|
Today's
Stories
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
Website Of the Day
Building Bridges Between Jew and Arab
January 12
/ 14, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Nomads Beware!
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
Mary McGrane
Burning Books at Harvard Law
Bernardo Ruiz
The Disappeared of Oaxaca: a Message from One of the Actors in
Apocalypto
Website of the Day
La Cancion de la Unidad
Video of the
Day
Killing
Castro: Congresswoman as Contract Killer?
December 9
/ 10, 2006
Weekend Edition
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
Paul Craig Roberts
How Many More Will Die for Bush's Ego?
Col. Dan Smith
The Vietnamization of Iraq: Inside the Military Training Program
Ralph Nader
The Man from NAM: John Engler's Trail of Destruction
Behrooz Ghamari
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
Mike Whitney
Something's Gotta Give: James Baker vs. the Lobby
John V. Whitbeck
Recommendation No. 80
Faisal Kutty
Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Merely a Western
Construct?
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
Poets' Basement
Engel & Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Alive in Mexico
December 8, 2006
Patrick Cockburn
The
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
Cleanser
Peter Rost, MD
What Went Wrong at Pfizer?
Jonathan Demme
My Friend Bruce Langhorne: a Great Musician Needs Your Help!
Ray McGovern
Senate Democrats Give Gates a Free Pass
Lucinda Marshall
What She Wore
Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn
The Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
John Lennon's FBI Files
December 7,
2006
Alex Friedman
Rev.
Phelps' Hate-Fueled Fanatics Find a Home in the Kansas Prison
Industry
Maureen Webb
Risk Scoring and the National Insecurity State
Paul Craig Roberts
Catastrophe Still Awaits
Dave Lindorff
Prosecutor Admits: Mumia Abu-Jamal Had "No True Defense"
Matt Vidal
Drug Pushers, Inc.: Power and Profit in the Legal Drug Trade
Yifat Susskind
Looking for a Few Good Principles: What Should be Done in Iraq
Rodriguez / Jones
NYPD's Death Squads: From Diallo to Sean Bell
Website of
the Day
2006, Remixed
December 6, 2006
Robert Bryce
Omitting
the Obvious with James Baker: From the S&L Crisis to the
Iraq Study Group
William S. Lind
The Boomerang Effect: When Will the First IED Strike Cincy?
Zoe Blunt
The Clearcut Truth About the Great Bear Rainforest
Corporate Crime Reporter
The New Conventional Wisdom: Prosecute Individuals, Not Corporations
Amira Hass
A Regrettable Indifference: Israel's Treatment of Palestinian
Prisoners
Richard W. Behan
The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War
Sophie McNeill
Why Hezbollah is Broadcasting Sunday Mass
December 5, 2006
Virginia Tilley
Apartheid
Israel: a Beacon of Hope?
Sharon Smith
The New Washington Consensus: Blame the Victims in Iraq
Joe Bageant
Somewhere a Banker Smiles
Ron Jacobs
A War Washington Can't Win
Norman Solomon
Media Consensus, Stay in Iraq!
Mike Whitney
Rumsfeld's Final Snowflake: "I Was Just About to Change
Everything ... "
Derrick O'Keefe
Regimes Unchanged: Chavez's Victory Strengthen's Cuba
Julian Assange
The Road to Hanoi
Missy Beattie
Bush, the Unhappy Helmsman
Website of
the Day
Lessons of Suez and Iraq
December 4,
2006
Alexander Cockburn
Gaza
and Darfur
George Ciccariello-Maher
Tears of the Escualidos: Election Diary, Venezuela
Ray McGovern
Lame Ducks, Hold That Nomination!: a CIA Insider's Take on Gates
John Ross
Repression on the Menu in Mexico
Walden Bello
Hurricane Milton: Friedman, Bayonets and Markets
Peter Rost,
MD
Pfizer's Clueless Executives
Stephen Lendman
The Withering of the Bush Dynasty
Gideon Levy
This Ceasefire will Go Up in Flames
Website of the Day
The "Babes" of Hizbullah?
December 2
/ 3, 2006
Weekend Edition
Barucha Calamity
Peller
The
Dirty War of Oaxaca
Paul Craig
Roberts
Is Bush Sane?: When Denial Goes Pathological
Ralph Nader
The Big Boys of Financial Crime
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Committee of Enablers: Is Gates Fit to Serve? Are the Senators?
Amira Hass
The Checkpoint Generation
Maymanah Farhat
Depoliticizing Arab Art: Christie's and the Rush to "Discover"
the Arab World
Dave Lindorff
Fighting the Iraq War--At Home
Fred Gardner
Dr. Jimenez Defends His Practice Methods
Col. Dan Smith
The Semantics of Civil War
Raed Jarrar
Maliki's Monopoly of Power
Seth Sandronsky
US Prison Nation: Locking Up Surplus Labor
K.-Y. Taylor
The Bride Wore Black: the Shooting of Sean Bell and the Resurgence
of American Racism
Yifat Susskind
Greed, Dogma and AIDS
David Rosen
Made in China: the Global Trade in Sex Toys
Ron Jacobs
All Hands on Deck!: the New Pirates of the Caribbean
Nikolas Kozloff
Venezuela Prepares to Vote
Talli Nauman
Fighting La Choya: the Secret Toxic Dump on the Border
Alan Gregory
Shadow Trout: Why Hatchery Fish Aren't Real
Joe Allen
RFK and Hollywood Mythmaking: Emilio Estevez's Beatification
of Bobby Kennedy
St. Clair /
D'Antoni
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Davies, Engel, Ford and Orloski
Website of
the Day
Demo for Oaxaca
December 1,
2006
Greg Grandin
Midnight
in Mexico: Calderón's Inauguration Behind Closed Doors
Linn Washington,
Jr.
The
Mumia Case After 25 Years: Still More Keystone Kops Antics
George Ciccariello-Maher
Sleeping with the Enemy: At Home with the Anti-Chavistas
Brian J. Foley
Taking Responsibility for Iraq
Dave Zirin
Rebel Athletes: Organizing the Jocks for Justice
Joshua Frank
The Montana Formula: Jon Tester's Neopopulism
Chris Floyd
Hideous Kinky: Thomas Friedman Comes Undone
Ingmar Lee
Atomic Porker Strikes Indian Point Nuke Plant
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Dark Fire: the Fall of WTC 7
Website of the Day
No Gun Ri Revisited
Video of the
Day
Drunken Hack Goes Ape at Aussie "Pulitzers"
|
January 17, 2007
The WTO Takes a Hit
Can World Trade Ever Be Fair?
Back to Keynes!
By SUSAN GEORGE
THE Doha agenda, launched at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting in the Qatari capital in 2001, has collapsed, and a good thing too. Although the WTO director general, Pascal Lamy, is trying desperately to resuscitate the agenda, the opponents of Doha maintained throughout the negotiations that no deal was better than a bad deal. The round, from the beginning until the final fruitless exchanges in 2006, was destined to benefit the largest farmers, to destroy nascent or fragile industries throughout the South and to open public services everywhere to corporate takeover through the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).
The collapse may only be temporary (in the first days of 2007 there were prospects for its revival) and it does not mean that the basic premises of the WTO, established in 1995, have been abolished. The Agreement on Agriculture, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) concerning industrial goods, the GATS and some 20 or more other instruments under the WTO umbrella still stand. But their application has been seriously slowed down and we now have a reprieve or at least a window of opportunity.
The failure of the round causes many people to ask: “What should we put in the place of Doha?” You could respond that this is like asking “What should we put in the place of cancer?”, the instinctive answer to which is “nothing”; however in the case of trade it would be unwise to answer so. The absence of cancer is to be desired but the absence of an international trade regime just leaves the field open to bilateral and multilateral deals which are always even more invasive and dangerous for weaker partners than is the WTO.
Rather than allowing the usual suspects — the most powerful governments following the lead of their transnational corporations — to chart the future of trade relations, it is time to return to the era after the Second World War when there was a major restructuring of international relations. Even the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were welcome institutions then and for a while played a useful role in the South as well as in the war-devastated North: only in the past 25 years did they change their missions drastically.
The economist John Maynard Keynes came to the postwar table with an innovative project for the future of world trade, which he called the International Trade Organization (ITO), supported by an international central bank, the International Clearing Union (ICU). The ICU was meant to issue a world currency for trade, the bancor. Why the ITO and the ICU never materialized, and what would have changed if they had, forms a sobering story from which we can learn. It tells us that, in a rational world, it would be possible to construct a trading system serving the needs of people in both North and South.
With an ITO and an ICU, we could have had a world order in which no country could run a huge trade deficit (the United States deficit stood at $716bn in 2005) or the huge trade surplus of contemporary China. Under such a system, crushing third world debt and the devastating structural adjustment policies applied by the World Bank and the IMF would have been unthinkable, although the system would not have abolished capitalism. If we could resurrect Keynes’s concept, another world really might be possible: he figured out how to make it work more than 60 years ago. His plan would have to be dusted off and tinkered with, but its core remains relevant.
Why did it fail?
Before explaining the rules it would have established, we should consider why the ITO was never set up. The usual explanation is that the US blocked it, which is true but too facile. There were other political reasons. The US and Britain began discussing the ITO agreement long before the war was over, and Keynes had already floated the idea in 1942. He chaired the Bretton Woods monetary conference in July 1944, where it emerged as the official British position. By that time the US, doubtless following the opinions of its corporations, was less enthusiastic and its chief negotiator, Harry Dexter White, pushed instead for the World Bank and the IMF . The US Congress subsequently approved both institutions, sometimes referred to as the “Bretton Woods institutions”, but the ITO was not yet ripe for ratification.
The United Nations was born in 1945. Its economic component, the Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc) received postwar proposals from both the US and Britain for establishing an ITO. Ecosoc convened the UN Conference on Trade and Employment in 1946 to examine them .
Before this conference could meet, the US adopted a two-track approach to international trade. It convened a meeting of 22 other UN member countries, which were also anxious to begin trade liberalisation as soon as possible. They came together in a parallel forum to draft the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as a temporary measure, or so it was thought at the time.
They signed the GATT in 1947 and it entered into force in 1948. Because the participants all expected it to become a part of the ITO Charter, which would be a more permanent instrument, they included little institutional machinery in the GATT. Soon after, the ITO charter was at last completed and approved at the Havana Conference of 1948; the text is now generally referred to as the “Havana Charter”, although its formal title is Charter for an International Trade Organisation .
Why did the ITO ultimately fail? Much of its political support had evaporated. Keynes died in 1946; the US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, also a champion of the ITO, was no longer in government; the enthusiastic, “let’s refashion the world” moment of Bretton Woods had passed. The US State and Treasury Departments were busy with the Marshall Plan and with US reciprocal trade agreements with individual countries. The innate isolationism of many Americans and their Congressional representatives played a part. Much of the US business community also opposed the ITO, some companies because it was too protectionist, others because it was not protectionist enough. There was a tough US presidential election in 1948 and neither political party wanted to rock the boat with a controversial international agreement. The Cold War began and the ITO was of secondary interest to US politicians and bureaucrats.
Once re-elected, President Harry Truman did half-heartedly place the ITO (“Havana”) Charter before Congress in 1950, but the lawmakers never bothered to vote on it. The GATT survived because it was still seen as temporary and contained almost no constraining institutional arrangements. It was successful in its own way, managing over the decades to reduce industrial tariffs from an average 50 per cent to 5 per cent, although steep tariff peaks remained in force in many countries. The GATT sponsored eight trade liberalization rounds, the last of which, the Uruguay Round, drafted the far more ambitious WTO agreement. The GATT, revised and updated, became the GATT 1994 within the framework of the WTO. Postwar trade arrangements therefore bore almost no resemblance to Keynes’s hopes. The present World Trade Organisation is even further removed from his vision.
The Havana charter
Whereas the WTO has no connection to the UN and does not recognise any UN legal instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the ITO Charter began by recognizing the UN Charter. It placed full employment, economic and social progress and development among its objectives. Its second section was entirely devoted to means of avoiding unemployment and under-employment. Unlike the WTO, which never mentions the subject, the ITO insisted on fair labor standards and the improvement of wages and working conditions; it mandated cooperation with the International Labor Organisation.
The international trade union movement spent the first six years of the WTO’s existence trying to obtain a “social clause”, which was only a much watered-down version of the principles already included in the ITO. The unions finally gave up after the WTO Doha Ministerial meeting in 2001.
The ITO Charter formulated plans for sharing skills and technology; it specified that foreign investment could not be used as a pretext for intervening in the internal affairs of member countries. Poorer, weaker countries were specifically authorized to use government aid, intervention and “protectionism” for their reconstruction and development: the charter specified that “assistance in the form of protective measures is justified”.
Special assistance “designed to promote the development of a particular industry for the processing of an indigenous primary commodity” was especially encouraged. Many provisions of the charter also dealt with primary commodities and were mindful of protecting small-scale producers. The ITO allowed government funds to stabilize commodity prices from year to year and recommended the “conservation of exhaustible natural resources”. Its measures concerning commodities and encouraging negotiations among member countries that produced them, if taken together, led to a surprising conclusion. The ITO, without actually saying so, promoted Opec-like arrangements — producer cartels — for primary products, and local processing to add value.
Instead of seeing such rules produce benefits we have witnessed an inexorable decline in commodity prices. According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), average yearly decreases in these prices between 1977 and 2001 were 2.6 per cent for foodstuffs; 5.6% for tropical beverages; 3.5 per cent for oilseeds and oils. Only metals, which, unlike food and beverages, are never produced by smallholders, did slightly better at an annual decrease of 1.9 per cent, although this still reflects a considerable drop in revenues for producer countries.
The Havana Charter specifically permitted aid to national industries through subsidies or government procurement. It even reserved some screentime for national cinema. It allowed countries to protect local agriculture and fisheries. One of the biggest battles in the Doha round, and the immediate cause for its failure, was over agricultural export subsidies. The ITO outlawed subsidizing products on foreign markets “at a price lower than that charged to a domestic buyer”. Countries in financial difficulty were allowed to restrict imports, but must do so proportionally, allotting fair quotas to previous suppliers.
The ITO’s institutional arrangements were simple and democratic. Every state initially invited to the Unctad conference was to be a member; future members were to be approved by this body. Each member had one vote (unlike the World Bank and the IMF where votes are proportional to financial contributions and the US can block any important decision). A member in arrears in its contributions to the UN lost its vote; in the ITO, the US would not have been a voting member in most years. As for governance, ITO members selected an executive board of 18 members; eight from countries of “major economic importance and share in world trade”, 10 representing different regions and types of economies. Votes should be by simple majority or in some cases, two-thirds majority. Disputes should preferably be settled through consultations but, if these did not succeed, any member could refer a dispute to the board, which could authorise the member harmed to take retaliatory measures.
Financing trade
These attempts to establish a new order for trade were undertaken in the context of a world still struggling to emerge from the ruins of war. Nobody except the US had any money. The Marshall Plan was one part charity to nine parts self-interest — the best way to kick-start trade between the US and Europe — otherwise the US would have been doomed to produce more than it could consume and would have had no one to whom it could sell its products.
In these circumstances, how could everyone get off their knees and begin to produce and trade again? Keynes formulated his solution in the early 1940s. Since the war was partly the result of beggar-my-neighbour trade policies, with everyone engaging in cut-throat competition for the same markets, he wanted to make sure no one could hog all the markets and accumulate huge trade surpluses. His solution was the ICU, a new central bank of central banks, which would issue the bancor currency to be used for trade.
Under this system, exports earned bancors and imports spent them. The point was to keep the two in balance so that at the end of the year a country’s accounts with the ICU would be neither in surplus nor in deficit but “cleared” — close to zero. Every country’s currency would be assigned a fixed but adjustable exchange rate relative to the bancor. Keynes’s original thinking perceived that nations with too many bancors would disrupt the system just as much as those with too few— that creditors were just as dangerous to stability and prosperity as debtors.
How could countries be forced to conform and maintain a near-zero balance? The method was ingenious. The ICU, in its role as central bank and issuer of bancors, would allow each country an overdraft facility, just as ordinary banks do for customers. The authorized overdraft would equal half the average value of the country’s trade over the preceding five years. Any country exceeding its overdraft would be charged interest on the difference. Debtors would be charged on their deficits, but the real novelty was that creditors — countries with trade surpluses — would be charged interest on their surpluses. The greater the deficit or surplus, the higher would be the interest rate.
Countries in deficit would be obliged to devalue their currencies to make their exports cheaper and more attractive. Countries in surplus would have to revalue their currencies to make their exports more expensive and less attractive. If a trade-surplus country did not reduce its surplus, the ICU would confiscate everything above the allowed overdraft amount and put it in a reserve fund. Keynes wanted to use this fund to finance a global police force, disaster relief and other measures of interest to all members.
A neat arrangement
It was a neat arrangement. To avoid paying interest or submit to outright confiscation; countries in surplus would race to buy more exports from those in deficit. Those in deficit could sell more and would find it easier to return to equilibrium. Everyone would benefit. Trade would expand, the world would be more prosperous and peaceful, underdeveloped countries would have more funds to invest in development, and it would be impossible to accumulate the debts they have today.
As we know, Keynes did not prevail and the postwar vision was never realized. The World Bank and the IMF have wreaked havoc through their structural adjustment policies, third world debts can never be repaid, and Wall Street now decides the policies of democratically elected governments (as can be attested by Brazil’s president, Luiz “Lula” Inácio da Silva, along with many other leaders of indebted countries). World trade rules do not benefit the poorer members of the WTO and the rich ones have grown more selfish as they have become richer.
In these circumstances, how could the global justice movement help to make fair trade a reality, since the WTO and its disastrous rules already exist? The writer George Monbiot believes that the South could use its $26,000bn of debt as a “nuclear threat” against the world financial system unless it consents to establish an ICU. The South could begin by creating its own, smaller clearing union: perhaps Latin America could launch such a plan. Perhaps a new government in France could put it on the agenda; stranger things have happened. But it is important to realize that we need not reinvent the trade wheel: Keynes did all the work 60 years ago.
Susan George is a writer and president of the administrative council of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam.
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair write: This article appears in the January edition of the excellent monthly Le Monde Diplomatique, whose English language edition can be found at mondediplo.com This full text appears by agreement with Le Monde Diplomatique. CounterPunch will feature one or two articles from LMD every month.
|
Coming
Soon from
CounterPunch
Books / AK Press
The Gang's
All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Kay Graham, Rupert Murdoch,
Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!
Buy End Times Now!
"The Case Against Israel"
Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz
WHAT'S
INSIDE
Grand
Theft Pentagon:
Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror
by Jeffrey St. Clair
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau
Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
The Occupation
by Patrick Cockburn
Bruce Springsteen On Tour
By Dave Marsh
The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced
as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"
|
