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Today's
Stories
January
27 / 28, 2007
Ralph Nader
Democracy
in Crisis
January
26, 2007
Charlotte Laws
Are
You the Terrorist Next Door?: AETA and the New Green Scare
Mike Ely /
Linda Flores
The
Workers at Smithfield
Joe DeRaymond
Paying
for Health Care and Not Getting It
Phil Donahue
Get Sarah Olson!
Zia Mian
The Three US Armies in Iraq: Grunts, Contractors and Laborers
Jeb Sprague
Haiti Struggles to Defend Justice
Evelyn Pringle
Eli Lilly, the Habitual Offender
Missy Beattie
Inside the Criminal Mind of George Bush: He Thinks; Therefore,
It is So
Martha Rosenberg
Cloned Food: From Designer Hens to the Transgenic Omega-3 Pig
Website of
the Day
Save Grand Canyon from Glen Canyon Dam!
January 25, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
What's
Really Going on in Baghdad
John Ross
Mexico
Under Calderon: Fake Left, Rule Right
Jeremy Scahill
Our Mercenaries: Blackwater, Inc and the Privatization of Bush's
War Machine
Frida Berrigan
"Hearts Ruptured with Sadness:" Protesting Gitmo
Paul Craig Roberts
Bush's State of Deception
Jason Yossef
Ben-Meir
Iraq Reconstruction Failure
Christopher Brauchli
Why Bush is Arming Fatah: When in Doubt, Start Another Civil
War
Holger W. Henke
Cuba at the Crossroads?
Dave Lindorff
Falling Dominos and Failing Presidencies
Julia Landau
From Your Young Cousin
Website of the Day
The Mighty Edwards Sisters
January
24, 2007
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews:
a Filmed Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry
Lt. Gen. William Odom
What Can be Done in Iraq?
Sharon Smith
Health Care Reform for the Insurance Industry
Brian M. Downing
Two Americas: the Grunts and the War Profiteers
Heather Gray
Surviving War
Ron Jacobs
SOTUS Quo
James Brooks
Out of Europe, Out of Time
Robert Day
Translating Snow
Website of
the Day
Defend Sarah Olsen
January 23, 2007
Trish Schuh
Lebanon
on the Brink of Civil War, Again
Robert Bryce
The
Politics of Cheap Oil
Stephen Soldz
Aliens in an Alien Land
John Blair
King Coal's Latest Con Job: Clean Coal is Not Clean
Gloria La Riva
Miami: a Place of Refuge for Anti-Castro Terrorists
Joshua Frank
Turning Silence into Gold: Hillary and Israel Lobby
Patrick Cockburn
In Iraq, All Foreigners are Targets
Ralph Nader
Questions for Bush on Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Pelosi and Iraq: Blunder or Treason?
Uri Avnery
Israel and Apartheid
Website of the Day
Down By the River
January
22, 2007
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
China's
New Chip in Space War Poker
Jen Marlowe
Trapped
in Darfur: the Ordeal of Suleiman Jamous
George McGovern
War of the Belligerent Professors: Get Out of Iraq
Paul Craig
Roberts
Only Impeachment Can Save Us from More War
Norman Solomon
The Pentagon vs. Press Freedom
Amira Hass
Life Under Prohibition in Palestine
Mike Whitney
A Fool's Errand in Baghdad
Ramzy Baroud
The Things We Take for Granted
John Walsh
Support Jimmy Carter in Boston!
Website of
the Day
The Hagelian Dialectic
January
20/21 2007
Alexander Cockburn
First
Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!
Gail Dines
I
Was Ambushed by Paula Zahn
Newton Garver
Evo
Morales' First Year
Gilad Atzmon
100
Years of Jewish Solitude
Seth Sandronksy
New
Push For Social Security "Reform"
Raphaelle Bail
Where
Nicaraguans Go to Work
Jim Goodman
Round
Up the Usual Experts: Make Them Live on a Dollar a Day
Larry Portis
Chouraki's
Oh Jerusalem
Website of
the Weekend
Press
Poodles Play it Safe
January
19, 2007
Jonathan Cook
Jimmy
Carter Doesn't Tell the Half of It
Glen Ford
Barack
Obama: The Mania and the Mirage
Dave Lindorff
Bush
Blinks on Illegal Spying - Don't let him off the hook
Larry Portis
Zionism
in the Cinema: Part Two
Website of
the Day
For
Whistleblowers
January
18, 2007
William Peace
Protest
From a Bad Cripple
Virginia Tilley
The
Steady March to War on Iran: What It Would Take to Stop It
Michael Donnelly
The
Real Reason I Can't Stand Obama
B.R. Gowani
Democracy:
Everywhere and Nowhere
Larry Portis
Zionism
in the Cinema: Part One
Jason Hribal
A
Horse is Worth More than Riches
Website of
the Day
Baghdad
Clampdown
January 17, 2007
Franklin Spinney
Why
Time is not on Bush's Side
John Ross
Oaxaca's
Rising: Vibrant as the Paint on the Walls
Susan George
Can
World Trade Ever Be Fair? Back to Keynes!
Paul Craig
Roberts
Attacking
Iran: What's In It For Bush
Joshua Frank
Obama
and the Middle East
David Lindorff
Towards
Oil at $200 a Barrel
January 16, 2007
Col. Sam Gardiner
Escalation
Against Iran
Marjorie Cohn
Stimson's
Outrageous Threat
Saul Landau
Gore
Vidal in Havana: Part 2
Ron Jacobs
Welcome
Back to 1965
Susan Block
From
Snowjob to Blowjob
Ken Couesbouck
Year
of the Pig
Website of
the Day
Amazon's
Hit on Jimmy Carter
January 15, 2007
Roger Morris
Another
War the Voters Hoped to End
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush
Must Go
Kathy Kelly
Umm
Heyder's Story
William Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report
Ralph Nader
The
Class War's New Map
Saul Landau
Gore
Vidal In Havana
January 12
/ 14, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
"21,500
More Troops": Will America Ever Leave Iraq?
David Rosen
Bush's Domestic Sex Policy: the Teen Abstinence-Only Crusade
William S.
Lind
Less Than Zero
Laith al-Saud
The
Ironies of Bush and Iraq
Paul Craig
Roberts
Surge and Mirrors: What Bush Really Said
John Ross
Celebrating the "Sum of the World" in Chiapas
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Case of Venezuela's RCTV: Not About Free Speech
Christopher Brauchli
How to Avoid an IRS Audit: Become a Millionaire!
Robert Buzzanco
Rogue State, Redux
Evelyn Pringle
The Secrets in Eli Lilly's Cabinet
Peter Rost,
MD.
Promises, Promises: Playing Politics with Drug Reimportation
Mike Whitney
Baghdad Crackdown
Yifat Susskind
Beyond the Surge: Demanding an End to Bush's Wars
Saul Cohen
Latin America's Real Mr. Danger: Negroponte's Latest Gig
Missy Beattie
A Day of Action and Questions
Stephen Lendman
Holiday Hypocrisy
Website of
the Weekend
Bruegel on Bush War Plan
January 11,
2007
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The
Profits of Escalation
Paul Craig
Roberts
Carter's Inconvenient Truths
Kathy Kelly
Refugee Dreams
Dave Lindorff
Blood for Face
Jeff Leys
The War Widens
Richard W.
Behan
Barrels and Bodies
Col. Douglas MacGregor
Surging Right Into Al-Sadr's Hands
Website of
the Day
An Explanation from Google
Speech of the Day
Is There Even One Politician Alive Who Could Give This Speech?
January 10, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
Walk in Oaxaca
Robert Fantina
Punishing
Deserters: Prosecution or Persecution?
Patrick Cockburn
Why Troop Escalation Won't Bring Peace to Iraq
Paul Craig Roberts
Distracting Congress: Troop Escalation and Iran
Col. Dan Smith
Why U.S. Policy is Failing
Ben Tripp
The Politics of Bad Karma
Evelyn Pringle
How the FDA Protects Big Pharma
Ron Jacobs
Coalition of the Lunatics: Trying to Create the Next World War
Mike Ferner
If Not Now, When?
Dave Zirin
Judgment of the Juiced: Why McGwire Wasn't Elected to the Hall
of Fame
Website of
the Day
Revolting Students!
Bootleg of the Day
Bob
Dylan: Live at Scotia Bank Place
January 9, 2007
R. T. Naylor
The
Somalian Labyrinth
Jonathan Cook
Israel's
Purging of Palestinian Christians
Mike Ely and Linda Flores
The Smithfield Strikers: No Longer
Hidden, No Longer Hiding
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: More Bellicose Than Bush
Norman Solomon
The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse
Sen. Russell
Feingold
An Open Letter to President Bush: So Now You Want to Snoop Through
Our Mail?
Joe Allen
Justice for the Omaha Two: Black Power, Racism and COINTELPRO
in the Heartland
James T. Phillips
"Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate": The Hell
That is Iraq
Brian Concannon
Resolutions for Haiti
Leonard Peltier
When the Truth Doesn't Matter: 30 Years of FBI Harassment and
Misconduct
Website of the Day
Kick Out the Jams, MFers!: Meet the New RRC
January 8,
2007
Werther
Why
We Fight
Jeff Leys
The Occupation Project: a Campaign of Civil Disobedience to End
Iraq War Funding
Paul Craig Roberts
Nuking Iran
Shulamit Aloni
Israeli Apartheid: Sorry, This Road is For Jews Only
Dave Lindorff
The Party of Invertebrates Reverts to Form
Sunsara Taylor
The Democrats' First Day: Same As It Ever Was
Seth Sandronsky
Syndicated Error: George Will and the Minimum Wage
Dr. Susan Block
Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film
Website of the Day
Watch CounterPuncher Sunsara Taylor Take on Bill O'Reilly!
January 6 / 7, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
War and the NYT
Franklin C.
Spinney
Stalingrad
on the Tigris
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Urge to Surge
Ralph Nader
Democrats in the Spotlight
Walden Bello
Globalization in Retreat?
Marleen Martin
The Needle and the Damage Done: Tortured in the Death Chamber
Brian Cloughley
We Do What We Like: Return Our Rapist or Else ...
Uri Avnery
The Kiss of Death
Saul Landau
Fidel Castro in the Fields
Ron Jacobs
From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act: a Legacy of Torture
Joseph Nevins
Crimes Against Humanity from Ford to Saddam
William S. Lind
A State Restored? Somalia and 4GW
Gary Leupp
Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President!
Elisa Salasin
Bringing Life to Numbers
George Ciccariello-Maher
Beyond
Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution
Stefan Wray
Confronting Recruiters: the Story of the Bush Street Raiders
Michael Leonardi
Toward an International Moratorium: Italy's Crusade Against the
Death Penalty
Richard Rhames
Reality TV: Triumph of the Thugs
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Barbara LaMorticella
Two Poems
Website of the Weekend
FBI Witch Hunts
Song of the
Weekend
End Times: a Soundtrack
January 5, 2007
Jorge Mariscal
Growing
the Military: Who Will Serve?
John Walsh
Clash of the Elites: Beltway Insiders vs. Neo-Cons!
Christopher Brauchli
The Great Relaxer: Bush and Federal Regulations
Travis Sharpe
No More New Nukes, Please
Tom Barry
Hawk for Hire: Roger Noriega's New Gig
Linda Schade
/ Kevin Zeese
Americans Voted for Peace: Has the New Congress Already Let Them
Down?
Tiffany Ten Eyck
Workers' Centers and Unions: a New Alliance
Mahmoud El-Yousseph
A Challenge to Pelosi
Lucinda Marshall
3003 Funerals: "And They're Still Burying Ford!"
Website of
the Day
Van the Man: Warm Love
January 4, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
The
Martyrdom of Saddam Hussein
Winslow T.
Wheeler
A Guide to Earmarks: Will the Democrats' Reforms Do Anything
to Curb Pork Barrel Spending?
M. Shahid Alam
Has Regime Change Boomeranged?
Raed Jarrar
So This is Plan B? The US Attack on Saleh Al-Mutlaq's Headquarters
Bert Sacks
Can the US Legally Kill Iraqi Children?: a Challenge to the Supreme
Court
Kathy Rentenbach
Report from Oaxaca
Stephen Fleischman
The Rain of Riches: Bonuses, Then and Now
George Bisharat
Carter's Truths
Peter Rost, MD
Hail the Hangman, Jail the Cameraman!
Evelyn Pringle
Can Eli Lilly be Held Criminally Liable for Zyprexa?
Website of the Day
Courage to Resist
January 3,
2007
Kathy Kelly
Wrapped
Around a Bullet
Paul Craig
Roberts
His Last Hurrah: Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason
William Johnson
No Worker is Illegal: SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change
Its Policy on Immigration
Stan Cox
Under a Brown Cloud: Money vs. the Monsoon
Trita Parsi
A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran
Declan McKenna
Ireland's Slavish Hostility Toward Cuba
Joe Bageant
Dispatch from the Chinese Landfill
Nicola Nasser
Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism
Missy Beattie
Dead Wrong
Website of
the Day
Pharmed Out
January 2, 2007
Michael Watts
Oil
Inferno
Amina Mire
Return of the Warlords: Death and Destruction for Somalis
James Brooks
Pushing the Wedge in Palestine
Alevtina Rea
The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ?
Al Krebs
Global Food Security: a Call to Action
Peter Rost
Invitation to a Hanging: the Saddam Hussein Execution Video
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
A Deadly December
John Stanton
Appetites for Destruction
Website of the Day
Out Now: Petition
January 1,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Iron
Man, Tin God: the Meaning of Saddam Hussein
Uri Avnery
What
Makes Sammy Run?
Joshua Frank
Eliot Spitzer's Constitutional Hang Up: Architect of New York's
Patriot Act
December 30
/ 31, 2006
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
2006,
Hard to Call It Vintage, But 2007 Could Finally Be Bobby Byrd's
Year
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
2006: a Nation Soaked in Blood Tears Itself Apart
Paul Wolf
Dying for Our Sins: A Lawyer for Saddam Describes How His Execution
on the First of Eid May Transform Him Into a Martyr
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Executing
Saddam, Protecting the Rackets
Tariq Ali
Saddam
at the End of a Rope
Paul Craig Roberts
The New Dark Age: Official Lies, Dogma and Unaccountable Power
Douglas Valentine
At the End of My Rope: Hanging With Saddam
Brian M. Downing
The New Iraq Policy: Escalation
Michael Donnelly
Injustice in Black and White: the Duke Non-Rape Case
Stephen Lendman
Did Sharon Order the Assassination of Arafat? The Revelations
of Uri Dan
Fred Gardner
Comes Now the Ghost of "Decrim:" Nixon and Marijuana
Bailly / Caudron / Lambert
Who Owns Ikea?: the Opaque Legacy of Ingvar Kamprad
Ralph Nader
The Prospects for Progressive Politics
Nick Dearden
The War on Terror Hits Africa
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
The Third Degree: an Interview with AC Thompson on the Origins
of the CIA's Secret Rendition Flights
Missy Beattie
In Harm's Way: How Our National Coward Describes War
Ron Jacobs
Sigh of the Oppressed: Religion and Politics
Dan La Botz
Defend Illegal Immigrants: Help Them! Harbor Them!
Andrew Wimmer
An Act of Contrition: the Peace Movement in 2007
Dr. Carol Wolman, MD
Psychiatrist: Impeach Bush for Good of Country
Martha Rosenberg
New Year's Resolutions for Big Pharma
Dick J. Reavis
News Before It Happens: Bush's 2007 MLK Day Speech
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Listening to James Brown and His Followers
Poets' Basement
Grima, Curtis, Davies, Orloski and Engel
Website of
the Weekend
Charlie Fowler's Photolog: a Life at Altitude
Music Video of the Weekend
"We're Winning the War on Drugs!"
December 29, 2006
Bill Quigley
A
Tale of Two Sisters: Why is HUD Spending Tens of Millions in
Katrina Money to Bulldoze 4,534 Public Housing Apartments in
New Orleans?
Norman Finkelstein
The Dershowitz Treatment
John Borowski
Curb Your Environmentalism: Laurie David and Me
Abid Mustafa
The Re-Talibanization of Afghanistan
Greg Moses
World Responds to Palestinian Family's Jailing Despite Media
Blackout
Uri Cohen
Stand Up for Herod: a Seasonal Story of Ancient Palestine
Bailly / Caudron
/ Lambert
The
Secrets in Ikea's Closet
Website of
the Day
Justice for New Orleans
December 28,
2006
Norman Finkelstein
The
Ludicrous Attacks on Jimmy Carter's Book
Anthony Cowell
Highway Robbery: Privatizing New Jersey's Toll Roads
John Ross
Gateway to the Next Mexican Revolution?
Hilaria Cruz
I'm Going to Stay Right Here: Story of a Oaxacan Prisoner
Greg Moses
Palestinian Immigrant Jailings in Texas
Brittany Bond
The Blood Trail of Luis Posada Carriles, Washington's Preferred
Terrorist
Website of
the Day
Godfather of Soul and Father of Funk
December 27,
2006
Alexander Cockburn
Farewell
to Our Greatest President: Adieu, Gerald Ford
Faruq Ziada
Is
There a Sunni Majority in Iraq?
Christopher Brauchli
Burning EPA's Books: What They Don't Want You to Read Might Save
Your Life
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Journey to Vietnam: Dare We Not Say Genocide?
Nikolas Kozloff
Saving
Caracas
Mark Schneider
Why Hope? Reasons for Optimism
December 26, 2006
Peter Stone
Brown
James
Brown: Please Don't Go
Tito Tricot
Chile: the Ghosts of Torture
Gary Leupp
Cowboys Differ on Iran Attack: Cheney/Bush vs. the Baker Commission
John V. Walsh
Dershowitz vs. Carter in Beantown: Peace Movement AWOL, Again
Reza Fiyouzat
Red Christmas: Why Santa Was Hot in China This Year
Ron Jacobs
The Golem: a Conversation with Marc Estrin
Website of
the Day
JB:
Prisoner of Love
December 25, 2006
Saul Landau
A
Jeep Trip with Fidel
Lang / McGovern
To
Surge or Not to Surge?
Michael Dickinson
Should Stupid Thoughts Be Crimes?: Deny Santa If You Will, But
...
Website of
the Day
James Brown, RIP
December 23 / 24, 2006
Marjorie Cohn
What's
Going On?
Jeffrey L.
Gould
The Capital of Salvadoran Memory: El Mozote After 25 Years
Diane Christian
The Rape of Iraq
William Loren
Katz
From the Raid on "Fort Negro" to Iraq: Lessons from
the First US Invasion
Greg Moses
This War Can't be Made Right by Winning
M. Shahid Alam
An Islamic Civil War: Chaos by Design?
Fred Gardner
Exposé as Inoculant: HRT, Zyprexa, Lilly and the Press
Dave Lindorff
Crime of the Century
Azmi Bishara
Ways of Denial
Ralph Nader
The BCS: a Monopoly on College Football
Seth Sandronsky
Fiscally Imperiled Social Security?
William Hughes
Cop Assaults Activists at Lockheed Protest
Ron Jacobs
Making Stones Weep
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to on New Year's Eve
December 22,
2006
David Rosen
Bush's
Foreign Sex Policy: Imperialism's Second Front
Christopher
Brauchli
When the Secret is the Question: Secret Prisons, Top Secret Interrogations
John Ross
Flashlights
in the Tunnel of Hate
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Political
Sell-Outs in Black and White
Rahul Mahajan
Dennis Kucinich: Maverick or Stalking Horse?
Arthur Neslen
Provoking Civil War in the Occupied Territories
Peter Rost, MD
The Secrets of His Success: Fired Pfizer CEO Walks Away with
$198 Million
Website of
the Day
10 Ways to Change the World in 2007
December 21, 2006
Rosa Mariam
Elizalde
An
Interview with Gore Vidal: "I am Jealous of Cuba"
Arundhati Roy
Breaking the News
Brian Cloughley
Poppies Rising: Afghanistan's Drug Catastrophe
Daniel White
Jimmy Carter in Austin: Time to Come Clean on the Shoot Down
of That Itavia DC-9
John V. Whitbeck
On Israel's Right to Exist
Sam Smith
Still Smearing Ralph Nader for 2000
Paris Reidhead
GM Ice Cream: Something's Fishy in Your Good Humor Bar
Kevin Wehr
Denying Disaster: Katrina and the Case for Impeachment
Website of the Day
Pesticides and Amphibians: a Vital New Database
December 20, 2006
Gabriel Kolko
Rumsfeld
and the American Way of War
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The Pentagon Measures the Chaos in Iraq
Tariq Ali
The War is Lost
Saree Makdisi
Israel, Apartheid and Jimmy Carter
Bruce Jackson
Saying "Oh!": John Mohawk and the Power to Make Peace
Dave Lindorff
Democrats Walk Into a Bush Trap on Iraq
Leslie Radford
The Winter Harvest of the South Central Farmers
Dave Jansson
Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Secessionists Confront the
Empire
Johnny Barber
Jesus is a Terrorist
Website of
the Day
Is It for Freedom?
December 19, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
Democrats
Prepare to Fund Longer War
Jonathan Cook
End
of the Strongmen
Greg Moses
Globalized Gulag: Palestinian Refugees and Children Held in Hutto,
TX Jail
Sean Penn
Georgie,
There's a Crowd Downstairs
Dave Lindorff
Innocents Abroad: Cracking Down on Gitmo Detainees Despite Overwhelming
Evidence Most Are Not Terrorists
Ralph Nader
Going
Postal
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Pink Tide?
Carlos Villarreal
The
Well is Poisoned: Victory Requires an Immediate Pull-Out
Website of
the Day
Chuck Spinney on the Pentagon
December 18, 2006
Luis J. Rodriguez
En
Lak Ech: Chicanos, Mayans and Mel Gibson
Norman Solomon
Washington Refuses to End the War: Powell, Baker, Hamilton--Thanks
for Nothing!
Uri Avnery
Lebanon: War Without a Plan
Ron Jacobs
More Troops, More Body Bags
Phil Gasper
Afghanistan: Bush's Other War Unravels
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Iran's Elections: The World Isn't Florida and Bush Isn't Its
Supreme Leader
William Blum
The United States of Punishment
Jim Goodman
So What's the Big Deal If Wal-Mart Makes a Mistake?
James Brooks
Talking Surge: Let's Kill Some More Before We Go
Maria C. Khoury
Walking Into the Art World: Designing a Palestinian Academy for
the Arts
Website of the Day
Got Powell
December 16 / 17, 2006
Weekend Edition
Vijay Prashad
A
Perilous Way to Socialism
Saul Landau
Filming Fidel
Anthony Arnove
The US Occupation of Iraq: Act III of a Tragedy of Many Parts
Paul Cantor
The Puppet and the Puppeteer: Pinochet and Kissinger
Annie Nocenti
Baluchistan's Fight: The Khan of Kalat Gathers the Tribes
Nicole Colson
Hard Times on the Killing Floor: Smithfield's Rotten Record
Stephen Gowans
Tehran's Holocaust Conference
Jordan Flaherty
A Catastrophic Failure: Foundations, Nonprofits and the Second
Looting of New Orleans
Fred Gardner
Dustin Costa Faces 15 to Life
P. Sainath
There's No Such Thing as a Free Cow
Seth Sandronsky
The Democrats and Social Security: Watch What the Party Says
and Does
Nadia Hijab
An AIPAC Shot Across Baker's Bow?
Deb Reich
Dear Santa, (Or Someone): Greetings from the Occupied Holy Lands
Susie Day
Cops Shoot Another Rich White Man!
Albert Wan
Why Does It Take 50 Bullets?
Missy Beattie
Will the Next Leader Stand Up? Please!
Martha Rosenberg
Kicking the Wyeth Habit Saves Women's Lives
Lee Ballinger
The Devil's Highway: Clinton, Border Checkpoints and the Deaths
of the Yuma 14
Michael Dickinson
Kingdom of Fear
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Live/Evil: Listening to Miles Davis
Poets' Basement
Davies, Buknatski and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine"
December 15,
2006
Eliza Ernshire
Palestinian
"Civil War" and the Israeli Chocolate Ration
Virginia Tilley
What
Are You Going to Do Now, Israel?
Mike Ferner
Roll Call for the Choir: If They Vote for War, Occupy 'Em!
John Ross
Mad Mel's Mayan Apocalypse
Fred Wilhelms
The Flip Side of Ahmet Ertegun: Where Did You Get Those Shoes?
Kevin Zeese
Dennis Kucinich's Strange Mission: Can You Be a Real Anti-War
Candidate in a Pro-War Party?
David Severn
Social Engineering Begins at Home: Jeffrey Skoll, Billionaire
Philantropist
Dave Lindorff
Sen. Tim Johnson Death Watch: Senate Gridlock May Be Best Outcome
Sunsara Taylor
As American as Shopping and Torture
Website of
the Day
June 2, 2004: When Iraq Was There For The Looting
December 14,
2006
Jonathan Cook
The
Recognition Trap
Riz Khan
An Interview with Jimmy Carter
Jason Hribal
Kasatka, the Sea World Orca
Pennick / Gray
The Plight of Black Farmers: Racism in the US Farm Program
Richard Levins
That Embezzled Anti-Castro Money
Pat Williams
The College Crisis: Universal Access, Student Loan Debts and
Pell Grants
Peter Rost, MD
Simply Irresistible: Do Women Prefer Bad Boys?
Website of
the Day
The Sound of Rummy
December 13,
2006
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
is Beyond Repair
Greg Moses
The Dixie Chicks Come Home to Roost
Elizabeth Schulte
Hungry for the Holidays
Joshua Frank
Death By Coke
Debra Eschmeyer
Corporations Control Your Dinner
Leon Hadar
Baker's Rescue Mission: Too Little, Too Late
Peter Rost, MD
I've Been a Very Bad Boy
Margaret Knapke
Mow bé and Malachi, Presenté!
Reza Fiyouzat
Are Cows Free?
Fred Wilhelms
A Last Minute Appeal: If You Know One of These Musicians Let
Them Know They Are Owed Money--By Friday!
Website of
the Day
The Crimes of Augusto Pinochet
December 12, 2006
Fernando A.
Torres
The
Last Man of the Junta: an Open Letter to Kissinger from One of
Pinochet's Political Prisoners
Paul Craig
Roberts
America's
Injustice System is Criminal
Stephen Soldz
Abusive Interrogations
Uri Avnery
Baker's Cake
William S. Lind
Knocking Opportunity: From Vulcans to Vultures in Iraq
Missy Beattie
Convicted for Our Convictions: Trespassing for Truth at the UN
Dave Lindorff
The 35-Year Long Scream: Torture, Impeachment and a Vietnam Vet's
Tears
George Pyle
Our Perverse Farm Plan: Where Christmas Comes Every Five Years
Norman Solomon
Is the USA the Center of the World?
Website of
the Day
Citizens' War Tribunal
December 11,
2006
Virginia Tilley
Banning
Mandela
Roger Burbach
The Condor Model: the Atrocities of Pinochet and the US
Col. Douglas MacGregor
There's Only One Option Left: Leave!
Fawwas Traboulsi
Lebanon on the Brink
Ron Jacobs
Death of a Pig: Poetic Justice for Pinochet
Gideon Levy
The Cruel Line into Gaza: Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle
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Burning Books at Harvard Law
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The Disappeared of Oaxaca: a Message from One of the Actors in
Apocalypto
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La Cancion de la Unidad
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Day
Killing
Castro: Congresswoman as Contract Killer?
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/ 10, 2006
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Alexander Cockburn
Liberal
Consensus for More Troops in Iraq
Sen. Gordon Smith
Out of Iraq: Cut and Run or Cut and Walk
Greg Grandin
Jeane
Kirkpatrick, Mid-Wife of the Neo-Cons
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How Many More Will Die for Bush's Ego?
Col. Dan Smith
The Vietnamization of Iraq: Inside the Military Training Program
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The Man from NAM: John Engler's Trail of Destruction
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The Donkey and the Date: Iran's Upcoming Municipal Elections
Rev. Willliam Alberts
Doing Unto Others: Pastor Haggard and President Bush
James T. Phillips
The James Gang: "Did You Kill Her?"
Bennis / Leaver
A Bi-Partisan Occupation
Dave Lindorff
A Congress of Hucksters and Pipsqueaks
Nikolas Kozloff
Robert Gates and Venezuela: Another Saber Rattler in Latin America
Seth Sandronsky
Activating White Racism
Lucinda Marshall
McKinney and Karpinsky: Silenced for Telling the Truth
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Something's Gotta Give: James Baker vs. the Lobby
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Recommendation No. 80
Faisal Kutty
Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Merely a Western
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Hugh Sansom
Smearing Jimmy Carter: an Open Letter to the New York Times
Robert Gold
My South American Journey: Impunity in Colombia
Boots Riley
Crash and Burn: an Urgent Message from The Coup
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
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Engel & Buknatski
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the Weekend
Alive in Mexico
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Patrick Cockburn
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Iraq Study Group's Cautious Appraisal
Leutisha Stills
Just
How Progressive is the Congressional Black Caucus?
Norman Finkelstein
The Media Lynching of Jimmy Carter
Will Youmans
Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington: Brookings Hosts an Ethnic
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Peter Rost, MD
What Went Wrong at Pfizer?
Jonathan Demme
My Friend Bruce Langhorne: a Great Musician Needs Your Help!
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Lucinda Marshall
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Prosecutor Admits: Mumia Abu-Jamal Had "No True Defense"
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Drug Pushers, Inc.: Power and Profit in the Legal Drug Trade
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The
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The Big Boys of Financial Crime
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Committee of Enablers: Is Gates Fit to Serve? Are the Senators?
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The Checkpoint Generation
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Depoliticizing Arab Art: Christie's and the Rush to "Discover"
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Rebel Athletes: Organizing the Jocks for Justice
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Dark Fire: the Fall of WTC 7
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Drunken Hack Goes Ape at Aussie "Pulitzers"
|
Weekend
Edition
January 27 / 28, 2007
Barbara Ehrenreich at the Commonwealth
Club
The
Suppression of Collective Joy
By FRED GARDNER
Barbara Ehrenreich made a quick visit
to San Francisco last week to promote her new book, "Dancing
in the Streets." Her noontime talk at the Commonwealth
Club Jan. 18, excerpted below, was attended by about 100 people,
mostly women. The subject was the suppression of collective
joy, a historical trend that might seem abstruse -who but an
insightful sociologist would try to name and explain it?- but
which has affected every one of us directly. "'Collective
joy' is a clunky term," Ehrenreich acknowledged, "but
it's the best I could come up with."
Almost a decade ago, before
Ehrenreich's forays into the labor force recounted in "Nickel
and Dimed" and "Bait
and Switch," she got interested in human bonding. Not
sexual bonding, she explained, and not just the kind that holds
families together, but:
"the kinds of bonds that
hold communities together and can even bring strangers together...
Ritual, organized ways that people can make each other not only
happy but joyful, delirious even ecstatic... Dancing, music,
singing, feasting -which includes drinking- costuming, masking,
face paint, body paint, processions, dramas, sporting competitions,
comedies...
"These activities are
almost universal. When Europeans fanned out across the globe
from the 15th to 19th centuries conquering people, they found
rituals and festivities going on everywhere from Polynesia to
Alaska to Sub-Saharan Africa to india. Everywhere there were
occasions for dressing up -often in a religious context but not
always. The Europeans were horrified by what they saw and described
it as 'savagery' and 'devil worship.' They thought it showed
the inherent inferiority of indigenous people that they could
let go in this way. The truth is, these traditions were European,
too, but forgotten. The ancient Greeks had a god for ecstasy,
Dionysus. Women especially worshipped Dionysus...
"There is evidence that
Christianity until the 13th century was very much a danced religion.
The archbishops were always complaining about it. When dancing
was eventually banned in the churches it went outside in the
form of carnival and other festivities that filled the church
calendar. In 15th century France, one out of four days of the
year was given over to festivities of some sort. People didn't
live to work, they lived to party...
"Going back 10,000 years
we find rock art depicting lines and circles of dancing people.
There is evidence that this capacity for collective joy, especially
through synchronized, rhythmic activity such as dance, is hardwired
into humans. It's part of our unique evolutionary heritage. Chimpanzees
can get excited and jump up and down and wave their arms, but
they've got no rhythm. They can't dance. They can't coordinate
their emotions...
"The evolutionary scientists
say it was probably this capacity that allowed humans to form
groups larger than kinship groups -large groups that were essential
for defense against predatory animals and eventually against
bands of other humans. The techniques -the dance steps, the musical
instruments, the costumes- are cultural, but the capacity for
collective joy is innate. We are hardwired to be party animals...
"Why is there so little
collective joy today? Why is our culture bereft of opportunity
for this kind of thing? Mostly, we sit in cubicles at work and
we sit in our cars. If you mention 'ecstasy' people think you're
talking about a drug. The cure for loneliness and isolation and
despair is Prozac... The simple answer is: the ancient tradition
of festivities and ecstatic rituals was deliberately suppressed
by elites -people in power who associated this kind of frolicking
with the lower classes and especially with women...
"The Romans had their
own Dionysus worshippers in Italy and they slaughtered them in
60 BC with the kind of ferocity they later directed at Christians...
The Protestants were the real killjoys. They just wiped out that
entire calendar of festivities from the Catholic church and outlawed
dancing and masking. Around the world it was mainly missionaries
who crushed the ecstatic rituals of indigenous people. In this
country, slave owners banned not only reading and books, they
banned the drum. They understood that in these kinds of rituals
people found collective strength. A similar thing happened in
18th century Arabia with the rise of Wahabist Islam, the antecedent
of Al Qaeda and Saudi Islam. Their main enemy was not Christians
or Jews so much as it was the Sufi tradition within Islam which
is ecstatic and involves music and dance.
"Elites fear that disorderly
kinds of events could turn into uprisings. And this fear is justified.
Whether you're looking at European peasants in the late middle
ages or Caribbean slaves in the 19th century, they were using
festivity and carnival as the occasion for revolts.
"A second reason that
comes with the industrial revolution is, of course, the need
to impose social discipline. It's hard to take agricultural people
or herding people and convince them that they should get up and
work six days a week, 12 hours a day, and then spend the seventh
day listening to boring sermons in a church. To discipline the
working class and slaves was a huge enterprise."
Festivity has been replaced
over the centuries by spectacle -"something you watch or
listen to but you do not participate in directly." As examples
Ehrenreich cited the transition "from danced Christian worship
to the masque, a drama going on on stage," and football,
which originally "was played by hundreds of people on a
side. It was a mass sport in which whole villages took on other
villages, men women and children. It was a melee that got tamed
into football where a few participate and most watch. Spectacles
involve your eyes and ears, not the muscles of your body, and
they require no creativity on the part of the spectator. The
creativity has been centralized."
People keep trying to reinstitute
festivity because, Ehrenreich emphasized, "we were meant
to get up and move." She recalled "the rock rebellion
of the 1950s and '60s -the kids in the audience refused to sit
still. They kept lifting up out of their seats. Police would
be called. But the kids would get up and dance as soon as the
police turned their backs." Other examples include "costuming,
even if it's only wearing the team colors or a cheesehead. Face
paint -what could be more ancient. The wave... In Latin America
you get people bringing their drums to the stadium and dancing
in the bleachers...
Ehrenreich remarked the emergence
of entirely new festivities such as Burning Man, the Love Parade
in Berlin (at which a million people have danced in the streets),
and the transformation of Halloween into a grown-up celebration.
In response to a question about San Francisco's efforts to contain
the partying on Halloween, Ehrenreich said that repression has
often been rationalized in terms of maintaining public safety
and order -"too much noise, that kind of thing." Almost
as an afterthought she added, "a lot of the repression of
what goes on in clubs is carried out in the name of the war on
drugs." (Ehrenreich is a former board member of NORML.)
Ehrenreich's scholarship (even
her throwaway lines contain the seeds of PhD theses) doesn't
keep her from waxing lyrical. She concluded by reading a passage
from "Dancing in the Streets:" "Walking along
the beach in Rio we came upon members of a Samba school rehearsing
for Carnivale -four-year-olds to octogenarians, men and women,
some gorgeously costumed and some in tank tops and shorts -Rio
street clothes. To a 19th century missionary or a 21st century
religious puritan their movements might have seemed lewd or at
least suggestive. (Missionaries always called indigenous people
lewd.) Certainly the conquest of the streets by a crowd of brown-skinned
people would have been distressing in itself. But the samba school
danced down right to the sand in perfect dignity, rapt in their
own rhythm, their faces both exalted and shining with an almost
religious kind of exaltation. One thin, latte-colored young man
dancing just behind the musicians set the pace. What was he in
real life? A bank clerk? A busboy? Here, in his brilliant feathered
costume, he was a prince, a mythological figure, maybe even a
god. Here, for a moment there were no divisions among people
except for the political ones created by Carnivale itself. After
they reached the boardwalk, bystanders started following in without
any indication or announcements, without embarrassment or even
alcohol to dissolve the normal constraints of urban life, the
samba school turned into a huge crowd and the crowd turned into
a momentary festival. There was no quote point to it, no religious
overtones, no ideological message, no money to be made. Just
the chance -which we need much more of on this crowded planet-
to acknowledge the miracle of our simultaneous existence with
some sort of celebration."
Extra Points
Ehrenreich's comments in response
to questions included the following:
Most of the megachurches that
BE has looked into (for another project) are "quite staid
in their form of worship... The ecstatic Pentacostal forms of
worship are to be found in tent revivals and storefront churches
of the poor. The pentacostal movement was founded in the early
20th century by a black man. It became an interracial denomination
and brought in the forms of music that were not ordinarily associated
with worship. Hot forms of music. Lively forms of music that
encouraged movement...
"Christmas was once so
wild that it was banned in certain states. People would costume
themselves and go door-to-door, demand drinks from every house
they went to, pour out into the streets, and dance. Typical festival
behavior. The transition was made in the late 19th and early
20th century to an indoor holiday. (As if instructing a child)
'This is something you celebrate with your family...' Caroling
from house-to-house is a dim reminder of Christmas's sordid background.
"It's been said by many
sociologists that Americans are remarkably tied into our nuclear
families at the expense of community bonds. Many things have
been blamed on this hallmark of American society, including the
high divorce rate. We're expecting so much from this tiny group
of people, our family."
Anthropologists see rituals
in retrospect as a way of building community but the participants
saw them as a way of bonding with deities.
"In the game 'Second Life'
people go off and have a second life as boring as their first
ones. There's no muscular involvement. And that is important...
Mirror neurons have been getting a lot of attention recently.
There are parts of our brain that respond to seeing another person's
motion by preparing to execute the same motion. We are connected
very deeply on the muscular level, which is missing on MySpace.
"In the 18th century in
all parts of Europe there was an epidemic of what physicians
called melancholia. This is the period when traditional festivities
were disappearing. There was a rise in suicides and what we would
today recognize as "depression." I would argue that
festivities and ecstatic rituals are traditional cures for what
looks to us like depression. One example is the Czar ritual in
Northern Africa. A woman becomes so depressed that she takes
to her bed and won't get up, won't do anything anymore. Maybe
her husband has announced that he's taking a second wife... Classic,
severe depression. The cure? They bring in the Czar healer, who
comes with a bunch of musicians. And you bring all the women
in town for days and nights of ecstatic dancing. Pretty soon,
the depressed woman gets up and is all better... There are many
examples of these sorts of things being used curatively for what
we would call depression...
"There are always class
tensions about festivities. In the 1970s the elite of Rio di
Janero decided they wanted to have nothing to do with Carnivale.
So that was the week you went off to your country home if you
could afford to. Now the elite is trying to retake Carnivale
and turn it into more of a spectacle.
"There are tensions around
sporting events. The ticket prices have gotten too high for the
working class. Most average fans -the fans who had been bringing
carnival aspects to sporting events- can't even go anymore. The
rich are up there in their skyboxes. The last thing they want
to run into is some face-painted maniac.
There has been an "Increasing
carnivalization of protest. People bring drums. The press mocks
them for having a good time, as if it means they're not serious.
And yet that is the ancient form of protest.
"The ancient Hebrews were
not in favor of ecstatic rituals, which they associated with
the Canaanites, the indigenous people of Palestine, who were
not monotheistic, who worshipped a goddess as well as a god,
and who had pretty wild forms of worship. So throughout the old
testament prophets are saying 'Don't backslide! Stay away from
those golden calves."
Ehrenreich has an essay in
the current Harpers attacking "the cult of cheerfulness
-by which I don't mean joy but the almost ubiquitous injunctions
in our culture to be perky, upbeat, smiling, and positive-thinking
at all times."
Some in the affluent crowd
seemed to think they could find private solutions to the suppression
of collective joy. There were questions such as "Would you
say that a marathon fuses elements of individualism with collective
joy?" To which BE replied,
"I've never run one. I'd
have to defer to marathon runners on that. What it does not involve
is that synchronized, rhythmic activity."
She seemed momentarily puzzled
by the question, "What kind of new things do you see bringing
out collective joy in the future?" "New things?...
To me it's more about the recovery of a lost tradition. Those
ancient technologies -dance, costuming, feasting, food sharing-
can we recover that?...
"There's no question that
we're hardwired to be social animals. We are intensely sociable,
more so than any other primate. And sometimes in not good ways.
There are other manifestations of collective excitement, say
that of a lynch mob. Another not good way in which we're overly
sociable is that we will revise our own perception of the world
sometimes to fit with what we're being told. We want to conform,
very strongly. And we have to push back and think for ourselves...
"It's a back-and-forth
dialectic. In Key West there's an annual thing called the Fantasy
Fest. It was very mardi-gras like -costuming, people used to
prepare their dance sketches for months before. You'd get a troupe
of people and dance down the street. It got so successful that
in recent years Bud Lite has sponsored it. And what it has lost
is that creativity. Now you have 3,000 people come into this
small island to get as drunk as they possibly can and take off
their clothes...
"Most of us don't have
much time in our lives because of this ridiculous cultural expectation
that you should get up every morning and work. And work defines
you, it's the measure of your worth as a human being...
"A great deal of individual
artistry is involved in traditional festivity. I'm thinking of
small-scale societies before they were all wrecked by imperialism
and global capitalism. Individuals who craft musical instruments,
individuals who are very good at costume making, who come up
with new dance steps, new rhythms. This is not just about merging
with the group. The festivity ideally brings out the creativity
of individuals."
* *
*
I knew the speaker when she
used to rock 'n roll, when her name was Barbara Alexander and
she was going out with John Ehrenreich, a cherubic brainiac from
Philadelphia who went through Harvard in three years. They moved
to Manhattan and started working towards PhDs in cell biology
from the Rockefeller Institute while I was employed nearby at
Scientific American. The U.S. role in Vietnam was escalating
and the drug companies and equipment manufacturers were tightening
control over the for-profit "healthcare system," which
the Ehrenreichs studied, tried to reform, and wrote about. They
had a railroad flat up five flights of stairs and a baby named
Rosa.
Barbara's father was a metallurgist
and former copper miner who had risen high in the Gillette Razor
Company by virtue of his expertise. Once, when Mr. Alexander
heard that friends of his daughter's wished they could afford
a house in Montauk, he offered to give them--not sell them--a
small parcel of land he'd acquired there after World War Two
and did not intend to use. I was young when this offer was made,
people in my family are very generous, too, and it wasn't until
I'd seen more of the world that I realized how unusual such generosity
is. It must have been a factor in how his daughter developed
her egalitarian instincts and such a sane perspective on consumption.
As a schoolgirl Barbara couldn't
master the ballroom dancing steps, she says. But as a young woman
she could dance into the early morning at the Fillmore East "to
the point of self-forgetfulness." Her new book is dedicated
to Rosa's daughters, now 5 and 2. To a question about raising
children, Grandma B. |
