will." What?
No, I won't.
Mamet asks (rhetorically),
and answers (rhetorically):
"Are these groups [What
"groups"? The government working group and the corporation
working group? Are we including the military focus group?] infallible,
free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime?
No, but neither are you or I."
Take that, you brain-dead liberals!
After gotten over the "Hey,
nobody's perfect!" intellectual hump, Mamet is ready to
unleash the full force of his apostastic climax, the lynch pin
of his transformation:
"things appeared to me
to be unfolding pretty well."
Ergo, you'd have to be "brain-dead" to
think otherwise. (One wonders if Mamet was listening to Bobby
McFerrin's "Don't Worry, By Happy" as he worked on
his essay.)
One of the more disturbing
aspects of Mamet's mini-confession is that despite having evolved
beyond his liberal brain-dead state, he still seems deeply confused
about some pressing issues of political principle, such as how
liberals and conservatives are supposed to think of government,
i.e., whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.
On page two of his essay, Mamet
recalls that during his brain-dead phase, he "accepted as
an article of faith that government is corrupt" But on page
three, he seems to remember the opposite:
"What about the role of
government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background,
I thought it was a rather good thing"
This volte-face raises the
question: Has the brain truly recovered?
In any event, and regardless
how Mamet may or may not have thought of government during his
early vegetable years, now he knows better: the government "should
not intervene"! That is a sign-post of maturity,
the mark of a man who isn't brain-dead!
Mamet conceives of his life--and
therefore, your life, all lives--as a kind of balance sheet,
every event and idea falling either in the credit or the debit
column, depending on how it affects David Mamet. Add up the respective
totals in each column, and you can find out what you really think,
about politics or anything else, for that matter:
"but tallying up the ledger
in those things which affect me and in those things I
observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance of where the intervention
of the government led to much beyond sorrow." (I'm sure
the Iraqis, the Afghanis and the Palestinians would be the first
to agree with the formerly brain-dead sage on this, but that
doesn't affect David Mamet, so it doesn't count.)
But if the government doesn't
intervene, Good Lord!, how will us ordinary folks possibly survive
or, like David Mamet, prosper?
Mamet's answer is Zen-like
in its simple-mindedness:
"I wondered and read,
and it occurred to me that I knew the answer, and here it is:
We just seem to."
To "work it all out,"
that is. Get by. Deal with it. Do OK--for a while at least, until
we're dead. That's it. I'm OK--You're OK.
Mamet doesn't identify the
ideology ("Brain-Addled Conservatism"?) has replaced
his brain-dead liberalism, and his essay provides no insight.
He does say that at about the same time as his fateful car ride
with his wife (the "National Palestinian Radio ride"),
he began reading Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, Shelby Steele,
and Thomas Sowell, whom he absurdly refers to as "our greatest
contemporary philosopher" (as if to announce to the world
that he's never read any philosophy and isn't interested in the
subject). These authors have led Mamet to what he calls "a
free-market understanding of the world," which he prefers
to "that idealistic vision I called liberalism."
One might expect the author
to conclude with at least some explanation of why the free-market
vision "meshes more perfectly with [Mamet's] experience"
than the idealistic vision, but one would be disappointed in
that regard: the reference to "free markets," like
the reference to "National Palestinian Radio," leads
nowhere.
All of which leads to the conclusion
that Mamet hasn't really "changed his opinion," as
he announces at the outset. Rather, one has the sense that politics
doesn't really interest Mamet at all, and perhaps never has,
at least as politics is generally understood, namely, as a rational
conversation regarding what principles of political philosophy
ought to govern our understanding of the world and how the world
might be improved.
Perhaps during Mamet's brain-dead
phase, he was a "liberal" according to Rush Limbaugh's
caricature, that is, someone who resents the success of others,
expresses that resentment as a phony appeal to the "common
good," and is all to happy to repudiate the notion of a
"common good," and thus "liberalism," as
soon as he or she achieves sufficient material success to replace
resentment with self-satisfaction. This sort of thing happens
often enough, but why take the next step of trying to justify
to the world one's decision to sell out, as if the world is to
blame, always and inevitably in the form of an all too public
announcement that one has finally "grown up"?
In David Mamet's case, I don't
believe it for a minute.
Stella Dallas can be reached at lout1956@gmail.com
Jennifer Matsui can be reached at: jenmatsui@mac.com
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