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Today's Stories November 3 / 4, 2007 David Price Army's Price Salesman of Counterinsurgency Manual Seeks to Defend Stolen Scholarship November 2, 2007 Dr. Mary Pipher Acting on Conscience: Psychologists and Abusive Interrogations Saul Landau How Pete Stark Became a Pariah Andy Worthington Guantánamo as House Arrest Sharon Smith A Tale of Two Stadiums Gary Leupp Fascist Beatifications: the History and Politics of Sainthood Gregory Harms The Chorus of Slander on Palestine Christopher Brauchli Racism in High Places Peter Morici The Falling Dollar and the Stubborn Trade Deficit Dave Lindorff The Easy Way to Stop the Looming US Attack on Iran David Penner Zombie Nation Website of the Day Fall in Yosemite   November 1, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts The Wages of Hegemony Patrick Cockburn The Most Dangerous Dam in the World Dave Lindorff The Air Force Report on the Minot-Barksdale Nuclear Missile Flight Jonathan Feldman The Strange Political Economy of Death in the South Mike Ferner They Met the Resistance in Iraq William S. Lind A Question for Would-Be Presidents Diana Johnstone "Fascislamism" Versus "Shoah Business" Jacob Hornberger The War on Telephone Privacy A..K. Gupta The Apocalypse will be Televised Lyuba Zarsky / Kevin Gallagher The Enclave Economy of Mexico's Silicon Valley Felice Pace Does the SPLC Equate Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism? Website of the Day This One's for You, Ed Abbey   October 31, 2007 Bill Quigley New Orleans' Broken Criminal Justice System Rev. William E. Alberts A Trail of American Blood: From the White House to CBS News Ray McGovern Attacking Iran for Israel Eric Walberg Poisonous Espionage: Litvinenko and the New Cold War V. G. Smith The Second Death of Guy Môquet Luis J. Rodriguez "Social Cleansing" from Guatemala to LA Sheldon Richman Bush has Time to Run the World Walter Brasch A Real Halloween Scare Website of the Day Boogie Rocks! October 30, 2007 David Price Pilfered Scholarship Devastates Gen. Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual M. Shahid Alam The Pakistan Question Andy Worthington The Epiphany of Matthew Waxman: a Government Insider Turns Against Gitmo Patrick Cockburn The Bicycle Bomber of Baquba Anthony Papa The Twisted Logic of Drug Laws Floyd Rudmin What "All Options are on the Table" Really Means Sherwood Ross Giuliani and Torture Website of the Day The Worst Lobby? You Decide   October 29, 2007 Lisa Hajjar Inside Israel's Military Courts Joe DeRaymond The Politics of Lethal Injections Patrick Cockburn The High Stakes in Iraqi Kurdistan Isabella Kenfield / Roger Burbach Corporate Murder in Brazil Fred Gardner The Frivolous Investigation of Dr. Sterner Farzana Versey Caricaturing Islam Stephen Fleischman The Greening of the Oligarchy Marcelle Cendrars The Congressional Rip Cord Eamonn McCann Dan Keating, the Last of the Republican Irreconcilables Martha Rosenberg For Halloween, Ann Coulter Dresses as .... Ann Coulter! Website of the Day Campaign 2008   October 27 / 28, 2007 Alexander Cockburn So Much for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Jeffrey St. Clair The Dam That Isn't There James Bovard Breaking Down an Innocent Man: The FBI's Right to Threaten Torture Ralph Nader Beyond the Rule of Law M. Reza Pirbhai The Wahhabis are Coming, the Wahhabis are Coming! Robert Sandels Pay the Invaders! Cuba, Claims and Confiscations Jacob G. Hornberger Ruling By Decree Missy Beattie The Arsonists in the West Wing John Ross U.S. Eyes on Oaxaca Robert Fantina Condi Rice, the Imperial Cheerleader Ron Jacobs Labor at the Crossroads Ali Moayedian In Search of Logic About Iran David Michael Green What If We Had a President Who Didn't Give a Damn About Terrorism? Poets Basement Block, Davies and Ford Website of the Day Bring 'Em Home: a Music Video   October 26, 2007 Brian Cloughley Revenging Bloodshed Saul Landau Portrait of Rudy Ahmad Al-Akras Getting Justice in the HLF Case Franklin Lamb Does "Loving" Lebanon Mean Never Having to Say You're Sorry? Mike Whitney Murdoch's Cuckoo's Nest Dave Lindorff Home of the Brave? Reducing US Casualties By Killing More Civilians Alan Farago A Castro Behind Every Bush Yifat Susskind Conscripting Feminism into the War on Terror Website of the Day Dead Life in a Political Prison October 25, 2007 Jeffrey St. Clair / Joshua Frank Iraq's Environmental Crisis Manuel Garcia, Jr. Homes of the Crash Test Dummies Paul Craig Roberts The Fraudulent War on Terror Col. Dan Smith The Politics of Paranoia: Jane Harman's War on the First Amendment Alan Farago The Way to Paradise? Chris Kutalik The Lesson of the Chrysler Rebels Brian McKinlay John Howard and the Curse of Bush Cindy Sheehan Pete, Nancy, George and WW III Website of the Day Support the America's Program!   October 24, 2007 Natalie Washington-Weik White Fantasies About Race-Based Intelligence Andy Worthington The Guantánamo Suicides Michael Birmingham What Happened in Nahr Al Bared? Corporate Crime Reporter The Nuclear Democrats Tariq Ali Bush's Cuba Detour Farzana Versey Imagining Serfdom in a Scarf Dave Zirin White Noise James Murren What "Support Our Troops" Means Todd Chretien Looking Reality in the Face Martha Rosenberg What Came First, the Chicken or the Cage? Website of the Day Hillary Clinton on Nuclear Power   October 23, 2007 Ralph Nader Bush's Catastrophic Rhetoric Lawrence R. Velvel Goldsmith Stands Convicted--By His Own Mouth: How a Harvard Law Professor Justified Rendition at the Bush Justice Dept. Vijay Prashad The Nuke Deal is Dead Bonnie Bricker / Adil E. Shamoo The True Cost of War for Oil Dave Lindorff Christopher Dodd's Make or Break Moment Mike Whitney The Big Squeeze Farzana Versey Race with the Devil Stanley Heller / Ben George Something New from the Antiwar Movement Marcelle Cendrars You Too Can Confront the Holy Executive Regan Boychuk Burma and Haiti: Comparing the Media Response Website of the Day King Corn   October 22, 2007 Ishmael Reed Should Blacks Go Green? Marjorie Cohn Mukasey and the Constitution: Another Loyal Bushie Rannie Amiri Is There a Method to Bush's Middle East Madness? Diane Farsetta Time to Pay for Payola: the FCC and Pundit-for-Hire Armstrong Williams Todd Alan Price Renewing No Child Left Behind: A Hurricane Katrina Aimed at Public Education Robert Jensen The Quagmire of Masculinity Stephen Lendman The UAW Leadership Sells Out Its Workers Jemima Khan The Kleptocrat in an Hermes Headscarf Sunsara Taylor David Horowitz Can't Handle the Truth Binoy Kampmark No Ideas, Please: the Australian Elections Website of the Day Support the Center for International Policy     October 20 / 21, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Man Who Builds Hillaryworld Tariq Ali A Massacre Foretold Jeffrey St. Clair Greetings from Echo Park Andy Worthington The Shame of Diego Garcia Mike Whitney Housing Flameout Daniel Wolff Play It As It Lays David Rosen Deviants on Parade: Folsom St. Fair and America's 4th Sexual Revolution Saul Landau David and Goliath in Iraq Ron Jacobs COINTELPRO and the Panthers Robert Fantina The Strange Love of Mitt Romney and Bob Jones David Heleniak Erring on the Side of Hidden Harm Joe Allen Hoffa Brown-Nosing at UPS Prairie Miller Lions for Lambs Poets' Basement Gibbons, Holt and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Crash!   October 19, 2007 John Ross Che's Mexican Legacy Sheldon Rampton Shared Values Revisited: a Case Study in the Limits of Propaganda Rahul Mahajan A Tale of Two Atrocities: Blackwater and Haditha Devra Davis Deadly Secrets: Chemical Pollution and Cancer Christopher Brauchli Blasphemous Science Wadner Pierre Haiti After the Deluge Bill Quigley Jailed for Justice Website of the Day Textbook Sticker Shock   October 18, 2007 Saree Makdisi Academic Freedom is at Risk Meg Dwyer What I Learned from 9/11: Who Wouldn't Want Us Dead? Alevtina Rea Sketches of Russian Life Norman Solomon The United States of Violence Kristoffer Larsson Something is Rotten in Sweden Harvey Wasserman Nukes are Back and So are We Website of the Day Eve Ensler: "A Filibuster Would Stop This War"   October 17, 2007 Steve Niva Counter-Insurgency, American-Style Andy Worthington The Case of Mohamed Jawad Alan Farago The Credit Shock Russell Mokhiber The New Billionaire-Criminal Class Sharon Smith Democrats, AWOL When It Mattered Mike Whitney Time for the Banks to Face the Hangman Robert Fantina Iraq, Iran and the US: Business as Usual Chris Irwin Where Have All the Rednecks Gone? Website of the Day Sex Ed at Oral Roberts University October 16, 2007 Peter Linebaugh Doris Lessing and the Dynamite Prize Paul Findley Follow the Leader: The Open Secret About the Israel Lobby Robert Bryce Inconvenient Corrections: Al Gore's Wacky Facts Uri Avnery The Mother of All Pretexts Paul Craig Roberts The Iraqi Genocide Ray McGovern What Did Nancy Pelosi Know About NSA Spying and When Did She Know It? Norman Solomon The Pro-War Undertow of the Blackwater Scandal Martha Rosenberg The Curse of Cymbalta William S. Lind Out of the Frying Pan Joel S. Hirschborn Time to Boycott Voting Website of the Day Pipeline Through Paradise: Big Oil's Arctic Play         Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition November 3 / 4, 2007 And Now They Want to Privatize the Oceans .... When Capitalists Get a Free Ride By HEATHER GRAY A few days ago I received an e-mail from a friend encouraging me to sign a petition against the possible privatization of our oceans. I was aghast even at the hint of this next privatization scheme by the world's capitalists. So it's come to this. Absolutely everything, even our oceans, is for sale. Nothing is sacred. I signed the petition with a vengeance. But as I signed I wondered why we have let these greedy capitalists run roughshod over all of us. How has this happened? Where are the demands for economic democracy and protection from greed? As we discussed land ownership, an elder in the Philippines once told me "How can you own something given to you by God?" If there was ever a religious statement in the world with merit, it has to be this statement of wisdom from the elder. While some in the U.S. have fought a battle against corporate greed, most of us have basically let greed have a free ride. In fact, ever since Karl Marx wrote about the tragic impact of exploitive capitalism in the 1800's during the industrial revolution, the corporate elite has fought against those who would regulate their unfettered desires for profit. The effects of which have definitely been felt. Senator Joseph McCarthy exacerbated this when he launched his anti-communist campaign in the United States in the 1950's. Congress censured McCarthy in 1954, but his mission didn't end then - we are still feeling the dramatic, tragic and chilling effects of the McCarthy era. Ever since that period American activists have largely skirted around the issue of economic policies or even and especially discussions about economic philosophy. As this anti-communist campaign continued to resonate in the United States and throughout the world, the world's capitalists have used it and continue to use it as a tool to protect or advance their economic interests. Labeling someone a communist often has had nothing to do with the targeted person or group's political or economic beliefs but rather usually that there is a "collective mindset" ­ that's what the corporate elite work against and fear most. A collective mindset, or economic democracy, that stresses the importance of fairness and equity for the whole ­ not the few. (You can call that communism if you like. It sure sounds good to me! But then the term "communism" has been so bantered about that it no longer has context or meaning in the United States ­ it's simply used to demean without context.) I was recently called a communist for demanding rights for immigrants! This creative labeling is often used when someone doesn't agree with you and they want to denigrate you, regardless of the reason, by calling you a communist. Examples of this are abundant. It's the "c" word! And what does the corporate elite want? In a word ­ "everything". They want to own everything from the oceans to our schools. Free enterprise they call it, the privatization of everything and making governments but hollow shells. Influenced by economist Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics, to me free enterprise is the pinnacle of evolved capitalism and it destroys everything ­ people, culture, nature. It's deadly to be sure. All right folks in the debate over economic systems can there be anything worse than free enterprise? I can't think of one. I'm sure everyone wants to bow down to McDonalds or Monsanto or Wal-Mart and having the stop sign at the end of your street brought to you thanks to General Electric! Actually the "c" word should stand for "capitalism" ­ forbid someone should be called or, in fact, strive toward being a capitalist given its vast destruction in the world. And how do you define "free"? The Oxford/American dictionary defines it as "not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes." In other words, absolutely no regulations! George Bush has been great at creating policies that let these corporate criminals regulate themselves ­ what a travesty! And yes, we need regulations to protect us all from this dreadful free enterprise mindset. The battleground on this has been set some time ago. So the question the corporate elite has had is how to end or circumvent democratic systems or the "collective mindset," the "compassion for the other," the "cries for fairness," the "demands for equity," the "protection of the environment?" In the United States, for one, they've used the label "communism" to quell the activism, and more recently in the U.S., as Naomi Klein notes in "The Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism" they're using disasters such as Katrina to sweep in and buy everything from schools to land. Internationally, with government or military collaborators, they've also used torture. To demonstrate this Naomi Klein writes in the "The Shock Doctrine" that Argentina's privatization policies (thanks to the Chicago school) in the 1970's included torture in an attempt to rid the concept of collectivism from the mindset of activists. Torture was used "to cure" them of collectivism and to instill greed whenever possible. She said that most who were arrested were "community workers, many church based, who organized the poorest sectors of society to demand health care, public housing and education ­ in other words the 'welfare state' being dismantled by the Chicago boys. 'The poor won't have any do-gooders to look after them anymore!' Norberto Liwsky, an Argentine doctor, was told as 'they applied electric shocks to my gums, nipples, genitals, abdomen and ears." Some history to set this in context: Since the McCarthy era activists have often been afraid, and some still are, to open their mouths with anything that might smack of radicalism or against the economic exploitation they've witnessed. Often there was a fear that an informant was likely in their midst who would report to the FBI. For fear that you would be placed on a list for observation or whatever else the FBI deemed necessary to make your life miserable, or that, forbid, you would be labeled as a communist by the community where you work. I know people today who are still so nervous they will not admit they were communist card-carrying members in the 1950's or won't talk about it even if they were not members but labeled as such. It was thought that if you were labeled as a communist, all of your work for justice (whatever it might be) would be undermined. There was some truth in that, unfortunately, and it still resonates today. The chilling effect is a reality. In the 1950's, during this intensive anti-communist period, people were arrested, cajoled, labeled, blacklisted for anything that smacked of challenging the status quo whether economically based accusations or not. Your demands for social justice and human rights made you vulnerable. The elite in the Southern United States honed this skill of communist labeling in the 1950's and 1960's in an attempt to keep out anyone challenging the Jim Crow laws of racial segregation or demanding fair wages or maybe adequate housing, healthcare and pubic education. The Southern elite still does this to a degree! During the Jim Crow years, white folks having Blacks to dinner were sometimes called communists. The Highlander Center in Tennessee that focused on assisting and training for social justice and workers rights was labeled as a "communist school." Blacks, of course, were targeted when opposing Jim Crow. Martin Luther King was called a communist. The NAACP was called a communist front, as were labor unions. There seemed no limit to this senseless battering of movements that were demanding justice. Because of this many people were forced out of the South ­ we, in fact, have always had a brain drain in our region because of the arrogant anti-democratic Southern elite. Even in Atlanta today there are people who will not consistently honor one of our greatest early residents ­ the renowned and brilliant W.E.B. Dubois who taught at Atlanta University in the early 1900's, was one of the founders of the NAACP, who later joined and left the Communist Party because it would not appropriately address the issue of racial exploitation. The fear of honoring Dubois is of being labeled by association. It's astounding that the effects of this are still felt. The additional problem is that since the 1950's the successful chilling effect of the use of the "communism" label to anyone working for justice in the United States has spread internationally. The results have been devastating! The practice has become accentuated by the corporate and political elite in countries the U.S. has wanted to control from Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Vietnam, to the Philippines, to name only a few ­ thankfully a lot of this is now being reversed in South America. And in those countries being black listed as a communist usually means you are subject not only to harassment but often to torture and/or summary execution. I witnessed this in the Philippines in the late 1980's and it continues in that country. In the realm of economics, those of us in the United States have generally left to "others" what should always have been our responsibility. This applies to even serious discussions about economic justice, about capitalism versus communism or mixed economies, or curbs on massive wealth and a distribution of wealth, or understanding the global markets and what effect they have on our domestic and international economies, or about the importance of labor rights and fair wages. Regarding the importance of economic justice, years ago economist Ray Marshall, President Jimmy Carter's Secretary of Labor, told me that "The basic evolution is that first you have political institutions that are controlled by the people and not special interest groups - that's political democracy. After workers get the right to vote then you have industrial democracy, which means worker participation in the work place. That's collective bargaining. Most countries have taken that further than us. Then there's social democracy where you have safety nets - a minimum level of welfare services. Every industrial country in the world is more developed in social democracy than us in, for example, health care and education. Finally, there's economic democracy where individuals and not special interests control their economic institutions. Economic democracy strengthens all other forms of democracy. If you have economic democracy then people can't intimidate you when you vote." This year the NAACP held an event to bury the "N" word. We need to do the same with "anti-communism." It needs to be buried and replaced with economic activism focusing on just and fair economics that is "people" centered and controlled and not "corporate" centered and controlled. I have enough faith in people to think that if we had done this long ago we would not now be talking about privatizing our oceans. Time is of the essence. Heather Gray produces "Just Peace" on WRFG-Atlanta 89.3 FM covering local, regional, national and international news. She can be reached at hmcgray@earthlink.net   The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! Israel's Very Dangerous Gamble STEPHEN GREEN reports on the real motivations behind Israel's MISSILE STRIKE on SYRIA. PETER MONTAGUE on the NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE or How the Nuke Industry is using Gore's Prize and Global Warming to Plot Its Big Comeback. WILLIAM BLUM on the DEVALUING of "ANTI-SEMITE" or How to Make a Term Meaningless. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year and Receive a Free Copy of "Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair Your Ad Here

Now Available! How the Press Led the US into War Buy End Times Now! New From CounterPunch Books The Secret Language of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD! Click Here to Buy! Cassidy on Tour Click Here for Dates & Venues "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   Grand Theft Pentagon How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism         The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont   CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed     Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh   The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"