Today's Stories

January 7, 2009

Saree Makdisi
What Kind of Security Will This Barbarism Bring Israel?

January 6, 2009

Pam Martens
It's All One Big Lie

Victoria Buch
Real Estate War in Gaza: the History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing

Neve Gordon
Israel's New War Ethic

Tami Sarfatti /
Yonatan Mendel
What Silence Says: Gaza is Still Waiting on Obama

Mike Whitney
The Gaza Bloodbath

Alan Farago
After the Fall

Gary Leupp
A Hamas Coup d'Etat in 2007?

Larry Everest
Silent Partner: the US-Backed War on Gaza

Ron Jacobs
The New Iraqi Sovereignty

David Macaray
Union-Busting is Alive and Well

Stephanie Basile
Where's Anna's Money?

Stacey Warde
An Uncle's Unrest

Website of the Day
Israeli Refusenik on Gaza

January 5, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Will There be a Recovery?

Sousan Hammad
Phoning Home to Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Flying While Brown

Mats Svensson
Longing in Gaza

Jen Marlowe
Abeer's Baby

Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Gaza Phone Tag

Brian Cloughley
Israel is Immune From Criticism

Faheem Hussain
Gaza and India: a View From Pakistan

William Cook
Consider the Realities of Gaza

Dr. Trudy Bond
The Madness Among Us

Christopher Ketcham
The Revenge of the Blogger at the National Press Club: a Rotten Washington Interlude

Steve Early
Who Rules SEIU?

Dave Lindorff
When It Comes to Terrorism and POW Cases, Equal Justice Under Law is a Joke

Website of the Day
The Endangered Fish of the Colorado River Basin

January 2 - 4, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Diary of 2008: an Incredible, Hope-Filled Year

Uri Avnery
Molten Lead in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of the Gaza Assault

Paul Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Western Morality?

Brian Eno
Stealing Gaza: an Experiment in Provocation

Ralph Nader
America Must Stop Shirking Its Responsibility on Gaza

Omar Barghouti
UN Complicity in Israel's Massacre in Gaza

Graham Usher
Where Pakistan's Generals and the ISI Draw Their Lines

P. Sainath
The Economy is Worse Than It Appears

Belén Fernández
Pardon Our Dust: Israel's PR Campaign for Gaza

Deb Reich
Shiv'a in Gaza, December 2008

Gary Leupp
Defacing Mr. Jefferson's Wall: Preachers and the Inauguration

Michael Yates
Top Chef or Top Wage Thief? Tom Colicchio and the Economics of Restaurants

Joanne Mariner
How to Close Guantánamo

Seth Sandronsky
Funding the Israeli Military: the US Pipeline

Cynthia McKinney
We Lived to Tell the Story

Sonja Karkar
Israel's Dogs of War

Deepak Tripathi
Gaza in Perspective

Robert Fantina
Obama, Afghanistan and Israel

John Ross
The Year No One Can Remember

Norm Kent
The Heat on Duval Street: Why Head Shop Raids are Unfair and Unjust

Larry Portis
Syria and the Arab Barbie Doll--Before the Deluge

Richard Rhames
Is Conscience Dead?

Dee C. Lubell
We Come From the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright

David Yearsley
A Gay German at the Courts of the Medici and Hanover, and of Course the BBC

Lorenzo Wolff
Joe Ely, the Fighting Rooster of Rock

Marc Catone
Looting Lennon's Legacy

Poets' Basement
Five Poems by Grzegorz Wróblewski

Website of the Weekend
Earth in High Rez

January 1, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
If Hamas Did Not Exist

Oren Ben-Dor
The Self-Defense of Suicide

Wajahat Ali
The U.S. Response to the Gaza Crisis: Unfair and Unbalanced

Saul Landau
In Cuba No One Man Could Steal $50 Billion From Other People

David Michael Green
What to Expect While We're Expecting

Website of the Day
Morbid Anatomy

December 31, 2008

Pam Martens
Wall Street's Collapse and the Ownership Society

Neve Gordon /
Jeff Halper
Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?

Ted Honderich
The First Casualty of Israel's War

Brian Cloughley
Five Little Girls on a Sofa: Gaza's One-Sided Images

Ron Jacobs
What is Hamas, Really?

Vijay Prashad
Hot Rod and His Sikh Warrior: Blago's Indian Connections

Franklin Lamb
Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down That Wall!

Mike Whitney
My Brilliant Career

David Macaray
What Really Killed the Auto Bailout

Richard Thieme
The Betrayal of the Commons

Mary Lynn Cramer
Who Wins What in Gaza?

Stephen Lendman
The Troubling Case of the Fort Dix Five

Worthy Group of the Day
Western Shoshone Defense Project

December 30, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
May We No Longer Be Silent

Tariq Ali
The Gaza Ghetto and Western Cant

Robert Bryce
The $775,000-a-Year GI

Jonathan Cook
Electioneering with Bombs

Gary Leupp
The Fishbarrel War

Dave Lindorff
Tough Guys Don't Walk: Will Cheney Seek a Pardon?

Brian McKenna
Ted Downing and Troublemaker Anthropology

John Walsh
The End of the Green Party

Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the World

Bob Sommer
The Education of David Frost

Worthy Activist of the Day
Support Marie Mason

December 29, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's Attempted Endgame in Gaza

Neve Gordon
What, Exactly, is Israel's Mission?

Joshua Frank
Obama and the "Special Relationship"

George Salzman /
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The War Against Palestine: Exception From Humanity

Norman Solomon
A Hundred Eyes for an Eye

Ewa Jasiewicz
Gaza Today: "This is Just the Beginning"

Rob Larson
The Banks Laugh All the Way to the Bank

Kenneth Libby
Arne Duncan's Dark Years in Chicago

Robert Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008

Elsa Johnson
High Noon at Black Mesa: Bush's Farewell Gift to Peabody Coal

Nicola Nasser
Resolution 1850: Bush's Parting Gift

Belén Fernández
Hanukkah Games

Worthy Group of the Day
Nuclear Information and Resource Service

December 26-28, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Medusa's Head

Dr Eyad Al Serraj
The Boming of Gaza: "An Earthquake on Top of Your Head"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Cancerous Air

Bradley Simpson
Obama's New Intel Chief, Dennis Blair, Ran Interference for Indonesia's Butchers

Ralph Nader
Government Without Laws

Gary Leupp
Obama and the Graveyard of Empires

Ellen Cantarow
Richard Falk, Israel and the NYT

Matt Landon
The Great Coal Ash Flood: a Report From Swan Pond Road

David Macaray
SAG's Terrible Dilemma

Patrick Bond
End of Neoliberalism? Sorry, Not Yet

Norm Kent
Invoking Bigotry: Obama and Rick Warren

Brian T. Ketcham
Fuel Efficiency is Easy--Just Don't Let Detroit Tell You How to Do It

Rannie Amiri
War Clouds Over Gaza

Larry Portis
Changing the Ethnic Vocabulary

Richard Rhames
Welcome to Soup Kitchen America

Stephen Lendman
29 Red Flags: Early Suspicions About Bernard Madoff

James L. Secor
Unheralded Coup

Ramzy Baroud
Iraq, the Plot Thickens

Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture

Cpt. Paul Watson
Tracking the Cetacean Death Star

Howard Lisnoff
Nixon's Cambodian Shock Treatment

Michael Dee
The Bill of Rights, Killed in Action by the War on Drugs

Steve Conn
Eight Predictions for 2009

Poets' Basement
Valentine, Kaung, Moser and Graham

Worthy Group of the Weekend
United Mountain Defense

December 25, 2008

Judy Gumbo Albert
What Were Those 1960s Terrorists Thinking, Anyway?

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Sole of Christmas

Hannah Mermelstein
Caution: Settlers Ahead

Worthy Group of the Day
Citizens' Coal Council

December 24, 2008

Bill Quigley
Five Bailout Lessons From Katrina

Saul Landau
Then and Now: Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

Sam Smith
Evangelism and Politics

Brian Cloughley
Torture, Slaughter and Lies

John Ross
Where's al-Zaidi's Pulitzer?

Eric Walberg
Cold War Shivers

Norm Kent
What Will Obama Do About Marijuana?

Stephen Martin
Reasons for Cheerfulness

Worthy Group of the Day
Collateral Repair Project

December 23, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Ponzi Paradigm

Michael Yates
The Tombstone Economy

Chuck Spinney
The New York Times Flames Out in Defense Dogfight

Vijay Prashad
India's Reckless Road to Washington, Through Tel Aviv

Brian Horejsi
Interior Decorating: Obama, Salazar and the Future of America's Public Lands

David Macaray
Obama's Best Pick?

Neil Watkins /
Sarah Anderson
Ecuador's Conscientious Default

David Michael Green
Hey, Reagan Democrats! Now Do You Get It?

Worthy Group of the Day
Focus on the Corporation

December 22, 2008

Pam Martens
Madoff's Money Trail Leads to Washington

Gary Leupp
Base Alienation: Obama's Team of Rivals

Mike Whitney
Bail Out the Economy? More Pay is the Only Way

Karl Grossman
Lost in Space: NASA at 50

Niall Meehan
Conor Cruise O'Brien: Historian, Politician, Censor

Steve Conn
Where Would Larry Summers Dump the Guantanamo Mess?

Uri Avnery
Israeli Elections: Spot the Difference

Corey D. B. Walker
The Politics of Freedom

David Swanson
The Purloined Constitution

Worthy Group of the Day
Socialist Worker

December 19 - 21, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
An Ethnic Cleansing in America

Jeffrey St. Clair
Salazar and the Tragedy of the Common Ground

Paul Craig Roberts
Country Without Mercy

Patrick Cockburn
The Baathist "Coup Plot"

Felice Pace
Green Myopia: Obama's Appointments Reveal What's Wrong with the Environmental Movement

Diane Farsetta
The Pentagon's PR Slush Fund

George Ciccariello-Maher
By the Time I Get to Arizona: ICE Raids and Resistance in Flagstaff

Eric Bergoust
Extinct Lifestyles: Redefining Prosperity

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Without Regrets: Cheney's Unrepentent Confession

Stan Cox
Clothes and Commentaries That Don't Fit

Michael Donnelly
Clinton III: Continuity We Can Believe In

Robert Weissman
The Auto Bailout

Ralph Nader
Excluded Democracy: Scholastic and the Two Party System

Alan Farago
Shock and Awe Economics

Sam Smith
Not All Public Work is the Same

Timothy G. Hermach
What Happened on the Way to the Inauguration?

Seth Sandronsky
Who's Not Getting By and Why

Rannie Amiri
All Quiet on the Gazan Shore

David Yearsley
Bach as Jihadi

Martha Rosenberg
Wyeth's Pay-to-Play

Dave Lindorff
White House Lied About Iraqi Yellowcake Buy (But That's Not the Biggest Scandal)

Christopher Brauchli
Weekend at Bernie's: the Confinement of Mr. Madoff

Missy Beattie
President Meathead

Richard Rhames
Corporatizing the Kids

Stephen Martin
Full-Spectrum Dominance of the Big Lie

Paul Krassner
Milk and Twinkies

Lorenzo Wolff
Does Coldplay Give a Shit Anymore?

Poets' Basement
Kathwari, Halling and Payne

Worthy Group of the Weekend
Heartwood

December 18, 2008

Phillip Doe
The Man in the Hat: Salazar and the Status Quo

Ronnie Cummins
Vilsack: Another Shill for Monsanto

Jesse Sharkey
No School Left Unsold: Arne Duncan's Privatization Agenda

Saul Landau
Postcard from Venezuela

Peter Morici
What's Next for the Fed?

Dave Lindorff
Prosecuting Bush and Cheney for Torture

Panos Petrou
Days of Rage in Greece

Jeff Cohen /
Norman Solomon
The 2008 P.U.-litzer Prizes: the Stinkiest Media Performances of the Year

Worthy Group of the Day
Organic Consumer Alliance

December 17, 2008

Peter Lee
Pushing Pakistan Over the Edge

Conn Hallinan
Angels and Demons in Mumbai

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Fatal Flaw

Jeff Halper
Obama and the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Alan Farago
The Audacity of Parkland

Peter Morici
The Big Hole

Norm Kent
Obama Lights Up

Col. Douglas MacGregor
The Price of Expediency

Margaret Kimberley
Blacks and Gay Rights

Ron Jacobs
The Myth of the Good Guy: Waiting on a President to Do the Right Thing

Worthy Group of the Day
Campaign to End the Death Penalty

December 16, 2008

Vicente Navarro
A Forgotten Genocide: the Case of Spain

Patrick Cockburn
Each Shoe was Worth a Thousand Words

Thomas Michael Power
Back to the Pump: an Economic and Environmental Dead End

Jason Hribal
Orangutans, Resistance and the Zoo: the Story of Ken Allen and Kumang

Farzana Versey
Straw Warriors and the Pantomime of Patriotism

Wajahat Ali /
Ahmed Rashid
Indian Muslims: Defining Their Loyalty

Mats Svensson
The Order to Destroy has been Given

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Mumbai Terror's Afghan Roots

David Macaray
Workplace Violence and Termination Etiquette

Howard Lisnoff
Left Control of Academia? The Case of William Felkner

Worthy Group of the Day
AWR: the Last, Best Hope for Saving the Big Wild

December 15, 2008

Andy Worthington
Hit Me Baby One More Time: a History of Music Torture in War on Terror

Franklin Lamb
Why Hezbollah Stiffed Carter

Karl Grossman
Dr. Chu's Nuclear Prescription

Brian Cloughley
Land of the Free (To Torture and Imprison Without Trial)

Mary Lynn Cramer
Stiglitz's Foolishly Flawed Morality

Steve Early
From Nicky Pockets to Blago: Why Pay-to-Play is Bad for Labor

Thomas Christie
Pentagon Train Wreck Awaits Obama

Ken Paff
Remembering Ron Carey: a Great Labor Leader

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
What is India to Do?

Dave Lindorff
A Hero of Our Time: Muntadar al-Zaidi

Alan Farago
The Artless Dodger

Worthy Group of the Day
Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund

December 12 / 14, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to Chicago, Beacon of American Values

Michael Hudson /
Jeffrey Sommers
The End of the Washington Consensus

David Price
The Leaky Ship of Human Terrain Systems

Jeffrey St. Clair
Nukes Up the Hudson

Frank Barat
An Israeli in Gaza: an Interview with Jeff Halper

John Ross
Writing a Thesis in Blood

Binoy Kampmark
Humanitarian Imperialism: Obama and the Genocide Task Force

David Macaray
Killing the Auto Bailout: a Dagger to the Heart of Organized Labor

Ralph Nader
Antidotes to Plunder: a Holiday Reading List

Eamonn Fingleton
Whatever Happened to Iris Chang?

Lawrence Velvel
Why Blagojevich Might Be Acquitted

Behzad Yaghmaian
The Housing Crisis: a Timebomb China Can't Defuse

Sam Husseini
Putting the Pro in Protest

Tom Barry
Incentives to Detain: How Immigrants Drive Prison Profits

Howard Lisnoff
Why I Went to Jail

Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Immigration Problem

Raj Patel
The WTO and Other Fairy Tales

Ron Jacobs
The Manufacturing of History

Paul Watson
Risky Business Down Under

David Yearsley
They Also Serve Who Only Pull or Tread

Lorenzo Wolff
So You Want Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star...

Kim Nicolini
Finally, a Vampire Movie You Can Sink Your Teeth Into

Susie Day
Proposition 1984: the Problem with Heterosexuals

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Lerch and Crete

Worthy Group of the Weekend
Energy Justice

December 11, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Total Defeat for U.S. in Iraq

P. Sainath
After Mumbai

Vicken Cheterian
The Zarqawi Generation

Ray McGovern
Will Obama Buy Torture-Lite?

Dedrick Muhammad
Post-Racial Racism at the Post: the Undying Obsession with Black Family Values

Lee Sustar
Victory at Republic

Peter Morici
The Big Drag

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Must They Hate Us So?

George Wuerthner
Another Subsidy to Big Timber?

Christopher Brauchli
Mr. Berg's Strange Obsession

Worthy Group of the Day
Animal Balance

December 10, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Whose Interests Will Shape Obama's Change?

Mary Lynn Cramer
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Question

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Nuclear Weapons Obsolescence

Joshua Frank
Breaking the Stranglehold on Middle East News Coverage

Jack Ely
Stop Sobbing About Free Music Downloads: a Message to the Music Industry from the Lead Singer of the Kingsmen

Steve Conn
An Obama Public Works Program?

Lee Sustar
Republic Workers Target Bank of America

Glen Ford
The Die is Cast

Stephen Lendman
The Persecution of Syed Fahad Hashmi

Nadia Hijab
The Face of America

Dave Lindorff
We All Need a Union

Website of the Day
This One's For You, Senator Dodd

December 9, 2008

Mike Whitney
Card Check

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Us vs. Them

Ghada Karmi
The UN Resolution That Time Forgot

Dave Lindorff
A Car Dealer Explains Why the Bailout is a Raw Deal

Steve Breyman
Notes on a Green Economy: Managing Stuff in the 21st Century

Lee Sustar /
Nicole Colson
Raising the Stakes at Republic

Rev. William E. Alberts
God of Our Fathers

Martha Rosenberg
Bill Richardson: Secretary of Bloodsports

Sam Husseini
How Holbrooke Lied His Way Into a War

David Macaray
The UAW in Peril

Website of the Day
This Toxic Life

December 8, 2008

Steve Early
Is Obama Backing Off a Crucial Pledge to Labor?

Michael Hudson
Obama's Favoritism: Wall Street, Not the Auto Industry

Patrick Cockburn
Talking to a Lashkar Militant

Diane Farsetta
An Officer and a Conflicted Man: McCaffery, the Pentagon and Fleishman-Hillard

Paul Craig Roberts
Chapters in Imperial Hypocrisy

Daniel Gross
The Chicago Sit-Down Strike

Saul Landau
To Bail or Not to Bail?

Harvey Wasserman
Why John Bryson is Unfit for Energy Secretary

Mike Ferner
The New Generation of "Non-Lethal" Weapons

Norman Solomon
The Silent Winter of Escalation

David Michael Green
The Other Foot

Website of the Day
The Remains of Detroit

December 5 / 7, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Honeymoans From the Left

Brian Cloughley
Shambles in Afghanistan

Paul Craig Roberts
Muslim Revolution: How Washington Arrogance Helped Drive the Mumbai Attacks

Liaquat Ali Khan
Mumbai and the Kashmir Tinderbox

Farzana Versey
Mumbai's Charge of the Lightweight Brigade

Peter Lee
Pakistan Nears the Breaking Point

Peter Morici
Slouching Toward a Depression?

Ralph Nader /
Toby Heaps
Junk Cap-and-Trade

Yinon Cohen /
Neve Gordon
Obama Could End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Will He Meet the Challenge?

Wajahat Ali
Perverse Justice: the Holy Land Foundation Convictions

Johnny Barber
Aswad's Story: Illegal Detention and the Declaration of Human Rights

Alan Farago
Fallout from the Pass-Through Economy

Jeremy Scahill
Obama Doesn't Plan to End Occupation of Iraq

Mike Whitney
Powergrab in Ottawa

Ranjit Hoskote
Jahiliyya Versus Jihad

Carl Finamore
Thank God I'm an Atheist! (Or Boy is Bill O'Reilly in for a Big Surprise)

Marjorie Cohn
Obama and Women's Rights

Norm Kent
Tommy Chong, the Unanticipated Warrior

Missy Beattie
What Lies Ahead

Binoy Kampmark
Committing Suicide On-Line: the Briggs Case

David Macaray
The Best and the Brightest Redux: Too Many Brains, Not Enough Humility

Nancy Stohlman
Relational Activism

Ron Jacobs
Irreverent Politics Then and Now

David Yearsley
Thematics From the Golden Past

Lorenzo Wolff
Troubled Songs of Home and War

Poets' Basement
Orloski: The Door Opener

Website of the Weekend
In Prison My Whole Life

December 4, 2008

Ece Temelkuran
Inside the Ergenekon Case

Ralph Nader
Turning Crisis into Opportunity: Who Will Seize the Moment?

Harry Browne
The Bush-Obama National Security Strategy

Eamonn Fingleton
The American Car Industry: a Riposte to the Knockers

Conn Hallinan
The Syria Attack

Mike Whitney
Fiasco in Somalia: Another CIA Cock-Up

Stewart J. Lawrence
Obama and Latinos: Richardson, Alone, is Not Enough

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Message to Obama: Stop Killing Afghanis

Karyn Strickler
Show Us the Green, Before We Show You the Money

Jennifer Matsui
Obama-Cola: the Great National Temperance Beverage

Website of the Day
"He Ain't Got Laid in a Month of Sundays..."

December 3, 2008

Andrew Cockburn
What's Wrong with the U.S. Military

Sheldon Rampton
Mormon Homophobia: Up Close and Personal

Robert Weissman
Nationalize GM

Yifat Susskind
From Mumbai to Washington

William Blum
The Obama Bummer: Vote First, Ask Questions Later

Alan Singer
The Ghost of the Defunct Economist

David Macaray
Trampled Under Foot at Wal-Mart

Martha Rosenberg
Born With a Statin Deficiency? Line Forms to the Left!

Mats Svensson
The Crimes Have No Period of Limitations

Website of the Day
Why Bill Richardson's Nomination Should be Opposed

December 2, 2008

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Kettle of Hawks

Paul Craig Roberts
The New Arms Race

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
The Mumbai Terror Attacks: Is Pakistan to Blame?

Sarah Anderson /
John Cavanagh
Skewed Priorities: How the Bailout Dwarfs Spending on Other Global Crises

William Blum
The Mythology of the War on Terrorism

John Ross
Mexico's Drug War Goes Down in Flames

Dave Lindorff
A Tale of Two Terror Attacks

Nicola Nasser
A Peace Process That Makes Peace Impossible

Steve Conn
Operation Redskin Removal

Robert Bryce
Coal Hard Facts

Website of the Day
Country, Funk, Soul

December 1, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
From Baghdad to Mumbai, by Way of Pakistan

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
Obama's Economic Team: Records of Failure

Vijay Prashad
The Fires in South Asia

Deepak Tripathi
Obama's Foreign Crises

Joshua Frank
Madam Secretary Clinton and the Middle East

P. Sainath
The Unlikely Martyrdom of Free Market Jihad

Alan Farago
The Right's War on Regulators

Binoy Kampmark
Sydney's Ball and Chain

Chris Genovali
Silent Fall

David Michael Green
Hope You Die Before You Get Old

Stephen Martin
The Chinese are Coming, the Chinese are Coming!

Website of the Day
Robert Rubin: Coward, Liar or Both?

November 28-30, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
In Time of Trouble

Mike Whitney
The Obama "Dream Team": Rubin Clones and Other Fakers

Ted Honderich
What is the Meaning of Obama's Election?

Tom Kerr
Preserving Filthy Lucre (Or Becoming My Dad)

Mike Ely
The Conquest of New England

David Yearsley
Hymns of the Conquest

Deepak Tripathi
Uproar in Police-State Britain

Sonja Karkar
Gaza's Death Throes

Ramzy Baroud
Salvation in a News Broadcast

Robert Weitzel
Israel's Settlement on Capitol Hill

Robert Roth
Can We Create a Movement for Change?

Carlos Fierro
Obama and the End of Racism?

David Macaray
How to Kill a Union

David Rosen
A New Sexual Agenda

James Cockcroft
Indigenous People Rising

Stan Cox
The Most Disappointing Gift

Steve Conn
Talking Turkey About College Basketball

Stephen Martin
The Electromagnetic Pulse and Economic Warfare

Richard Rhames
Busty Bimbettes, Bombs and Brand Obama

Kim Nicolini
Women as Products and Cannibalistic Achievers

Lorenzo Wolff
A Battle Cry for the Confused and Vulnerable

Poets' Basement
Woods, Harrison and Corseri

January 7, 2009

Give My Regards to the Future

To Students Planning Careers: Be Mindful

By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr.

How can a college student, who would be a sympathetic reader of this publication, plan a career that would be both personally fulfilling and socially responsible? What follows are two attempts to answer this question, drawn from my correspondence with two students, and my own reflections on my previous career. Clearly, no pair of "answers" can fit every case, but some of what follows may be of wider use to students. Perhaps, after reading this, you can suggest better strategies. I have edited actual letters, in the interests of clarity and privacy.

Student #1:

I am twenty years old and go to the University of C, studying for a degree in business and technology. With all that is happening around me, I am no longer sure what I aspire to be. I wish to help bring the change to this world that will lead to [the social and political policies this publication advocates]. I was considering trying to become a technician in some field, but am unsure of what. I know that most politicians cannot get things done simply because they are not trained to do so; and am asking for your guidance as to where I should point myself. I'm a bilingual college student who works as a bank teller, and quite frankly, the more I learn about banking the less I want to work in it; the more I learn about the monetarism we are a part of, the more I want to change it. It's terrifying, when I ask some of my peers what they know of our government, or how our money system works, or about world affairs. I usually find an overwhelming ignorance, or just lack of interest because they don't think they are part of the global community. In fact most people my age could care less about what goes on outside this country or how this government handles public affairs. They are usually just interested in pop culture, or where the next party will be, or who has the most impressive weed. I am disdainful of most of the people in my generation, who are absolutely clueless of what the world is really like. I have a different perspective since I come from a different country and I have traveled quite a bit. But, I do not know what I should do. I am lost and in need of guidance, or another person's perspective. Would you reply in a sincere and honest way to this question? Is there any hope for change and what can I do to be a part of it?

Response #1:

The best thing you can do for society is to become good at what you love doing most. Naturally, I am thinking about legal and humane applications of your developed skills. Each of us has some activity that we are naturally drawn to, that excites us, that we can feel passionate about, and that would give our lives meaning even if we had to live in poverty and obscurity to engage in it. For some, it is music, perhaps singing or composing -- think of Mozart and Maria Callas. For others it can be mathematics or scientific or nature studies -- think of Charles Darwin or Einstein. For others it can be craftsmanship by hand, like potters and calligraphers honored by Chinese and Japanese tradition. For others it might be writing, of many varieties. The point is that you must first determine what it is that you REALLY want to do with your mind and hands, in the day-to-day, regardless of whatever circumstances might exist in the world outside. Find your avocation.

The next step is to decide what type and quantity of education you need -- and are willing to put up with -- in order to develop your avocation. Simply put, if you love doing it, you will be willing to put up with the work needed to learn how to do it well. This is the "monastery" and "apprenticeship" stage of a consciously self-directed life. This is the period where artists and musicians wait on tables to earn the money needed to pay those exacting and expensive teachers, and for the art supplies and/or gigs they need to hone their art. This could be on-the-job training, and it could be graduate school in the Ivy League. The point is, get the education you need to hone the skills for practicing the mechanics of YOUR passion.

Eventually you "finish school" and have to make it on your own, hopefully on the basis of being payed for practicing your craft. Perhaps your passion is writing, specifically in the field of history, but you find yourself employed in a bank or insurance office because you have to support a family and because the employer finds your ability to write sufficiently applicable to preparing financial reports and business documents. You would much rather be a columnist at a big city newspaper, but you just can't write as fast and as good -- within the confines of the paper's orthodoxy -- as the people they already have. Your challenge is twofold:

1, how to ensure the support of the family (which might be minimally yourself), and

2, how to apply the skills of your passion (your avocation) to the betterment of society?

This is such a grand challenge, that most people can't do it.

First step, be forgiving of yourself. It is not possible for one individual to take on the problems of the world, to feel responsibility for all the ills and misery around you. This is too much, it crushes the individual. Second step is to not give up, to develop your understanding of the world and society around you, so you can perhaps come to see opportunities where you could contribute your skills (your passions) and they would find a welcome, and possibly even reward you monetarily, so as to help with part 1 of your career challenge.

Beyond this point, it is simply effort and refinement.

So, can you solve world hunger by becoming an ace potter in some country hamlet? No, but you might develop into a good teacher of young children working with clay, of adults regaining use of hands and minds after strokes, or you might devise some cost-effective containment devices or strategies for people in poor rural communities who have to make their own items -- and clay is a natural. My point is that if you actively think about what human needs exist and how you could apply what you know to them -- at some level even a very local and personal one -- that you will increase the portion of your working energy that goes into bettering society, instead of just being a mindless "consumer" whose total working life is gobbled up to keep running some capitalist, socially-parasitic system.

The better you are at what you do, the more likely you will be able to apply your skills at a higher level, and to affect more people.

So much for generalities.

It sounds as if you have some economics knowledge. If so, and it interests you, there is always a need for "experts" in development who work to devise methods for poor and peasant communities to improve their economies in sustainable ways, and to keep their independence from foreign multi-nationals (you know, "globalization"). This is not easy at all, and the need is great. Naturally, well-trained economists usually prefer getting the big bucks working for banks and big financial firms, which aim to exploit those peasants (along with everybody else). If one could work in such a setting and make big bucks by funneling investors into ethical portfolios, and then also use your own fat commissions ethically, and/or to fund social improvement projects of your own, then you would be applying MBA skills in a very worthy way.

Look into the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UNICEF for descriptions of economics applied to improve rural/poor/3rd world societies. I have read reports about the energy needs of the world's poor, a significant problem that cries out for economists with talent, and an interest in simple energy technology (for more, http://www.idiom.com/~garcia/EFHD_01.htm).

If you add a facility with languages (being multi-lingual) to any set of skills, then you become much more effective.

Given the economic circumstances today (impending depression) you can easily see that teachers, advisors and advocates who show people how to get out of debt, stay out of debt, and ultimately produce and trade for what they need without having to go through corporations at all -- for food, water, energy, light, heat, furnishings -- would be a boon to poor people, which is to say most people. Could you devise such schemes of personal financial independence for the non-rich?

I'm working on ideas for generating electricity directly from sunlight, using a "small" machine, so individuals could reduce or even eliminate their dependence on utility companies (perhaps foreign, and perhaps exploitative) and power lines (so, for remote villages), if they could also simplify their lives sufficiently to conserve a good amount of power. Physically, it is possible. Practical?, convenient?, reliable?, still working on it. Maybe I'll arrive at a breakthrough someday, and maybe nothing will ever come of it, but I'm trying, and I'm using my passion for math and physics. How successful am I at changing the world? I'm forgiving on myself on that point, but I'm trying, and I'm using my passions (which include writing) for much of my time.

Read the book "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor Frankl (easily found). It is short, and shows how we humans need meaning in our lives. When we are engaged in what gives us meaning, we can literally live through anything. The philosopher-folklorist Joseph Campbell (book: The Hero With A Thousand Faces) also talks on this theme.

I can't tell you what to do or study until you identify what gives your life meaning. What is it you feel you are driven to do. Once you know that, nurture it, develop it. And then try, ethically, to apply it in the world. Measure success by the level of satisfaction in your life, NOT by externalities like money, titles, attention and status. Develop a sense of self-respect that can't be bought (and beware, because it will "cost" you in those externalities). The only success is to lead a life of meaning, even if invisible to others; the only failure is to never experience the thrill of what you were meant to do.

Student #2

Hello! My name is M. Right now, I'm an undergraduate physics student at O University. I'm finishing up my senior year and I'm getting very excited about continuing my education in graduate school and eventually getting my Ph.D. The plan is to pursue my research in plasma physics. However, I'm always finding conflicts with these ambitions. I chose this path because I really do love physics and math and wanted to do something with my life that was beneficial to the earth. I chose plasma physics as a way to research fusion energy, thinking that this would be the cleanest possible goal for the planet. But whenever I speak about this to other "radical" friends, they kind of look down on me. I've gotten a lot of criticism from friends and acquaintances. I read [this publication and MG, Jr. articles], and love seeing a physicist that shares all of my political ideas and feelings about the world. So as a physicist and thinker, is the path I've chosen a bad one? I know that you may not be able to make that call for me, nor am I expecting you to plan my life. I just wanted to ask for your opinion.

Response #2

You put your question very clearly and succinctly. Unfortunately, I do not see how to give as clear or concise an answer.

"It's life that matters, nothing but life — the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all."

"Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also."

-- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (1868)

On April 22, 1970, I attended a lecture in my undergraduate physics class, on nuclear fission and fusion. Professor Walter Whales became quite engrossed in his presentation, which became an hour-long tutorial on the design of a fission bomb. It was fascinating. To see how all the individual textbook phenomena fit together in an intricate, interrelated fashion to produce one awesome effect was just marvelous, a private viewing behind nature's curtains at a vast panorama of hidden depth, an initiation. At the end of his lecture, Professor Whales was struck by an amusing realization and, with a smile and all his chalk-board spherical shell diagrams behind him, said "What a thing to be talking about on Earth Day!" I left the lecture hall that day, walking onto the sunny spring-day college green, crowded with students, mini-skirts, Beatles music, and the celebratory atmosphere of the first Earth Day, and realized my course in life: to study plasma physics to prepare myself to be in the first generation of chief-engineers of the fusion energy plants that would just begin coming into service within 15 years, by 1985. Energy for the people, a revolution in freedom for the world, perhaps even the beginning of the end of world poverty, hunger, even war. This was one of the most ecstatic days in my life, even my girlfriend was sweet to me. Joseph Campbell called such times "peak experiences," when you are at your best, and the world smiles on you.

Thirty-eight years later, I am the same person with the same basic dreams, only by now all the hidden assumptions I had as a 20-year-old have been uncovered, and most of them discarded as erroneous. Today, my belief is that simple solar technology, which can be fabricated locally in the 3rd World without anything "special," except for a little knowledge encapsulated in a simple blueprint or a working model as guides, is how the greatest degree of energy independence is to be provided (http://www.idiom.com/~garcia/EFHD_01.htm). I hope to put more time and energy into this project this new year, because it moves me. What I have learned from physics is how to marvel more deeply at the wonder of nature, at the genius of the evolved interrelatedness we are enmeshed in. Still, if some university or college, or even an eccentric millionaire were to pay me to work at solving physics problems involving fluids, electromagnetic effects and plasmas, and just for the sake of the art, I would jump at the chance. I was lucky enough to spend years of my time engrossed in such study -- and meditation -- and earn my daily bread doing so: ivory tower, rent-free. But, I'm considered a has-been now, my methods and my focus seen as passé.

And, I am passé because I rebel at the likely purposes to which my thoughts of plasma physics would be put to, were I paid to generate such thoughts; I rebel at any suggestion I channel my thinking to the projects most employers of physicists would have; and I rebel against the popular methods of career advancement tolerated among professionals of all types. Finally, I rebel against the realization that I can never be a teacher, because I cannot cater to an audience impatient to have their tickets punched so they can move on in their career trips, and impatient if I do not supply classroom entertainment to relieve their instantly available boredom. I'm a grumpy old man before my time. What I do have, in exchange for being cast off from my former professional associations and their rich resources, is the freedom to pursue my interests without the restraint of fearing to appear foolish, or worrying about getting published -- accepted, included. Even if they never reach anyone else, my ideas can fill me with excitement, insight and wonder. THIS is what you want to ensure you experience, at least a few times, when you choose to immerse yourself in a science life. Remember this for those times your career is in a slump; because there are many careerists in science but far fewer real intellectual successes.

It is impossible for any single human being to resolve the conflicts of the world within the limited scope of their personal life. If you try to arrange your activity to have a "zero carbon footprint," to be "socially responsible," even 100% certified organic ahimsa harmless pure-loving good, you will go insane. If you are a born American citizen, you are de facto already guilty of the original sin of being a biological unit in the Earth-chewing genocidal fascism of American capitalism. It is unreasonable to expect any rational human being to assume such guilt and forsake all to become a naked sadhu in India. The rational course is to recognize advantages the luck of birth has bestowed on you and to use them to help you develop yourself to some personally rewarding and socially useful purpose. Consider the Parable of the Talents (if you have read New Testament stories). The mere fact of your birth bestows on you the right to seek personal fulfillment, and the right to be creative. If you excel in the pursuit of your deepest intellectual interests, your quest for beauty, and in the understanding of nature, you will have made the best use of your life-energy that world society could ask for. If pondering physics problems is where your heart lies, and you would be willing to wash up as a middle-aged derelict with a sufficient income for simple survival till bucket-kicking, so you can ponder these wonders for several decades during a professional career, then why ask what else? You can easily choose a "safe" course, or something that is more easily bullshitted as "goody-two-shoes" to all those unimportant people you feel necessary to keep up appearances for, and have a boring life and even still end up a professional derelict. Don't compromise on what gives you fulfillment. If you know what it is do it, if you are uncertain what it is, find it and then stick with it. Life is short, and we all die, the only victory over death is to reach it having experienced what you were uniquely meant to do and enjoy. "Work out your salvation with diligence," as Buddha said with his dying breath.

With your physics passion aflame, you go out with a freshly minted Ph.D. (assuming all the politics and bullshit of grad school didn't kill your resolve with disgust), and what do you find? The people who pay for physics want bombs, guns, and money (these latter are usually advertised as educational institutions). There may be a few other outlets for physics talent, but by and large they all connect back to US government funding, and this is not charitable -- whatever they say (even "pure physics" and "educational" funding is for maintaining a "pipeline" of new-young physics talent for the many military-oriented jobs). Physicists are paid to codify natural phenomena to the benefit of control-oriented agencies. Today, this means the product is some computer code that simulates physical effects or controls technological mechanisms that interact with the natural world, or other technological systems, for the purposes of monitoring and control. The actual physics minutia you would have to ponder may be very interesting, like gun barrel erosion, or shock wave propagation through varied media, or the hypervelocity dynamics of shaped charges, but the ultimate purposes of the exploration can be very inhumane. You become (or remain) a human being, instead of being just a physics expert automaton, when you take some responsibility for the purposes of the work. This is the hardest part of sustaining a career. If you ignore your portion of responsibility -- and this is the overwhelmingly popular choice among professional scientists -- then you reduce yourself to a tool and a hypocrite. A tool being a hypocrite is only possible because in being an employed Ph.D., a professional scientist, the tool has proved it has the cranial capacity to know that such a demand of social responsibility exists for it. I dwell on this point because most physicists I knew were in denial about their hypocrisy (http://www.swans.com/library/art9/mgarci07.html, and http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/).

Pretty grim choice, huh? On the one hand seek your bliss in a physics career, and on the other the inescapability of being an agent of the Empire. The only out I know is what the ancient Chinese called "human heartedness," a recognition of the realities of daily life and the limits of any human's powers. You have a right to make a decent living, to be able to support a family, to participate in the society of your times. It is not possible to reconcile all the contradictions (between personal life and world politics) crossing through your life, with the exception of a few charmed individuals (and it is best to assume you are not one of them). Of necessity, the feeding of your family and the maintenance of your sanity cannot be done to the satisfaction of everybody. You follow the most honorable course when you recognize these unavoidable disparities, and you conduct yourself mindful of the ideals, compassionate to the people you know (like your family, who will be directly affected by your actions), and honest about your stances. So, you balance your personal "take" from the world and your "give" to the world, in managing your career and in supporting whatever it is you choose to support with it. Who can really judge you but yourself? As long as you are honest with yourself, you will know if you have been a Machiavellian careerist bullshitter, or a person doing their best to honor their creativity while striking an ethical and compassionate balance in an amoral world, dominated by cruel and selfish attitudes.

I cannot know what the specifics of your career should be. Perhaps you'll be the next Einstein, and we would be grateful that US military money sustained you, so we could receive your wisdom and value it down the ages. Perhaps, you'll be a physics teacher, cranking out generations of recruits for the imperial forces, and having a brief period of time to influence each student, perhaps to become more intellectually honest, perhaps to become more rational, perhaps to just get homework done on time, and this can add to the overall good to society. And, perhaps you'll just be another troglodyte in the imperial armaments industries, and the most social good anyone will see from you will be that you kept yourself off the streets, supported a family even if only a bunch of strays saved from the city pound, and lent your company to some well-intentioned groups and artistic circles. If you live mindfully (a concept written about by Thich Nhat Hanh), then it is inevitable that your big physicist brain will question the ongoing phenomena of your life and times, and you can devise many opportunities for you to "do better" in terms of your own character, and as karma-trailing actions for our world.

The bottom line: it is your life to live, and your life to choose how to live. Honor your creativity and do what brings ecstasy and peace to your consciousness. Do this with enthusiasm, and mindfully. Be aware of your karma, the impact of your actions on others, and be honest about taking justifiable responsibility. Be good to yourself, remember you are only human, not Prometheus, so don't shoulder all the problems of the world. We humans are never perfect, we are just monkeys with bigger brains. So monkey around, do your best, and after all is said and done the best judgment you can possibly get is: you were never perfect, just a monkey with a bigger brain, monkeying around most happily.

Give my regards to the future.

Manuel Garcia, Jr. studied "rocket science" for a Ph.D., worked as a physicist in nuclear weapons testing, and evolved (or degenerated, depending on your bias) into retirement and into a household manager; he likes to work out ideas and write about them. E-mail = mango@idiom.com

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