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"The Plan is to Take You Over by Force"
As the economy implodes, the social fabric frays and nutball groups organize for Armageddon. Pam Martens describes the national game-plan of the “Free State Project”. He was the richest man on the planet and in 1973 he pledged to shut down the illegal drug industry in New York. Thousands, mostly blacks and Hispanics were pitch-forked into prison for decades. This year New York State will repeal its drug laws. Read Bruce Jackson on Nelson Rockefeller’s curse. Half a million new jobless every month and the salesmen of “free trade” still hawk their credo. Paul Craig Roberts describes what offshoring has done to America. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories April 24-26, 2009 Marjorie Cohn April 23, 2009 Eamonn Fingleton Ray McGovern Michael Ratner Alan Farago Rob Larson Nadia Hijab Fawzia Afzal-Khan Dave Lindorff Helen Redmond Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts: Malgudi on the Mississippi? Adam Federman Website of the Day April 22, 2009 Chris Floyd Joanne Mariner Vijay Prashad Gareth Porter Dean Baker Peter Morici Winslow T. Wheeler Barucha Calamity Peller Harvey Wasserman Aisha Brown / Teo Ballvé Website of the Day April 21, 2009 Randy Rowland Dave Lindorff Fidel Castro George McGovern Greg Moses Benjamin Dangl Sonia Nettnin Frank Barat Binoy Kampmark John V. Walsh David Macaray Website of the Day April 20, 2009 Mike Whitney Andrea Peacock Henry A. Giroux Liaquat Ali Khan Fred Gardner Stephen Soldz Nadia Hijab Dave Lindorff P. Sainath Nelson P Valdés Mark Engler Belén Fernández Website of the Day April 17-19, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Franklin Lamb Ralph Nader Fred Gardner Dean Baker Rannie Amiri George Wuerthner Dave Lindorff David Swanson Jim Goodman Kathy Sanborn Don Monkerud Manuel Garcia, Jr. David Michael Green Nelson P Valdés Manuel Gomez Dr. Susan Block Ramzy Baroud Christopher Brauchli Stephen Martin Ron Jacobs David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend April 16, 2009 Mike Whitney Russell Mokhiber Ronald Teska Gareth Porter Paul Fitzgerald / Benjamin Dangl Kevin Pina Robert Bryce George Wuerthner Paul Garon, David Roediger and Kate Khatib The Surreal Life of Franklin Rosemont Website of the Day April 15, 2009 Kathleen and Bill Christison Ray McGovern Robert Sandels Heather Williams / Jack Willoughby David Swanson Paul Craig Roberts Sara Mann Kenneth Couesbouc Binoy Kampmark Kekuni Blaisdell, Lynette Hi'llani Cruz, George Kahumoku Flores, et al.: An Urgent Letter to Obama on the Rights of Native Hawaiians Website of the Day April 14, 2009 Conn Hallinan Mike Whitney Peter Morici Greg Moses Fidel Castro Robert Weissman Rebecca Macaux / Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero Dave Lindorff Walter Brasch Benjamin Day Website of the Day April 13, 2009 Patrick Cockburn Uri Avnery Jeremy Scahill Martha Rosenberg Karl Grossman Nadia Hijab Sam Smith James McEnteer Sean McMahon Namihei Odaira John V. Walsh Website of the Day April 10 / 12, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Chris Floyd Mike Whitney Saul Landau M. Reza Pirbhai Franklin Spinney Rannie Amiri William Blum Matt Vidal Jeff Howison Jeff Leys Dave Lindorff Ramzy Baroud Missy Beattie Fred Gardner Harvey Wasserman Another $50 Billion for Rust Bucket Nukes? Suzan Mazur Bernard Umbrecht David Macaray Janet Kauffman Ron Jacobs Norman Solomon Michael Winship Richard Rhames Wanda Fucha David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Ben Sonnenberg Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend April 9, 2009 Mike Whitney Patrick Cockburn Stephen Soldz P. Sainath Ellen Cantarow Gareth Porter / Jeremy Scahill Jerry Kroth Binoy Kampmark Fidel Castro Website of the Day April 8, 2009 John Prados Bill Moyers / Winslow T. Wheeler Russell Mokhiber Kathy Sanborn Rev. William E. Alberts James McEnteer Rashomon and the Binghamton Shooter: the Rush to Interpret Jiverly Wong's "Statement" Nadia Hijab Adam Turl Kevin Zeese Website of the Day April 7, 2009 David Price Uri Avnery Chris Floyd Winslow T. Wheeler Defense Cuts: Gates and the System Marjorie Cohn Dean Baker Diana Johnstone Dave Lindorff Martha Rosenberg Evelyn Pringle Website of the Day April 6, 2009 Michael Hudson Andy Worthington Bagram: Guantánamo's Dark Mirror Ray McGovern Deepak Tripathi Mike Whitney Norman Solomon Jonathan Cook Judith Bello Deena Metzger Blackwater in Liberia Dr. M. Kamiar Website of the Day April 3-5, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Kathy Kelly / Peter Morici Kathy Sanborn Andy Worthington Rob Larson Saul Landau Steve Early John Goekler Rannie Amiri Dave Lindorff Lee Ballinger Ron Jacobs David Macaray John Wight Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Mychal Bell Missy Beattie Reza Fiyouzat Michael Boldin Christopher Brauchli Charles R. Larson Susie Day Stephen Martin Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Phyllis Pollack Poets' Basement Website of the Day
April 2, 2009 Robert Weissman Eric Toussaint / George Bisharat Russell Mokhiber Franklin Lamb Gareth Porter David Macaray Chris Genovali Sam Smith Suzan Mazur Website of the Day
April 1, 2009 Chris Floyd Stanley Heller Mark Brenner, Mischa Gaus and Jane Slaughter Obama's Perilous Plan for Detroit: Restructure the Big 3, But Not With Bankruptcy Jonathan Cook Eric Walberg Richard Morse Don Fitz Laray Polk Belén Fernández Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day March 31, 2009 Uri Avnery Peter Lee Nicholas Dearden Dave Lindorff Joanne Mariner Ron Jacobs Wiliam S. Lind David Michael Green Benjamin Dangl Johnny Barber Dedrick Muhammad Website of the Day March 30, 2009 Michael Hudson Patrick Cockburn Henry A. Giroux Mike Whitney Ralph Nader Paul Craig Roberts Jeremy Scahill Robert Bryce Jonathan Cook Ray McGovern Website of the Day
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April 24-26, 2009 The Democrats' Teachable Moment on TortureTop of the HeapBy CHRIS FLOYD Could it really have ended any other way? As the New York Times reports, Barack Obama and the Democratic Establishment are coming down hard and fast to quell any incipient movement toward accountability for the Bush Regime's torture system. These "leaders" continue to advance the bizarre and bogus argument that the nation has too many "urgent priorities" to bother with following its own laws. Obama told the Democratic poobahs from Congress that a "full inquiry" into the torture system would "steal time and energy from his policy agenda," the Times reports. But this argument -- indeed the entire issue of some sort of "commission" to investigate the high crimes -- is simply a cynical bait and switch. It is really very simple. Ample, credible evidence of violations of federal law have been produced by a plethora of reputable sources -- including the United States Senate and even the Pentagon. It is the function of the Justice Department to investigate possible violations of federal law, and, if warranted, prosecute them. Barack Obama would not -- could not -- carry out such a criminal investigation or direct the prosecution. The United States Congress would not carry out such a criminal investigation or direct the prosecution. Not a single government official now involved in dealing with the wars, with foreign policy, with the economy and the bailout, with health care, with employment and housing, with the environment, with the budget, with immigration -- in short, with any single activity of governing whatsoever -- would have their "time and energy" taken up by a straightforward criminal investigation undertaken by the Justice Department. [I see that Paul Krugman is making this same point in the New York Times. So now, even "serious" people can't pretend not to have heard it.] If anyone -- politician, pundit, pal at the water cooler -- gives you the argument that torture can't be investigated because it would be a "distraction" from other government business, they are either lying to your face, or else ignorantly repeating a lie that's been filtered down from the elite. The argument about "distraction" is ludicrous, and insulting, on its face. It is exactly like saying, "Oh, we can't investigate these murders by Al Capone and his mob, because the mayor and city council have a lot on their plates right now, with this Depression and all. This is a time for looking forward, not retribution." We don't need a "truth commission." We don't need to "wait for the facts to be gathered," as that walking conglomeration of craven servility and moral corruption, Harry Reid, insists. There are enough clearly established, copiously documented, credibly supported facts already in the public domain to warrant a full-scale criminal investigation by federal law enforcement officials. It has nothing to do with "retribution" or "criminalizing policy disagreements" or "witch hunts" or any other of the weasel-word phrases being disgorged by our Establishment grandees in their panicky attempt to bury the crimes -- and in some cases, the dead bodies -- of the nation's bipartisan leadership. And here we come to the crux of the matter. There will be no genuine accounting (or, apparently, not even any ersatz accounting, with a couple of scapegoat scalps paraded before the rubes) on the question of torture by the United States government for two simple reasons. First, the Democratic leaders of Congress are themselves thoroughly complicit in the torture system, about which they were often briefed by the Bush Administration itself. And if the Bush Administration withheld information about many of its atrocities in these official briefings (which is highly likely), detailed revelations of what was really going on has been readily available for years from a number of, again, credible and respectable sources, from human rights organizations to U.S. government agencies. Any full and genuine investigation of the torture system would reveal the shocking extent of Democratic complicity with it. And certainly a criminal investigation -- which could not be steered and hobbled by a "blue-ribbon" panel of Establishment grandees -- would be even more dangerous in that regard. A genuine, independent probe of the Bush torture system would also doubtless lead back to covert tortures countenanced by Democratic and Republican administrations going back for several decades, as Bernard Chazelle noted recently. The second reason why Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership are resisting, with all their might, a full investigation for the torture system is that they want to uphold what is perhaps the central principle of the American state today: the unaccountability of the ruling elite. [Glenn Greenwald speaks to this point here.] They want to retain the freedom of action to do "whatever it takes" (that tough-guy phrase so beloved by "savvy" insiders and their sycophants in the press) to maintain themselves and their cronies and their class in a position of dominance, wealth and privilege. The law is not for them; the law is for the rubes, the suckers, the rabble, the losers -- for you and me, in other words. I don't want to make a fetish of the law. Laws are generally devised by the powerful to serve and protect their own interests. As we noted here yesterday, most of the atrocities committed by the Germans in World War II were "legal" under the laws of the Nazi regime. The ringing phrase, "rule of law," is not a magic talisman that solves all ills. But as Billy Kid said to Alamosa Bill, in Sam Peckinpah's eccentric western about the ever-shifting legal and moral lines in human affairs: "The law's a funny thing, ain't it?" Once it has been fashioned, it can be used in ways its elitist framers might never have intended: against them, for example. For whatever reasons, the United States government has adopted the UN Convention against Torture as the law of the land. All of the leaders of the United States government claim to be sworn upholders of the law; indeed, they certainly apply rigorously, even ruthlessly, to those of us in the lower orders. So now we come to what is called, in the treacly, touchy-feely parlance of our day, a "teachable moment." Here is one of the most clear-cut points of national decision and self-definition that can be imagined. Clear, credible evidence of atrocity and conspiracy has been produced. The course prescribed by law is clear: criminal investigation and, if warranted, prosecution. If, as you claim, your state is founded upon the rule of law, then there simply is no choice in the matter: the torture program and all of its perpetrators, facilitators and instigators must be subjected to the due process of law, without fear or favor. If this does not happen, then your state, however modernized and sophisticated, is nothing but a gilded barbarism, a gangland, where the brute force of money, privilege and power hold tyrannical sway. There is no law, only the triumph of the will of corrupt and criminal factions as they preen and jostle for position atop a fetid heap of blood and filth. President Barack Obama and the Democratic leaders have now openly joined the long-time Republican resistance to applying the law of the land to the torture program. What lesson, then, are we to take from this "teachable moment"? What does this decision, this act of self-definition, say about the true nature of the American system of government today? Where does it put our righteous, noble, God-professing leaders? Why, on top of that stinking heap, of course! Chris Floyd is an American writer and frequent contributor to Counterpunch. His blog, Empire Burlesque, can be found at www.chris-floyd.com. |
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