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Today's
Stories
February 25,
2008
Anthony DiMaggio
Military
Bases, the Media and the Democrats
February 23
/ 4, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain
Paul Craig
Roberts
Obama
and Global Trade
Wajahat Ali
Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon
on the 9/11 Commission
Ralph Nader
Neutering the FDA
Jürgen
Vsych
"What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?"
Fidel Castro
Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana
Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo
David Macaray
Unions Under Assault
Jeremy Scahill
The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence
David Krieger
Stanley Sheinbaum
Caging the Cold War Monster
Ron Jacobs
Building for the Future
Michael Garrity
The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies
Brian McKenna
Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down
Missy Beattie
Over the Hill with John McCain
Fred Gardner
American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly)
Boris Kagarlitsky
The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement
Mike Ferner
Kick That Barrel
Dan Bacher
On the Trail with the Border Angels
Christopher
Ketcham
Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread
Poets' Basement
Davies and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Obama
Mariachi
February 22,
2008
Mike Whitney
The
Bonfire of Capital
Jason Hribal
Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet
Liaquat Ali Khan
Arresting Musharraf
Joshua Frank
That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child
Dave Lindorff
Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for
Her!
Liliana Segura
When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion
Robert Fantina
Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen?
Yifat Susskind
The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women
Norm Kent
Pushing 60 with Pot
Website of
the Day
Bush Gets Down in Liberia
February 21,
2008
Saul Landau
Fidel
Steps Aside
Elizabeth Schulte
Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed
Helen Redmond
Health Care as a Human Right
Benjamin Dangl
Undermining Bolivia
Michael Levitin
Kosovo's Dilemma
Liam Leonard
Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle
Patrick Irelan
Land and Food in Venezuela
Linn Cohen-Cole
Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto
Michael Simmons
Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music
CounterPunch
News Service
A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs
Website of the Day
Cop Abuse in Shreveport
February 20,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lies
and Spies
Paul Krassner
My
Brief Encounter with Fidel Castro
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The
Pakistani Elections
Farzana Versey
The
Great Dictator: Musharraf, Peace and the Autumn of the Patriarch
Allan Nairn
Dying for a Second Round: Israel's
New Plan to Attack Lebanon
John V. Whitbeck
If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
A Balcony Seat to Our Own Balkanization?
Steve Eckardt
Cuba Sans Fidel: No News is Big News
Lee Sustar
Union-Busting at Freightliner
Mike Ferner
How Sick of It are You?
Website of the Day
The US Military Index
February 19,
2008
Uri Avnery
Blood
and Champagne
Paul Craig
Roberts
Paying
Insurgents Not to Fight
Gary Leupp
The Independence of Kosovo
Fidel Castro
The Moment Has Come
David Macaray
Management's Dirty Little Secret
Reza Fiyouzat
Buck the Circus! The Left and the Elections
Valerie Morse
The New Zealand Terror Raids: Land of the Long White Lie
Walter Brasch
Bush on Safari
Website of the Day
Don't Think Twice, It's Alright
February 18,
2008
Wajahat Ali
Free
Pakistan: an Interview with Imran Khan
Diana Johnstone
NATO's
Kosovo Colony
Paul Craig Roberts
What Do We Stand For?
Andy Worthington
Gitmo: "We're Making This Up as We Go Along"
Debbie Nathan
Bernie Ward's Sex Tapes
Anthony DiMaggio
Following the Money Trail: the Democratic Party and the Business
of Elections
Bill Simpich
Ten Years Ago, People Power Stopped Clinton in Iraq
Eva Liddell
A Short History of Super-Delegates: Hope, Yes! But Pay in Cash
Christopher Brauchli
The President Who Couldn't Keep His Word: Short-Changing Veterans
Stephen Soldz
Wikileaks is Under Attack!
Johann Rossouw
The Ouster of Thabo Mbeki: South Africa and the Costs of Neoliberalism
Website of
the Day
Sick of It Day!
February 16
/ 17, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Tower, Lower Manhattan
Ralph Nader
We
the Corporations ...
David Macaray
The Big Buy Out: Did GM Drive Another Nail in Labor's Coffin?
William J.
Peace
Wheelchair Dumping
Ron Jacobs
War on the Psyche: Shellshock and Redemption
Diane Christian
War Corrupts
Alan Maass
Oil, Blood and Greed: Taking Upton Sinclair to the Big Screen
(and Beyond)
Ramzy Baroud
Iraq and the US Elections
Michael Donnelly
Genitalia First! Old Guard Feminists Play the XX Card
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Art of Finding Whalers
James L. Secor
China Diary: Spring Festival and New Year 2008
Eve Bachrach
Bush Returns to Africa
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Anti-Imperialist Army
Stephen Gowans
Steven Spielberg, Faux-Humanitarian
Missy Beattie
To Vote or Not to Vote?
David Michael
Green
Warming Slowly to Obama
Wajahat Ali
Attack of the Info-tainment Circus
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Willson, Mickey Z., Orloski and Reuther
Website of the Day
Yellowstone's Bison Need Your Help--NOW!
February 15,
2008
George Szamuely
The
Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo
Patrick Cockburn
Ground-Truthing the Surge: Is the US Really Bringing Stability
to Baghdad?
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan is Burning: an Interview with Steve Coll on the Taliban,
Bin Laden and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Economic Hindenberg
Alan Farago
God and the Democrats
Chris Genovali
Alberta's Black Gold Rush
Jacob Hornberger
Courting Injustice: Scalia on Torture
Dave Lindorff
Snoops Always Ring Twice: Bush's Protect America Bill Bull
Website of the Day
Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams
February 14,
2008
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Palestine
in the Mind of America
Mike Whitney
Swan Song for NATO
Clancy Sigal
Strike Notes from a Screenwriter
George Wuerthner
A Bloody Sham: the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
Peter Morici
Is Bernanke Headed for the Exit?
John Ross
Drug War Mayhem Boils Over from Border to Border
Allan Nairn
Mafia Rules in the Middle East: If You're Big Enough, You Can
Whack Anyone
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon's Warmongers
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The New Tractatus: Where Wittgenstein Meets Feinstein
Donna Volatile
Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It
Seth Sandronsky
The Student Squeeze: Fighting California's Tuition Hikes
Website of
the Day
Conventions: the Land Around Us
February 13,
2008
Nikolas Kozloff
Meet
John McCain: Mr. Big Stick in Latin America
Alan Farago
Hell to Pay: Warren Buffett on the Goal Line
Christina Kasica
King's Dream Foreclosed: the Subprime Crisis in Black America
Vicente Navarro
How to Read the U.S. Primaries
Hall Greenland
Australia's Finest Hour
Lee Sustar
Strange Stimulation: Too Little for Those Who Need It Most
David Macaray
The Writers' Strike Finally Ends
Roderick Frazier
Nash
Celebrating Wilderness
Patrick Irelan
Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT
Anthony Papa
Mean Mister Mukasey: AG Tries to Block Crack Cocaine Releases
Carl Finamore
Another Parade Passes Me By: Don't Let Your Movement be Coopted
by Politicians
Website of
the Day
John He Is
February 12,
2008
Frank J. Menetrez
The
Case Against Alan Dershowitz
Paul Craig
Roberts
War Without End
Dr. Trudy Bond
The Elephant at Gitmo: Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink
Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Six: Why Charge Them Now? What About the
Torture?
Col. Dan Smith
The Psychology of Killing: Close In or Far Away?
Ronnie Cummins
Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road
Ralph Nader
Open the Government
John V. Walsh
Antiwarriors, Divided and Conquered
Dave Lindorff
Obama and Progressive Change: Let's Hope the Movement Transforms
the Candidate
Michael Donnelly
Who's Pimping Whom? The Clintons' Selective No Talk Rules
Ron Jacobs
La Lucha Continua: Castro's "Life"
Ben Tripp
Beggars Collide
Website of the Day
Springsteen and Youngstown
February 11,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Lessons
for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate?
Wajahat Ali
A Discussion with Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby
Ray McGovern
Waterboarding for God and Country
Allan Nairn
The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta
Uri Avnery
An End Foreseen?
Chris Floyd
American
Psycho: the Meaning of Mitt Romney's Exit Speech
Martha Rosenberg
School Lessons in a Lunchbox: Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows
Stephen Fleischman
The Bonnie and Clyde of American Politics
Marc Lamont Hill
Not My Brand of Hope
Liliana Segura
Obama and Torture: the Sounds of Silence and Equivocation
Peter Morici
Challenges for the New President
Christopher
Brauchli
A Drug Rant from a Former Taker
Website of the Day
Annie vs. the Blue Angels
February 8
/ 10, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Does
the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves?
Patrick Cockburn
Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold?
Mike Whitney
The Great Bust of '08
Anthony DiMaggio
How the Press Covers Waterboarding
Andy Worthington
The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists?
Linn Cohen-Cole
Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto?
Firmin DeBrabander
Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering
and Deaths of the Great Whales
Kenneth S. Pope
Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association
Jacob G. Hornberger
American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy
Robert Bryce
Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ...
Then What?
P. Sainath
The Last of the Buccaneer Editors
Allan Nairn
Give Me Back My Land
Fred Gardner
/
Pebbles Trippet
"The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the
Law!"
Andrew Wimmer
Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death
Robert Fantina
America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr
David Michael Green
Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves
Kevin Zeese
Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd?
Peter Morici
Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence
Chris Driscoll
Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008?
Prairie Miller
Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen
Poets Basement
Davies and Buknatski
February 7,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Baghdad Will Explode Again
Bill Christison
Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians
David Anderson
NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for
the Sake of Ratings
Ron Jacobs
Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing
Jane Rockefeller
The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation
Andy Worthington
On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden
Dave Zirin
Instep Intifada
Saul Landau
The "Honestest" Candidate Since Lincoln
Susie Day
Our Blob in the White House
Website of the Day
George Carlin on Voting
February 6,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Super
Tuesday's Vote for Chaos
Ben Rosenfeld
Informant Games: The Disturbing GreenScare Case of Briana Waters
Vijay Prashad
An Intellectual Hustler Lays It All Out
Joe Bageant
Nine Billion Little Feet on the Highway of the Damned
Michael Donnelly
What White Women Do In Private Voting Booths
Allan Nairn
Does the US Need a Civilizing Mayan Invasion?
Kathryn Gray
Wilderness on Edge: The Fate of Donner Summit
Ray McGovern
Powell's UN Fiasco
Sheldon Richman
The Whining Empire
Paul Cantor
/ Roger Sparks
A
Presidential Aptitude Examination
John Chuckman
Political Bits and Pieces
Website of
the Day
Save the Albatross
February 5,
2008
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The
Chaos in America's Vast Security Budget
Tariq Ali
Why I Will Not Participate in the Turin Book Fair
Stephen Soldz
The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq: Did Rumsfeld Authorize
War Crimes?
Chris Floyd
Strange
Fruit: America's Gulag and the Good War
William S. Lind
Saddam's Secret War Strategy: Die and Win
Martha Rosenberg
Live From the Killing Floor
Heather Gray
Conversations with Georgia Voters
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Obama, Bhagwandas and the Battle for a Secular Politics
David Macaray
Unions Need to Stop Being So Nice
Eliza Ernshire
Making Music and Laughing Till the Tears Run
Brenda Norrell
Hated Nation
Website of
the Day
The Things I Used to Do
February 4,
2008
Marc Levy
Winter
in America
Patrick Cockburn
The Bird Market Bombings
Saree Makdisi
Strangling Gaza
Uri Avnery
From Stalingrad to Winograd
Alan Farago
Let's Get Bambi! Someone is Slaughtering Florida's Key Deer
Ben Tripp
Spare Change: the Whine of the Progressive Voter
Paul Wolf
Civil Wars North and South
Paul Craig
Roberts
Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed?
Joshua Frank
MoveOn's Obama Endorsement: Why There's No Hope for Change
John Halle
Whither Progressive Democrats?
Website of the Day
How to Cheat in School
February 2
/ 3, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Hot
Democratic Properties
Pam Martens
Bankers
Gone Bonkers: Global Finance and the Insanity Defense
Ralph Nader
The Great Clinton-Obama Debate: Questions They Weren't Asked
John Ross
Hilaria
vs. "El Moreno"
Wajahat Ali
Hillary, Obama and the Clash of Civilizations: an Interview with
Imam Zaid Shakir
Robert Fantina
A Colony by Any Other Name: Iraq as Stepchild of the American
Empire
B. R. Gowani
Not All Veils and Guns
James L. Secor
China in Winter: On the Western Edge of the Great Snow
John V. Walsh
The Invisible Green Primary
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Barack's Bubble, Bubba's Trouble
Dave Zirin
Who Stole the Super Bowl's Soul?
Jeremy Scahill
Blackwater and Blood
Fidel Castro
Reflections on Lula
Joe Allen
Tet Reconsidered: the Turning Point in the Vietnam War
Stephen Lendman
Life in Occupied Gaza
Patrick Irelan
What Happened to the Streetcars?
Andrej Grubacic
Ziga Vodovnik
Caligula's Horse: the USA, New Europe and Kosovo
Josh Karpoff
Dead Soldiers and the Antiwar Movement
Ron Jacobs
Carl Oglesby's War
Paul Krassner
Tom Waits Meets Super-Joel
Website of the Weekend
Company Woman: Hillary and Wal-Mart
February 1,
2008
Ray McGovern
The
Iniquities and Inequalities of War
Diane Farsetta
The Wild Career of James "Dow 36,000" Glassman
Patrick Cockburn
The
Most Dangerous Country in the World for Journalists
Tariq Ali
Et
Tu, New York Times?
Allan Nairn
Eating Dirt for Lunch in Haiti
Rannie Amiri
Collective Punishment in Beirut
Ramzy Baroud
People Power in Gaza: They Simply Did It
Kenneth Couesbouc
The Mother of All Snowballs
Peter Morici
Recession Looms
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Witha "Brutha" Like This: Bill Clinton as White Negro
Rosemary Jackowski
27 Reasons Nader Should Run for President
Scott Campbell
Direct Action to Stop the War Re-emerges
Website of the Day
Betes et Hommes
January 31,
2008
Saul Landau
Return
to Afghanistan
Andy Worthington
Horror at Guantánamo
Mike Whitney
Rate Cut as Dagger: America's Teetering Banking System
Jeff Ballinger
Sustainability for Dictators Initiative? Clinton Praises the
"Suharto of the Steppe"
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
The Saga of the Freightliner Five
William Loren
Katz
Waterboarding:
Torure or Mystery?
Alan Farago
Why the Republicans are in Deep Trouble
Col. Dan Smith
Oh Say Can You See the 2009 Budget?
China Hand
Slouching Toward Islamabad
Dave Lindorff
The Usual Suspects Once Again
Wadner Pierre
Fake Democracy in Haiti
Website of the Day
One Big Union
January 30,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
McCain
vs. Clinton?
Christopher
Ketcham
The Genius of the Development Industrial-Complex
Robert Weissman
America By the Numbers: The Shameful State of the Union
Neve Gordon
An Experiment in Famine
Paul Craig Roberts
Regulation or Deregulation, Which is Worse?
Joanne Mariner
How Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Free Speech
David Macaray
Labor's Only Real Weapon
Liaquat Ali
Khan
Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan?
Raymond J. Lawrence
Prankster-in-Chief: Bush's Troubling Non-Verbal Communication
Dan Bacher
The Collapse of the Central Valley Salmon
Website of the Day
Onward Through the Fog
January 29,
2008
Franklin C.
Spinney
Bush's
New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off
Mike Whitney
The Great Credit Unwind of 2008
Alan Farago
Buyer Beware: Florida, the Candidates and the Latin Builders
Association
Patrick Cockburn
"The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction"
Gary Leupp
"We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans:" a Sibel
Edmonds Timeline
R. F. Blader
A
World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania
Ahmad Faruqui
Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect
Fran Shor
Obama, the Kennedys and "Change We Can Believe In"
Jeremy Scahill
Secret Trials and Criminal Convictions: the Ordeal of the Blackwater
Protesters
Allan Nairn
Bush's
SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All
Website of the Day
The Ghost of Rambo
January 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Return
to Fallujah
Paul Craig
Roberts
The End of American Liberty
Allan Nairn
The Breaking of the Gaza Wall
Eyad al-Sarraj
/ Sara Roy
Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza
Martha Rosenberg
Obit for the "Front Page" City
Corporate Crime
Reporter
How They Rip Us Off
David Michael Green
Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War
Jennifer Van
Bergen
What's Left?
Nancy Oden
Survival Tips for Hard Times
Divya Karnad
Saving India's Sea Turtles
James L. Secor
Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp
Website of
the Day
Yellow Journalism?
January 26
/ 27, 2008
Uri Avnery
Worse
Than a Crime
JoAnn Wypijewski
How the Clintons Lost It, Whatever the Outcome in S. Carolina
Ralph Nader
Ambition, Power and the Clintons
Paul Craig
Roberts
How Bush Destroyed the Dollar
Paul Watson
I'm Proud to be a Pirate!
John Ross
Murder and Cover-Up in Mexico
Fred Gardner
Ross v. Raging Wire: Employer's Right to Fire Workers Held Sacred
by California Supreme Court
Allan Nairn
Little Hands with Fever: Some Consequences of Poverty Death
Joshua Frank
Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade with Turkey
Binoy Kampmark
Société Générale and the Economic
Meltdown
James T. Phillips
America's Sick Comedy: Bringing the War Home
Stan Cox
The Depressing Truth About Anti-Depressants
Eamonn McCann
Hillary's Lie: "I Brought Peace to Northern Ireland"
Ron Jacobs
The Horizons of History: What's at Stake in Bolivia
Seth Sandronsky
California's Health Care Crisis
Ben Terrall
The Future is Unwritten
Poets' Basement
Tripp, Gardner, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
City of Immigrants
January 25,
2008
Douglas Valentine
Operation
Two-Fold: How the CIA Infiltrated the DEA
Patrick Cockburn
US Troops Will Be In Iraq for 10 More Years: an Interview with
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari
JoAnn Wypijewski
Down to the Wire in South Carolina
Heather Gray
Are We Seeing a Racial Shift in the South? Conversations with
South Carolina Voters
Marjorie Cohn
Senate Democrats Poised to Fold to Cheney on FISA
Erica Rosenberg
Environmentalists Out on a Limb: the Perils of Collaboration
Alan Farago
Jeb Bush Goes Nuclear
Robert Weissman
Reclaiming Economic Freedom
Laura Carlsen
Wild Cards: Mining the Hispanic Vote in Nevada
Stephen Lendman
Israeli Repression in the Hebron
Website of the Day
The FIX is In
January 24,
2008
JoAnn Wypijewski
Obama
as Anthologist of Uplift
Paul Craig
Roberts
President Hillary
Alexander Cockburn
Hillary Wants to Talk About Dirty Legal Dealings? Remember Her
Nursing Home Scam?
Kathleen Christison
One and Two State Solutions and the Myth of International Consensus
Jeff Halper
Power to the (Palestinian) People!
Stanley Heller
The Siege of Gaza is Broken
George Wuerthner
The Moronic Sport: ORVs on the Public Lands
Patrick Cockburn
Desperate Iraqi Farmers Turn to Opium
Jeff Sher
Just How "Good" is Your Health Insurance?
Patrick Irelan
Musharraf, the Steadfast Ally?
Charles Modiano
Restoring the Anti-War King
Website of
the Day
An Illustrated History of Trepanation
January 23,
2008
David Rosen
The
Great Disappearing Act: the Presidential Candidates and the Politics
of Sex
David Isenberg
Is
It Really So Hard to Believe That Iran Stopped Its Nuclear Weapons
Program?
Farzana Versey
Hillary's
Harem
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Empire That Must Be Obeyed
Alan Farago
Where Did All the Good Times Go?
Allan Nairn
Indonesian Intelligence Service Threatens to Kill Human Rights
Activist
Kenneth Couesbouc
Another Turn of the Screw
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
How the West was Re-Sold
Michael Donnelly
Obama Strikes Back
Norman Solomon
The Power of Love
Website of the Day
Rafah Today
January 22,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Farewell
to Old Economic Nostrums
JoAnn Wypijewski
King Day in Columbia, South Carolina
Al Giordano
Divide and Conquer Politics: How the Clinton Campaign Armed a
Black-Latino Time Bomb in Nevada
Felice Pace
Power Politics in the Klamath: Water, Dams and Salmon
Paul Wolf
Bolívar's Sword
Robert Weissman
Deregulation and the Financial Crisis
Dave Lindorff
The Bush Dollar Trap
Marjorie Cohn
Cheney Impeachment Gains Traction
Richard Neville
Keeping Shakespeare in a Box
Don Fitz /
Zaki Baruti
St. Louis Mayor Booed Off MLK Platform
Ben Terrall
Cindy Sheehan and the Virtues of Divisiveness
Sam Husseini
Stoning Martin Luther King, Jr.
Website of
the Day
Defend the Mapuche!
January 21,
2008
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Playing
the Race Card
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Deferring Dreams, Delusions of Democracy
Pam Martens
How Wall Street Blew Itself Up
David Macaray
Labor's Grim Dilemma: Do We Need a Labor Party?
Uri Avnery
Look Who's Talking
Omar Barghouti
Europe's Collusion in Israel's Slow Genocide
Joe DeRaymond
Protest and Trial in D.C.
B.R. Gowani
Why Islam Should Tolerate Images
Shepherd Bliss
The False U.S. Economy
Jean-Guy Allard
Philip Agee Versus the CIA
Dan Bacher
Leaping Steelhead!
Website of
the Day
Destroyed
By a Rising Flood
January 19
/ 20, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Campaign in Black and White
Saul Landau
Good Time Charlie's War
China Hand
Endgame for Pakistan?
Conn Hallinan
Desert Mirage: What Was the Bombing of Syria Really About?
Ron Jacobs
No Retreat
Dave Lindorff
A Tax Rebate Won't Fix This Mess
Andy Worthington
Canada's Humiliating Double Standard on Torture
Paul Armentano
What's the Going Price for a Joint? More Than You Might Think
Seth Sandronsky
High Crimes and Economics
Michael Donnelly
Dodging Ecocide
Patrick Irelan
The Ordeal of Dr. Safdar Sarki
Martha Rosenberg
The Drug Industry Takes Another Hit
Sherwood Ross
Making the World Safe for Despots: Bush's Global Arms Trade
David Michael
Green
So You Want to be My President, Eh?
James Rothenberg
Unimpeachable: Under House Protection
Daniel Gross
Starbucks Shortchanges Dr. King
Peter N. Carroll
In Memory of Milton Wolff
Susie Day
Croakin' on Hudson
Paul Krassner
Woody Allen Meets Tongue Fu
Poets' Basement
Wolff, Buknatski and Orloski
Website of the Day
Rocky Mountain
Blues
January 18,
2008
Allan Nairn
Killing
Civilians, Carefully
Ralph Nader
When
the Big Boys Get in Trouble, Who Pays the Ultimate Bill?
Joanne Mariner
Terrorism and Preventative Detention
Alan Farago
The Stimulus and the Meltdown
P. Sainath
Pity the Brahmins
R.F. Blader
Beyond Steinem's Feminism
Andy Worthington
A Letter from Guantánamo
John Jonik
Private Insurance is Bad for Your Health
Brian McKenna
Where Even Sharing is Prohibited: Notes from Inside a Michigan
Women's Prison
Daoud Kuttab
This Time Next Year?
Website of the Day
Those South Carolina Voting Machines
January 17,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Leader
and Vassal
Christopher
Brauchli
The FBI's Bills Come Due
Robert Fantina
Leadership, Bush and the New York Times
Patrick Irelan
Eternal War
Paul A. Moore
When the Rich Pay No Taxes
Stephen Lendman
Institutionalized Spying on Americans
Beena Sarwar
Bhutto and the "State Within a State"
Walter Brasch
Buzzwords in the Echo Chamber: Change and the Establishment
Brenda Norrell
Bush Legacy in Texas Sours
Adam Federman
End of the Left?
Website of the Day
Democrats for Romney
January 16,
2008
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Return
of the Native
Franklin Lamb
The Bombing at Qarantina
Julian Sanchez
David Weigel
Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters?
Sharon Smith
Ron Paul and the Left: a Slippery Slope?
Allan Nairn
Economic Indicator: No Free Lunch, No Free Market
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Nancy Pelosi, You Must Impeach!
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Breach
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An Interview with Seymour Hersh on Iraq, Bush Foreign Policy
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Zero Hour: NAFTA and Mexico's Agrarian Apocalypse
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Road Kill: New Highway Blocked by Protesting Raccoons
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/ 13, 2008
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Roberts
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|
February
25, 2008
A Ferocious Advocate
for Justice
James
Orange, Civil Rights Legend
By HEATHER GRAY
On February 16, 2008 we lost the Reverend
James Orange. He was 65. And what a remarkable sixty-five years
they were! His funeral was on February 23 at the International
King Chapel on the Morehouse College campus. It is one the few
chapels in Atlanta that could accommodate the hundreds of people
who would want to pay their respects to the great man. But then
a funeral for James at a Chapel named for Martin Luther King,
Jr. was most appropriate.
James is survived by Cleophas,
known as Cleo, his wife of 39 years, daughters Jamida, Deirdre
and Tamara, and son Cleon. Another daughter, Pamela, died last
year. It's thought that the loss of his daughter last year took
its toll on him.
In addition to James Orange, in the past few years we have lost
other giants in the country's civil rights movement including
Rosa Parks (2005), James Forman (2005), Coretta Scott King (2006),
and Anne Braden (2006). On February 22, the day prior to James'
funeral, the legendary Johnny Carr died in Montgomery at age
97. She was a friend of Rosa Parks and in 1967 had taken over
from Martin Luther King the leadership of the Montgomery Improvement
Association. James, of course, knew them all and if he were still
with us he would help to honor Johnny Carr.
James was black and raised in the mid-1900's in the heart of
the Jim Crow South in Birmingham (sometimes called Bombingham
or the Johannesburg of the United States) which was also home
of the infamous arch segregationist Police Chief Eugene "Bull"
Connor. Connor was known, among other infamous acts, for the
hosing down of and using attack dogs on numerous young black
protestors in the 1960's. James Orange was one of them.
As an adult, James was a big man physically. He was 6'3",
weighed 300 pounds and referred to by some as the "gentle
giant." It's true he was gentle. He also had a wonderful
laugh and singing voice that projected everywhere and that he
used frequently at his church or for protest chants. But James
was also a passionate, relentless and ferocious advocate for
justice. In no way did his gentleness and kindness belie his
for passion for justice, against injustice and work toward establishing
the "beloved community" as described by Martin Luther
King.
There are some who attribute the passage of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 to James Orange. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is
otherwise known as one of the most significant laws to launch
of the second reconstruction in the United States and the most
significant challenge to the end of Jim Crow in the South. By
extension, because of his work in the 1960's, it is said James
Orange, is central to the election to political office of blacks,
Latinos, and women throughout the country. But James was even
about more that that!
His was a legacy of perhaps being one of the best organizers
that evolved out of the 1960's civil rights movement. Never one
to take center stage, he would be chagrined at me making such
a statement. Nevertheless, the funeral and memorial service the
evening before was filled with the most notable national, local
and regional civil rights leaders, labor leaders and international
notables on the stage in the services such as Andrew Young, Reverend
Joseph Lowery, Mrs. Evelyn Lowery, John Lewis, Reverend Jesse
Jackson, Walter Fauntroy, Dorothy Cotton, Reverend Timothy McDonald,
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, the King children Martin Luther
King III and Bernice King, labor leaders Richard Trumka and Stewart
Acuff; a South African delegation of ten that included S'bu Ndebele,
the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal; and many other national, local
and regional activists too many to name here.
All of them relied on James one way or the other, whether it
be to organize a protest march to challenge the erosion of civil
liberties; organize a poor peoples march; commemorate the 1965
Selma-to-Montgomery march; work on a political campaign; register
voters; organize union protests in support of workers; camp out
in Newt Gingrich's office in Marietta, Georgia in protest of
his "Contract on America" as we called it; assist workers
in union drives or protests; organize assistance in voter registration,
voter education and improved infrastructure in a new South Africa;
organize the King Week celebrations in Atlanta, in particular
the march to commemorate King's work and current struggles for
justice; or simply and profoundly to be friend or mentor. And
that list is but scratching the surface.
I recall in the 1980's when
Jesse Jackson was running for the White House. James had been
organizing for him. When Jackson came to Atlanta for a rally
we were all seated in a huge church that was filled to capacity
and waiting for the program to begin. Jackson announced that
it would be delayed, as there was no way it could begin without
James in the house. Shortly after, when James appeared with his
group of young folks and sat unobtrusively in the back of the
church, the program began.
James began his civil rights career as a young man just one year
out of high school in 1962 in Birmingham, Alabama. In an interview
of Reverend Orange in 2000 by Fred Gaboury (late dean of labor
journalism for the People's Weekly World), James describes his initiation
into the civil rights movement
"I was a year out of high
school," said Orange, who grew up in Birmingham, Alabama.
"I had met a beautiful young woman who sang in the choir
at the Monday night mass meetings in the Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church. We were to meet afterwards and go have a soda and talk."
The church was jam-packed with
a standing-room-only crowd except for two benches in the front.
Never one to hesitate, Orange walked up and sat down on one of
them.
"I listened to Ralph Abernathy's
sermon," Orange remembered, "and the longer I listened
the more intently I listened as I became absorbed in his message.
It was 1962 and the movement was determined to break segregation
in Birmingham, the city of Sheriff 'Bull' Connor and his police
dogs."
After the services, Rev. Edward Gardner, a leader of the Alabama
Improvement Association that was leading the campaign, asked
people to come forward. As they moved to the front of the church,
the audience stood and started to applaud.
It was then that Orange realized that he was in the wrong pew.
But there was no turning back. "I was already up front and,
a few minutes later, found myself, together with those who had
come forward, in the church basement." He said, "Although
I didn't know it yet, the trip down those stairs changed my life
forever."
After people took seats and quieted down, the Rev. James Bevel,
director of direct action for the Southern Christian Leadership
Council (SCLC), began telling the group, many of who were high
school or college students, how they were to behave if they were
confronted by the police or arrested.
Never a shrinking violet, Orange
asked who was going to get arrested. "We are," Bevel
replied. "You are."
"That's when I learned
that those empty benches had been reserved for people who had
volunteered to go to jail, if necessary, in the fight against
Jim Crow," Orange said, a broad smile crossing his face.
"But there was no tuning
back." And, as far as Orange is concerned, not then and
not since.
It's said James was arrested
more than 100 times. One of the more recent ones was in the 1990's
protest of Newt Gingrich as James and others occupied Gingrich's
office in protest.
Perhaps the most critical arrest of James' life and what set
the tone for his subsequent work was in 1965 in Marion, Alabama.
At that time James was organizing on voting issues in Marion
and was arrested for doing this work. Rumors began to spread
that James was about to be lynched and peaceful protests began
outside the jail. One of those protesting was 26-year-old Jimmie
Lee Jackson. As state troopers were beating Jackson's grandfather
and mother, Jackson tried to protect them. In the struggle he
was shot in the stomach by trooper James B. Fowler and died two
days later. (In 2007 Fowler was finally indicted for this incident.)
Some in the movement wanted to take Jackson's body to the doorstep
of Alabama Governor George Wallace in protest. Instead James
and others decided to hold a march from Selma-to-Montgomery and
the rest is history. That march effort included the aborted attempt
now known as "Bloody Sunday" on March 7, 1965 in which
marchers were accosted by the Alabama State Patrol when they
crossed the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma. The bloody scene was
flashed across television screens and in newspapers throughout
the country and the world. It was culminated on March 21, 1965
when Dr. King and others completed the march from Selma-to-Montgomery.
On August 6, 1965 President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting
Rights Act legislation into law.
James was at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis when Martin Luther
King was assassinated in 1968. He was devastated by the loss.
Gaboury writes that there were two experiences that James described
as most sorrowful for him and they were "The dynamite charge,
set by (neo-fascist J.B.) Stoner, that partially destroyed the
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (in Birmingham) and killed four
young girls on Sept. 15, 1963. The other was the assassination
of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968."
By 1970 James was living in Atlanta. He continued to work with
SCLC until 1977 when he began his career up to the present day
with the AFL-CIO in Atlanta. He started this work in a campaign
for the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union that was
ultimately successful in providing benefits for workers of the
J.P. Stevens plant.
I've been asked when I first met James. I honestly can't recall
except that it was sometime in the early 1980's when we in Atlanta
were protesting Ronald Reagan's policies through our Jobs with
Peace initiatives. I would see James at virtually all the gatherings
and protests across the South on that issue and others.
When I worked for Coretta Scott
King at Atlanta's King Center for Non-Violent Social Change in
the 1980's James was, of course, always available to advance
the work of Dr. King in whatever way possible. He was also the
living embodiment of history to talk with the youth we brought
in who came to the Center from throughout the country to learn
about non-violent social change. When James wasn't traveling,
I could usually reach him in one of three places; either at the
King Center which is on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, the original
SCLC office up the street on Auburn, or at the AFL-CIO office
elsewhere in the city. He was always working on some project.
He simply never stopped.
When the King holiday was initiated in 1986 Mrs. King knew that
she could rely on James to help organize the events for that
first official King week which he did, of course. Since then,
James has always played a central role in organizing the King
March in Atlanta during King Week events. When the King Center
chose not to be responsible for the King March during the holiday,
James took on the responsibility and created the organization
now known as the March Committee.
Years ago I complained to James about the military plane "fly-overs"
during the King March. "James," I said, "King
would not appreciate that." He concurred, of course, and
his response was classic James Orange. "That's exactly why
we are taking over the organizing of the March," he said.
"All of us need to make sure that the March is relevant
to the militarism, poverty, racism and anti-war issues that concerned
Dr. King. We're not going to let exploitive corporations and
the military take over King's message--no way!"
Many of us across the South also served with James on the board
of the Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social
Justice (SOC) headed by the renowned white activist Anne Braden.
SOC was a diverse group of black, brown, Native American and
white activists. This was, of course, a natural for James as
it encompassed his broad interests.
In recent years James attempted to overcome his dislike of airplanes
and traveled frequently to South Africa to play a central role
in South African voter registration and education efforts prior
to and after the 1994 first democratic elections. He continued
to support development efforts in South Africa by characteristically
making connections with those he knew in the United States who
could help in, for example, agriculture or transportation needs.
One of the key people who assisted James with the South African
contacts was the now deceased Atlanta chair of the African National
Congress, Sifiso Makhatini.
James always had a bevy of folks around him. I called them his
groupies. They were usually young people he was mentoring but
older folks surrounded him as well. I don't think I can recall
seeing James Orange without at least 4 or 5 people around him.
One of the last conversations I had with James was while he was
in the hospital in Atlanta in January this year just before the
King Week events. As one would expect, James was organizing from
his hospital bed. "Leader," he said, "I need you
to help with the promotion of the King March and to interview,
on WRFG, Premier S'bu Ndebele, from South Africa, who is heading
the march this year." I did all of that, of course.
It almost goes without saying that when James Orange asked you
to do something you would do it because it was important and
because you could trust him. Invariably he was asking you to
do something to advance justice in some way. Primarily what James
did in his organizing work, then, transcended himself. His was
always about the broader mission.
On the Thursday prior to the funeral I was calling friends attempting
to find out who was coming from around the country and South
Africa for the service. Suddenly I realized that normally for
information on events it would be James I would call. He would
be on top of it all. It seemed he knew everyone and he was one
of the best in networking those who needed to be connected on
any number of projects. He rarely lost a moment. To make those
connections, conference calls with James were a must that invariably
took place on the spur of the moment.
There are some who call James Orange an "unsung" hero.
For those of us who live in the South nothing could be further
from the truth. James was central to virtually every critical
movement for justice in the South and the country since the 1960's
and we all knew it.
The King Chapel for James' funeral was filled with hundreds of
people he had touched and worked with. "Leader" he
called those of us who worked with him. Though I had heard James
call others "leader," the first time he called me "leader"
I was taken aback. "What had I done," I thought "to
be so acknowledged by James Orange?" In fact, when, at James'
funeral, it was asked whom he had called "leader" about
three quarters of the audience stood.
Charlie Orrock, a civil rights and labor activist in the South
and also former board member of SOC, described how he barged
in on James' motel room when they were in Kentucky for Anne Braden's
funeral in 2006. James was only partly dressed and shouted, "Leader,
shut the damned door!"
There are countless James Orange stories out there. He seemed
to have a capacity to draw people out and make them feel good
about themselves and about the work they were doing. This is
likely the hallmark of "real" leadership.
When asked why James would call people "leader," however,
there were various responses. Invariably, the theme was largely
that James recognized we are all responsible for doing what we
can to make the world more just. By calling all of us "leader"
he was anointing thousands around the country and the world with
that very mission. We are blessed he came our way.
Heather Gray produces "Just Peace" on
WRFG-Atlanta 89.3 FM covering local, regional, national and international
news. If you have James Orange stories please send them to Heather
Gray at hmcgray@earthlink.net
and she will send them to the King Papers Project at Stanford
University that is collecting James Orange remembrances or please
contact the King Papers Project directly.
|
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