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Today's Stories April 16, 2008 Bill Kauffman The Candidates from Nowhere April 15, 2008 Ralph Nader The Politics of Distraction in an Age of Gotcha Capitalism Uri Avnery Manifest Destiny and Israel Brian Cloughley Arrogant Lies David Price Outrageous Pre-Tour de France Ban Joe Bageant Bitter America: Media Shit Storms and Heartland Reality Steve Early The Purple Punch-Out in Dearborn Mats Svensson To Create Something from Nothing: the Making of a Palestinian State Michael Donnelly Dead-Eye Hil and the Elitist April Howard / Benjamin Dangl Dissecting the Politics of Paraguay's Next President Laray Polk Let's Not Put the Torch in a Bubble Charles Modiano What Does a Woman Have to Do to Get on the Cover of Sports Illustrated? Website of the Day The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree   April 14, 2008 Carl Finamore Airline Deregulation Makes a Hard Landing Michael Hudson A Trillion Dollar Rescue for Wall Street Gamblers M. Shahid Alam Hizbullah's Big Win: Has Israel Finally Met Its Match? Patrick Cockburn A Cleric, a Pol and a Warrior Paul Craig Roberts Petraeus Sets Up Iran Joanne Mariner Redition to Jordan: What Happens When the Gloves Come Off? Martha Rosenberg Suicide and Cymbalta Dave Lindorff The Bitterness Thing: Is Obama Channeling Nader P. Sainath Hot Messages to Sex Dancer Doom Condi's New Finnish Pal John V. Whitbeck On Hypocrisy Over Tibet: a Personal Reflection Website of the Day Spying on Environmental Groups   April 12 / 13, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Olympic Torch Toasts US Candidates Patrick Cockburn Warlord: the Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr Mike Whitney Want to Save the Economy? David Yearsley Film Scores and Westerns: the Stealth Cavalry of Empire Robert Fantina Bush's Brand of Morality Conn Hallinan Another Defining Moment in Iraq Bill Hatch In Praise of Hippies and the Counter-Culture Ramzy Baroud The Basra Battles George S. Hishmeh Back to Square One Ron Jacobs The New New Left in Latin America Nikolas Kozloff Olympic Torch in Buenos Aires Charles Thomson The British Prime Minister and the Tate's Tin of Shit Alexander Billet The Disney-fication of CBGB Missy Beattie Huffing and Puffing to Failure David Michael Green America's Jones for War Seth Sandronsky Education Entrepreneurs Prairie Miller Meeting David Wilson Jeffrey St. Clair Booked Up Poets' Basement Ko Un, Ibn Salma and Greaves Website of the Weekend Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights   April 11, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff The Clintons and Their Sordid Colombia Advocacy Wajahat Ali Revenge of the Ghetto Nerd: an Exclusive Interview with Junot Diaz Sharon Smith Let Them Eat Ethanol! Yigal Bronner / Neve Gordon Digging for Trouble: the Politics of Archaeology in East Jerusalem Alan Farago Eating South Florida Dave Lindorff On Waking Sleeping Giants: Lessons for America from China George Wuerthner Money for Nothing? The Problems with the Conservation Reserve Program Christopher Brauchli Prostitutes Don't Do Funerals Website of the Day Animals Explain the Insurance Industry: a Health Care Video   April 10, 2008 Mathieu Vernerey Tibet for the Tibetans! Elizabeth Schulte Slavery in the Fields David Macaray Labor Unions Will Never Get a Fair Shake Ashley Smith The Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr Peter Morici Driving Up Debt and Dragging Down Growth Jacob Hornberger The Military's Distintegrating Family Life Harold Austin Snitch or Else: Prison Officials Threaten Gang Drop Outs Website of the Day Hillary: the Wal-Mart Videos   April 9, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts The Fading American Economy Winslow T. Wheeler Congressional Theater: the Petraeus / Crocker Hearings C. Hand Why Dave Marash Left Al Jazeera Paul Krassner Sex and Violins Paul Wolf Colombian "Magnicidio" Remains a Mystery After 60 Years Wajahat Ali Alien Invasion! Karyn Strickler Lost in the Fumes: the Sierra Club Sells Out to Clorox Dan La Botz Confronting the Economic Crisis Eric Walberg The Shadow of Munich: Another NATO Flop Robin Millenthal Enough Already! Growth and the Tar Sands Economy Website of the Day Conservative Nanny State April 8, 2008 Mike Whitney Should Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be Set Free? Nikolas Kozloff Bush Bullies Congress on Colombia Deal Greg Moses Migrant Detention in South Texas Joshua Frank The Other Military Draft John Ross Mexico City's Urban Tribes Go on the Warpath Against EMOS Michael Donnelly Hillary's Western Swing John V. Walsh Why Obama Lost Massachusetts Jeff Nygaard Health, Security and Mandates Bill Piper Last Shot for a Bush Legacy? Sen. Russ Feingold Legal Representation and the Death Penalty Website of the Day Catonsville 9, Forty Years Later   April 7, 2008 Ishmael Reed The Irish Black Thing Harry Browne Irish Peace Activist Acquitted; Deported Uri Avnery Tibet and Palestine Lenni Brenner Obama's Constitution, His Pastor and His Unbelieving Mom in Heaven Ayesha Ijaz Khan America Must Respect Pakistan's Democracy Robert Fisk Fearful Lives in the Land of the Free Edwin Krales Ensuring the Success of Fascism in Spain: the US Corporate Role Chris Genovali Vancouver Island's Dwindling Ancient Forests Website of the Day LA Artists Against War   April 5 / 6, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Did the Elites Want MLK Dead? Ramzy Baroud There are No Checkpoints in Heaven Ralph Nader Runaway Bailouts David Yearsley How Scott Joplin Had Wall Street Down Saul Landau Sex Politics in America Paul Craig Roberts The Petraeus and Crocker Show Lawrence Korb / Ian Moss Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a True Patriot Seth Sandronsky Meet America's Promise Alliance: Colin Powell's New Gig John Ross La Cumbia de la Doctrina Bush: Colombia Kills Four Mexican Students in Ecuador Bombing Robert Fantina McCain, Republicans and Family Values David Michael Green Back to Disaster: Hoover at Home, Tet Abroad Missy Beattie McCan't Patrick Bond Vultures Circle Zimbabwe Dr. Susan Block The New American Pot Dealers Phyllis Pollack The Stones Meet the Press Adam Engel The Boobus in the Lie Jeffrey St. Clair Booked Up Poets' Basement Diamand and St. Clair Website of the Weekend Richard Pryor Goes to the Gun Shop     April 4, 2008 Dave Lindorff The Night I Heard King Had Been Shot Greg Moses Missing King Ron Jacobs Two Murders, 40 Years On: Bobby Hutton and Martin Luther King, Jr. Alan Farago Show Me the Size of Your Bail Out and I'll Show You Mine Alison Weir Funding Our Decline: U.S. Aid to Israel David Rosen Rape as an Instrument of Total War Robert Weissman The Unrealized Dream Jacob Hornberger Was Killing Iraqi Children Worth It? Jackie Corr Hillary and Obama Head for Butte Carl Finamore Taking On United Airlines Laray Polk We Are All Dith Pran Susie Day Advice for the War-Torn Website of the Day Winter Soldiers: a Video Portrait   April 3, 2008 Peter Morici The Deepening Recession Joe Bageant The Audacity of Depression Andy Worthington Cleared But Still Detained: The Ordeal of Moroccan Prisoner Said al-Boujaadia Nikolas Kozloff Condi's Divide and Rule Strategy in South America Rannie Amiri The U.S. Disdain for Mideast Democracy David Macaray More Labor Strife in Hollywood Stephen Lendman Lynne Stewart's Long Struggle for Justice Website of the Day The True Face of Da Vinci?   April 2, 2008 Diane Farsetta Indian Point on the Potomac Harry Browne Bertie Ahern Laid Low by Secretary Wajahat Ali The Folly of Attacking Iran: a Conversation with Steven Kinzer George Wuerthner Open Season on Wolves Col. Dan Smith The Militarization of America Philippe Marlière The Politics of Bling-Bling in France: Sarkozy's Cultivated Anti-Intellectualism Steve Early A Purple Uprising in Oakland Bernard Chazelle Saving the American Left Reza Fiyouzat Bowling in Hell   April 1, 2008 Jeff Leys Fracturing the Peace to End the War Thomas P. Healy Restoring the Constitution: a Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg Winslow T. Wheeler When Pigs Sprout Wings: Mangled Rationales for a Fatter Defense Budget Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz New Deal Nostalgia Patrick Irelan Cocaine, Colombia and the Cartels Andy Worthington The Case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani John V. Walsh The Shunning of Ralph Nader Michael J. Smith Woolly Mamet Robert Weissman The New Philip Morris--Even Worse Than the Old? Dave Lindorff Bush's Defining Moments Martha Rosenberg Brain Mist Disease: Boss Hog's Gift to Humanity Website of the Day Support Briana!   March 31, 2008 Mike Whitney Dead on Arrival: Paulson's Fixit Plan for Wall Street Mats Svensson Walls, Tunnels and Daily Humiliations Paul Rockwell Hillary's Lies About Outsourcing Paul Craig Roberts A Third American War in the Making? Patrick Cockburn Sadr Calls for Ceasefire Peter Dale Scott The Showdown Alfredo Molano Cultura Mafiosa in Colombia Peter Morici Why Paulson's Reform Plan Falls Short Uri Avnery Day of the Land, 32 Years Later Michael Simmons The American Bard in New Orleans Betsy Roberts / Karen Orr The Clorox Coup Phyllis Pollack First the Sun and Then the Moon: Scorsese Does the Stones Website of the Day Five Years Too Many   March 29 / 30, 2008 Alexander Cockburn When They Pick Up the Phone at 3 AM, What Will They Say? Patrick Cockburn Iraqi Police Refuse to Back Maliki's Attacks on Medhi Army Mike Whitney Bernanke's Next Big Bail Out Plan Christopher Brauchli The Pastor of Armageddon and the Slave Sale: McCain, Lieberman and Rev. Hagee William Blum China, Tibet and the Propaganda Olympics Robert Fantina Iraq Troika: McCain, Obama and Clinton John Ross AMLO, the Comeback Kid? Fighting the Privatization of Mexico's Oil Allison Kilkenny Shady Lending Hits Home Nelson P. Valdés Cuba, the Beatles and Historical Context Suzanne Baroud The Great Lake of Gaza: a New Crisis in the Making Richard Rhames Social Security: Throwing Granny from the Gravy Train Christopher Fons Transcending the 60s? Obama and the Baby Boomers Carl Finamore Misery at 35,000 Feet: Mergers Stall, Fares Soar, Services Slump and Consumers Sour Eamonn McCann Hillary Misremembers Again! Missy Beattie Justice and the Monsters of War Fred Gardner Jim Thorpe, All-American Kim Nicolini Cock Chuggers and Cheese Curls: Richard Kelly's "Southland Tales" David Yearsley "All the World's a Hospital" Jeffrey St. Clair Booked Up Poets' Basement Valentine and Ko Un Website of the Weekend Hidden Iraq   March 28, 2008 Saul Landau Growing Dread About Iraq Alan Farago Other People's Money: the Chop Shop Economy Peter Morici Knocking Down False Economic Gods Andy Worthington Plight of the Uyghus: a Chinese Muslim's Desperate Plea from Guantánamo Felice Pace Ashes of Lies: Why No One Trusts the US Forest Service Peter Montague Sierra Club Cleans House -- With Clorox! Dave Lindorff The Mumia Exception March 27, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Basra Erupts Binoy Kampmark Free Market Apostates Joanne Mariner "Was George Washington a Terrorist?" Norman Solomon NPR News: National Pentagon Radio? William S. Lind Mars Only Knocks Once: a Prognosis for Iraq John V. Walsh Obama's Speech: a Touch of Bigotry? Robert Weissman How Things Work Ron Jacobs Meeting Charlie Ehlen Ralph Nader Put Impeachment Back on the Table David Macaray Court Rules Against Grocery Workers John Borowski Clearcutting the History of Forest Destruction Website of the Day Going Out for an English   March 26, 2008 Stan Cox The Germs Next Door Sharon Smith Greed Pays: Welfare on Wall Street Anita Sinha / Jill Tauber Dreams Turned into Rubble in New Orleans Matt Vidal So Much for the Self-Regulating Market William S. Lind Operation Cassandra Joe Mowrey The Audacity of Hypocrisy: Obama's Pandering to Israel Dave Lindorff Duck and Cover (Up): Hillary Under Fire Ray McGovern Frontline's War: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late Justin Smith Why Race and Gender are Separate Issues Sam Husseini The Winter Soldier Hearings and Indy Media Martha Rosenberg Blood on Ice: Gentlemen, Pick Up Your Clubs Michael Dickinson Politicians as Dogs Website of the Day The Wal-Mart Virus: How the Infection Spread   March 25, 2008 Ishmael Reed The Crazy Rev. Wright Corey D. B. Walker The Politics of Jeremiah Wright Linn Washington Jr. Racism in America and Other Uncomfortable Facts Alan Farago The Money Launderers: a Picnic for Wall St. Insiders Vijay Prashad A Glimmer of Hope From the Gulf Coast Joshua Frank A Silver Lining to the Bush Years? Ralph Nader How Public Servants Can Help End This War David Rovics If I Can't Dance: Why is the Left So Boring? Peter Morici America's Banks are Broken Dave Zirin Olympic Flames: China's Crackdown in Tibet David Krieger The Crisis in Tibet Website of the Day Memorializing Iraq March 24, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Blonde Ambition: Hillary's Berserker Campaign for 2012 Peter Morici Digging Out of the Recession Uri Avnery Two Americas Wajahat Ali First of the Mohicans: an Interview with Rep. Keith Ellison Paul Craig Roberts Inside the Shell Game George Ciccariello-Maher The Coming War on Venezuela Stephen Lendman Sami Al-Arian's Long Ordeal Christopher Brauchli Possessing Someone Else's Country Cat Woods A Letter to Mom on Obama Stacey Warde Tax Burden Dave Lindorff The American Dead Hits 4,000, But Who's Counting? Website of the Day Live from the Longest Walk   March 22 / 23, 2008 Ralph Nader Bush Blisters the Truth on Iraq Nicole Colson Can You Afford to Feed Your Family? James Petras The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives Laura Carlsen From Bombs to Markets: The Andean Crisis and the Geopolitics of Trade Greg Moses Tolerance and the American Pulpit Andy Worthington Torture Stories Dog Guantánamo Trials Michael Dickinson Art on Trial John Ross Bush's Surge Hits Mosul Missy Comley Beattie Killer Economics David Michael Green Happy Anniversary, America! Ramzy Baroud The Coming Uncertain War on Iran Martha Rosenberg Easter Egg Shells from Hell Paul Watson Evolution is Going to the Dogs in the Galapagos Isabella Kenfield Monsanto's Raid on Brazil James Murren Logging v. Water in Honduras Jacob Hornberger Sex and the Immigration Officer Kathlyn Stone Ben Heine, Master of the Art of Resistance Seth Sandronsky Rethinking New Mexico's History Kim Nicolini Class, Gender and Abortion in Communist Romania Jeffrey St. Clair Booked Up: What I'm Reading This Week Poets' Basement Wilson, Woods, Gibbons and Orloski Website of the Weekend Merci, McCain!   March 21, 2008 Marleen Martin Land Behind Bars: the Hidden Casualties of America's "War on Crime" Peter Montague Run Your Car on Coal? Maybe Not Saul Landau Monroe's Deadly Doctrine Anis Hamadeh Merkel in the Knesset Jacob Hornberger McCain's Al Qaeda Scare: Slip or Tactic? Khalil Nakhleh Al Nakba of 1948: How Long Will It Persist? Adam Isacson Colombia, Paramilitary Threats and Assassinations Kenneth Couesbouc Money for Nothing Madis Senner Will the Feds Underwrite the Stock Market? Monica Benderman The Costs of Freedom: What Are You Willing to Pay? Website of the Day Stop Foreclosures and Evictions March 20, 2008 Damien Millet / Eric Toussaint The Triple Failing of the Big Private Banks Mike Whitney Winding Up Bear John Ross What Do We Owe Iraq? Dave Lindorff Paying the Piper: the Bodies and Bills are Piling Up Wajahat Ali Pakistan on Fire Jill Nagle Memo to Sex Workers: Stop Financing Shock Journalism Manuel Garcia, Jr. Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America Dan La Botz Obama's Race Speech Robert Weissman Alternative Power: Shutting Down the API Stella Dallas / Jennifer Matsui Apostasy Now! Mamet, Enter Stage Right Website of the Day The Angry Monk   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       Subscribe Online

Apri1 16, 2008 From Jamestown to Virginia Tech Colonization and Massacres By ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ What does it mean, if anything, that a student, child of Korean immigrants, killed thirty classmates and faculty at a Virginia university while nearby celebrations of the onset of colonialism was taking place? In April 2007, all the news seemed to be coming from Virginia and was about mass murder, occurring yesterday (400 years ago in Jamestown) and today. I heard no commentary on the coincidence of those bookends of colonialism. Maybe I noticed because I was working on the first chapter of a history of the United States and had colonialism and massacres on my mind. Jamestown famously was the first permanent settlement that gave birth to the Commonwealth of Virginia, the colonial epicenter of what became the United States of America nearly two centuries later, the colony that in turn gave the United States its national capitol on the Potomac River up the coast. A few years after Jamestown was established, the more familiar and historically revered Plymouth colony was planted by English religious dissidents, but still under the auspices of private investors with royal licenses, accompanied by massacres of the indigenous farmers, just as Jamestown was. This was the beginning of British overseas colonialism, which led to its eventually far more powerful spawn. 343 years after ragged mercenaries set foot on Powhatan territory at Jamestown and began massacring the indigenous farmers and stealing their food crops, the United States invaded Korea, a half-million troops strong, with 30,000 remaining more than a half century later. The Virginia Tech killings were heralded as the worst "mass killing," and "worst massacre," in the United States. Descendants of massacred ancestors--indigenous peoples, African Americans, Mexicanos, Chinese--took exception to that designation. But, we know what those headlines meant; they meant the largest number of innocents killed by one armed civilian, although even that's probably not accurate either, so they really mean with guns and in the last half-century or so, maybe beginning in 1958 with nineteen-year-old Charles Starkweather, and his even younger girlfriend Caril Fugate, who killed eleven in Nebraska and Wyoming. Then, in 1966, there was Charles Whitman up on top of the University of Texas tower, sniping and killing 13, wounding 31 others before being shot by police. Twenty years later, the post office killings began in the quiet town of Edmond, Oklahoma, a few miles from where I grew up, giving rise to a new term, "going postal." Other workplace killings followed, with around 50 deaths up to now. More recently, school killings have prevailed, some 22 incidents since 1989 in the U.S. Having lived through all of them, I have been interested in the mass response to each one, ever since Starkweather, who was my age at the time. Each mass killing is followed by an orgiastic chorus of proclamations about a bubble of normality punctured by a sole evildoer. Perhaps the incidents play a role in U.S. society somewhat as Dostoevsky had his character, the "idiot," play as the member of the family who is weird or evil so that the rest of the family can be perceived or perceive themselves as "normal." With all the anger and tension we experience and observe daily, it's a wonder mass killings don't happen more often, but maybe the mass killer speaks for many and is a preventative. The Dostoevskian "idiot" is a universal archetype under the patriarchal western family and the triad of family, church, and state. But, there's more to it than that in the United States. This can be seen from how we react. Some say we react so massively because it's the 24-7 television and internet that causes us to dwell on such events. But, I recall the Starkweather crime spree from my youth in rural Oklahoma with no television at all and only local papers and local radio, and it didn't even happen in Oklahoma. Everyone knew about it, following the news of the killers' evasion of the massive law enforcement pursuit, fearing the killers' arrival at their homes. At the same time the news repelled and terrified me, I harbored curiosity about and perhaps admiration for the teen killer and his girlfriend. I was already successfully "the idiot" in my family, as an invalid with chronic asthma. Sickliness still was considered a character flaw and a weakness in that post frontier rural setting. As well, my childhood bedtime stories were about heroic outlaws--Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Pretty Boy Floyd, Belle Starr, Bonnie and Clyde. They were heroes to many who were inspired by their deeds. I can understand how Cho might be secretly admired. Cho stated in his suicide message, "I die like Jesus Christ to inspire generations of the weak and defenseless people." Then there's the factor of the continual reincarnation of the Anglo-Scots outlaw, so pervasive on the North American frontier, often erroneously referred to as a "cowboy." But, I think we have to go back to that yesterday in another part of Virginia, Jamestown, the site of the British queen's visit in April to celebrate the first permanent English colony in the western hemisphere; Vice-President Dick Cheney, in his Jamestown speech commemorating the 400 year anniversary called the birthplace of the United States. Indeed it is, a bloody birth at that. When Cho went on his killing spree, there was a great deal of news about the 400 year commemoration, especially in Virginia, highly publicized planning for which had been ongoing for a year. Was Cho curious enough to do a search on the internet about Jamestown? (Maybe the FBI knows from studying Cho's hard drive, but they most likely wouldn't "get it") Or maybe Cho just looked at a book, or had taken a history course. Perhaps he saw some pictures of drawings of the Powhatan Indians who were killed by Captain John Smith and his soldiers. Perhaps Cho saw a reflection of his own features in those Powhatan faces, and was reminded of what had happened to his own people, the multiple massacres of Korean civilians in the 1950s U.S. invasion and occupation of his parents' homeland, the occupation and humiliation continuing today. (I recall stories from Native American vets returning from Vietnam, how they could not bring themselves to shoot when they could see the faces of the people who looked like their relatives.) Much was made in the press about Cho being Asian, then specifically, Korean, surely touching on those mystic chords of memory of "yellow peril" and Asian wars "lost" by the United States, or not "won" militarily. Yet, there was nothing about the Korean War, 1950-1953, and the ongoing U.S. military presence. Uncountable millions of Korean civilians were killed in the war, many in U.S. military massacres of refugees. Millions of children were left without parents. Cho was not a child of those Korean war orphans stolen by U.S. religious groups, children who grew up in white, middle-American communities not knowing their real names or birth dates or families or villages. Cho's parents had immigrated in 1992, when he was eight years old, settling in a Virginia suburb of Washington D.C., where they started a dry cleaning business, sending Cho and his older sister to the best schools. That may sound like the "American Dream" realized, but only if one has never taken notice of the toxic, backbreaking work involved in a family owned and run dry-cleaning operation, with the immigrant parents working themselves to death so their children might have a crack at that putrid dream of consumerism. Cho and his sister were beneficiaries of their parents' labor to pay for their elite educations. In his video rant, Cho expressed hatred for the "rich kids" who surrounded him. In U.S. society we are not allowed to hate anyone or anything not designated by the State as the enemy. We are jumped on and accused of "playing the class card" or "playing the race card." "The rich are not like you and me." "The poor will always be with us." Get real and accept it we are told. It's toxic thinking. Why should we have to swallow and internalize our righteous hatred of the rich? Hate, yes. The language can be dressed up to it rage or outrage, but, hate is a concept underrated. Everyone does it, but no one wants to admit it. We are held back and diminished by the claim that hating is bad for us, bad for everyone. We are told that it's all right to hate the act but not hate the person. We are allowed to hate wealth or capitalism but not the purveyors. Even in the post-modern intellectual world where "agency" is bestowed upon the poor and oppressed (they are responsible for their actions), the rich remain an abstraction. It's a ridiculous logic that keeps us hating and blaming ourselves for not being rich and powerful, literally driving people crazy. Who are the rich? We have to be careful about that, living in a country that does not admit to class relations, and class is subject to little analysis. It's not a matter of income per se. High income can certainly make a person dilusional, and most U.S. citizens who live on high fixed or hourly incomes due to circumstances of a good trade union or a professional degree have no idea that they aren't rich. In polls they say they are in the top fifth of the income ladder, and they aren't. A majority of U.S. citizens don't want to tax the rich more, because they think they will be rich one day. They won't. The rich own not just a mortgaged house and a car, maybe a boat or a cabin in the woods or a beach house to boot; rather they own us. Even the cash and luxury soaked entertainment and sports stars are not the rich; they certainly deserve contempt and disgust, but not hatred. Don't go for scapegoats--Jews, Oprah, Martha Stewart, or random kids on campus as Cho did. Hatred should be reserved for those who own us, that is, those who own the banks, the oil companies, the war industry, the land (for corporate agriculture), the private universities and prep schools, and who own the foundations that dole out worthy projects for the poor, for public institutions-their opera, their ballet, their symphony, that you are allowed to attend after opening night, and they own the government. My oldest brother, who like me grew up dirt poor in rural Oklahoma, landless farmers and farm workers, rebuts my arguments by saying that no poor man ever gave him a job. That says it all. The rich own you and me. In all the arguments about the crimes of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions, rarely is their greatest crime ever discussed--the leveling of class, rich and poor are the same in god's sight. What a handy ideology for the rich! The same with U.S. democracy with its "equal opportunity" and "level playing fields," absurd claims under capitalism, but ones held dear, even by liberals. When rampages such as Cho's occur, my first thought is not why, rather why not more often. What do we do with the anger, the rage? Violence in the United States is usually associated with the narrative of the frontier having hardened the society, creating the killer, the "cowboy," all that is bad, a direction taken away from the rational Puritans and the wise Virginians who did all they could to get along with the Indians. But, that's a lie; the killing began at the beginning and the purpose was to eradicate the inhabitants of North America, to take their land, and to replace them. There is no redemption in exorcising the "cowboy" or firearms. Such probing as this is said by some to justify or rationalize individual violent behavior, and in a way it does. But, the alternative, to name it evil, is not helpful, nor is blaming guns, freedom, lack of mental health counseling. Why not seize the opportunity to explore what we have in common with the culprit, explore his humanity, rather than vilify him? Some say that any time or effort spent trying to understand does a disservice to the victims and their families. That kind of thinking has strangled and suppressed even studies of history, such as the holocaust. Whose interest is served by shutting down discussion of motives and circumstances, and, particularly, history? One is not alleging lack of criminal intent or behavior, but what made it possible? Wouldn't this be an appropriate moment to at least acknowledge the pathological celebration of colonization in Virginia at the time of the shootings, and the war and continuing occupation of Korea as a possible cause for Cho's decision? As a child during the Korean War, I sold Veterans of Foreign Wars crepe paper roses. Several young men in our rural farming community were drafted and came home wounded or not quite right in the mind. One of the boys who returned sat with my brother and me and our cousins and told us about Korea. He told us how, poor as we were, how lucky we were in comparison with the Koreans. "They're lucky to eat a spoonful of rice once a day," he said. Then he told us about going through a small village and seeing an old man die of starvation right in front of him, and said a tapeworm came out of his mouth. His story made us feel lucky to be free Americans fighting communism, proud of our country for helping others. He later blew his brains out with a shotgun, but he didn't take anyone with him. Maybe he had a conscience. Video games portraying violence and casual killing are blamed for leading young men like Cho to act out in reality. But what about the virtual real war that has saturated the brains of everyone since the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, and subsequent war in Iraq? From age 17 to his death at 23, Cho, like the rest of us, had a head full of pictures of licensed killing and torture. His highly functional sister, a Princeton graduate, works as a contractor for the U.S. State Department's management of the Iraq War. Which of the actions of the two were more destructive? This essay is excerpted from There is a Gunman on Campus edited by Ben Agger and Timothy W. Luke, from Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a longtime activist, university professor, and writer. In addition to numerous scholarly books and articles she has published two historical memoirs, Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Verso, 1997), and Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960­1975 (City Lights, 2002). She is a contributor to Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance from the Heartland, edited by Josh Frank and Jeffrey St. Clair. She can be reached at: rdunbaro@pacbell.net .

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