Today's Stories

October 21, 2009

Pam Martens
The Next Financial Crisis Hits Wall Street: Judges Start Nixing Foreclosures

October 20, 2009

Sharon Smith
Et Tu, Codepink?

Tariq Ali
Farce in Kabul, Tragedy in Pakistan

Mark Brenner
Pensions: the Next Casualty of Wall Street

Bouthaina Shaaban
The Adoption of the Goldstone Report: What Does It Mean?

Michael D. Yates
Down in the Valley With Cesar: Power, Paranoia and Purges in the UFW

Dean Baker
Does Citibank Need China?

Dave Lindorff
Depleted Uranium Weapons: Dead Babies in Iraq and Afghanistan are No Joke

John Ross
Chronicle of a Tormenta Electrica, II

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five: a Very Important Liar

Kevin Zeese
Can the Democrats Avoid a Populist Health Care Rebellion?

Gilad Atzmon
Autumn in Shanghai

Website of the Day
A Message From the Gyre

October 19, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Dollar Will Not Crash

Greg Moses
The Cash Cops of Tenaha

John Ross
Chronicle of a Tormenta Electrica

Michael Donnelly
Outside Agitator

Jayne Lyn Stahl
Dick's Fringe Army: Tea Baggers and Birchers?

Eric Walberg
The Battle in Canada

Russell Mokhiber
Pennsylvania, First in the Nation for Single Payer?

Barbara Rose Johnston
War, Peace and the Obamajority

John V. Whitbeck
Zionism: an Anti-Semite's Dream?

Christopher Ketcham
Swine Fools

Website of the Day
Greenspan: Break Up the Big Banks?

October 16-18, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
White House v. Fox News: a War Obama Can Win

Saul Landau
Autumn of the Patriarch

Paul Craig Roberts
The Rich Have Stolen the Economy

Carl Ginsburg
Where $18 an Hour is Too Much

Ralph Nader
Barney Frank the Bankers' Consort

Nikolas Kozloff
Rainforest Beef, Factory Farms and Anthony Bourdain's War on Vegetarians

Carlo Galli
Berlusconi: Still Doing Nothing, Still There

Dave Lindorff
Agent Orange in Vietnam: Ignoring the Crimes Before Our Eyes

Catherine Rottenberg / Neve Gordon
Educating Children in War Zones

Marshall Auerback
Dollar Spasms

Nicola Nasser
The Realistic Way Out of Iraq

Windy Cooler
The Ghost of John Brown

James L. Secor
Why I Miss China

Ron Jacobs
Escalation Unopposed

Wes Jackson
A Way of Knowing

Jesse Lerner-Kinglake
Global Food Fight

David Ker Thomson Against Leaders

Missy Beattie
Dinner With the President

Emily Ratner
Taping Our Mouths Shut to Scream Out Our Dissent

Stephen Martin
The Scorched Earth Mindset of the International Banker

Michael Snedeker
"A Place of Greater Safety"

Charles R. Larson
Cheeta: the Last of the Hollywood High-Rollers

David Yearsley
Judith Leyster's Sensuous Passions

Peter Stone Brown
It's a Bob Christmas for Halloween

Poets' Basement
Keeler, Beatty and Anderson

Website of the Weekend
Elements of Nature

October 15, 2009

Andrew Cockburn
Our Cheap Politicians

Brian M. Downing
Rethinking the Afghan Insurgency

Ramzy Baroud
Abbas and the Goldstone Report: Our Shame is Complete

Danny Weil
A Neo-Liberal Arts Education: Diploma Mills and Debt Peonage

M. Idrees Ahmad
Return to Peshawar: a Journey Home

Margaret Kimberley
Michelle's Family Tree

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five: Which Side Are You On?

Harvey Wasserman
Nuking the Climate Bill

Nirmal Ghosh
A Tale of Two Protocols: How Montreal Could Save Us From the Mire of Kyoto

Charles R. Larson
Sarah Palin Bears It All

Website of the Day
Tortured Law

October 14, 2009

Michael Neumann
Fearsome Words? a Suppressed Talk on the Israel/Palestine Conflict

M. Reza Pirbhai
Fighting the Taliban: What, Exactly, is Being Fought in Afghanistan?

Gareth Porter
Hawks Play Up the Taliban's Ties to Al Qaeda

Paul Craig Roberts
War Criminals Are Becoming Arbiters of the Law

John Strausbaugh Fortress Moon

Ralph Nader
The CBO's Flawed Report on Medical Malpractice

Dean Baker
Won't You Please Come to Chicago to Greet the Bankers?

Charles Modiano
White Silence: Where Does Brett Favre Stand on Rush Limbaugh?

Nadia Hijab
Abandoning "Women and Children"

Walter Brasch
An Extension of Her Motherhood: Sherry Carpenter, Journalist and Animal Care Provider

Website of the Day
Nader: Obama Has a "Concessionary Personality"

October 13, 2009

Peter Linebaugh
Putting the Spine Back in the Commonwealth

Shamus Cooke
What Obama Isn't Telling American Workers

John Ross
War on Mexican Women

Brendan Cooney
Ask Awal Khan About Obama's Prize

Frida Berrigan
Operation Enduring Detentions: Losing the Moral High Ground

Yves Engler
Is Canada More Pro-Israel Than the US?

David Macaray
Why the Government Fears Unions

Dave Lindorff
Democrats: Selling Out, But Still Getting Screwed

Mark Weisbrot
Occupying Afghanistan is Making Things Worse

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
History Repeats Itself

Binoy Kampmark
That Dirty Colonial War

Website of the Day
The Health Insurance Industry's Latest Doublecross

October 12, 2009

Pam Martens
Secret Deal Between Wall Street and Washington Shines a Harsh Light on Federal Housing Agency

Mike Whitney
A Dollar Rout or More Bernanke Trickery?

Martha Rosenberg
Yale Lab Tech Causes Two Problems for Animal Researchers

Jessica Arents
The Price of Peace: Our Arrest at the White House

Eamonn McCann
Massacre in Ireland, Massacre in Iraq

Bill Hatch
Dairy Industry Goes Down the Tubes

Sen. Russell Feingold
Time for a Timetable in Afghanistan

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Siren Song of World Praise

Gideon Levy
Obama's Betrayed Mission in the Middle East

Iyad Burnat
Why Does Obama Get a Prize and Bush Got Shoes?

Alan Cabal
Why Obama Deserves the Nobel

Dan Bacher
The Astroturf Method

Website of the Day
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help

October 9-11, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
War and Peace

James Bovard
Eight Years of Big Lies on Afghanistan

Kathleen and Bill Christison
New Crisis Developing in Palestine

Andy Worthington
Congressional Depravity on Gitmo

Marc Levy
Talking Dirty to the Kids

Tariq Ali
Ahmed Rashid's War

Mike Whitney
The Securitization Boondoggle

Paul Craig Roberts
Warmonger Wins Peace Prize

Alan Nasser
Cockeyed Economics

Jack Z. Bratich
The Twitterest Pill: Policing Dissent in the Information Age

Steve Breyman
Time for a War Tax

David Michael Green
A Hapless Presidency

Dave Lindorff
The WTF Prize

Paul Buchheit
Fear of the Rich

Jim Goodman
Feedlots and E. Coli

Missy Beattie
Theater of the Absurd

Michael Leonardi
Ships of Poison

Nadia Hijab
The Plight of the Right of Return

Mel Packer
The Crackdown on Pittsburgh

David Macaray
The Raiding Game

James T. Phillips
Getting Burned

Charles R. Larson
One Man's Walk Through Hell

Michael Donnelly
Behind the Capitalist Curtain

David Yearsley
The Biggest Blot on Mel Gibson's Rap Sheet

Lorenzo Wolff
Rap That Threatens ... and Endures

Poets' Basement
Heyen, Ames and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Jobs Conference

October 8, 2009

Saul Landau
A Late September Morning With Fidel

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Dark Omens for the US in Afghanistan

Linn Washington, Jr.
Pot and Perversion: Judicial Antics Expose Drug War Insanity

Marshall Auerback
Neo-Classical Economics Misses What Matters

Dave Lindorff
A Nation of Snoops

David Rosen
Bankrupt Morality: the Staying Power of Republican Sinners

Chris Darimont / Misty MacDuffee
The Bear Essentials: New Thinking Needed to Save BC's Salmon and Grizzlies

John V. Walsh
Remembering Hinton's Fanshen

Stewart Lawrence
The Edwards / Hunter Affair Reconsidered

Charles R. Larson
Conservatives in the Sandbox

Website of the Day
Et Tu, Code Pink?

October 7, 2009

Brendan Cooney
Are Republicans Breaking US Law in Honduras?

Paul Craig Roberts
Dead Labor: Marx and Lenin Reconsidered

Dean Baker
Bernanke's Recovery: Unemployment Up, Wages Down (But the Banks Have Been Saved ... Sort Of)

Jonathan Cook
A Third Intifada?

John Stanton
HTS: Congress Rewards Failure, Puts Personnel in Harms Way

Joanne Mariner
Tortured Language

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cherry Blossoms

Stephen Lendman
The Gaza War's Effect on Women

Sen. Russell Feingold
Time to Draw Down in Afghanistan

Mary Lynn Cramer
Doublespeak on Health Care

Website of the Day
How to Bag a Wolf by Aerial Assault

October 6, 2009

Mike Whitney
Dollar Hysteria: Is the Sky Really Falling?

Gareth Porter
The Iranian Rift in the IAEA: Leaked Paper Based on Disputed Intel

Jonathan Cook
How Israel Buried the UN's War Crime Probe

Boris Kagarlitsky
My Hour as Talking Head in Moscow

Iain Boal
The New Crisis at Pacifica

Ron Jacobs
Why Are We in Afghanistan?

John Ross
Wave of Anarchist Bombings Strikes Mexico

Michael Dickinson
Panic in Istanbul: Smoke, Mayhem and the World Bank

Stephen Fleischman
Beware the Predator

Ira Glunts
The Audacity of Nope

Missy Beattie
Outside Looking In

Website of the Day
Round Up the Usual Suspects

October 5, 2009

Pam Martens
Wall Street Titans Use Aliases to Foreclose on Families While Partnering with a Federal Agency

Mike Whitney
Dead Man Walking: Welcome to the US Economy

Paul Craig Roberts
How the Feds Imprison the Innocent

Harry Browne
Ireland Says, "Yes, Please"

Sara Mann
My Little Town: Nothin' But the Dead and Dyin'

Omar Barghouti
Dissolve the Palestinian Authority

Shamus Cooke
A Jobless Recovery?

Brenda Norrell
A Dirty New Low for Peabody Coal

Fred Gardner
Situation NORML: Reconciling Medical Pot Use and Legalization

Binoy Kampmark Copenhagen Blues: McChrystal and the Afghan Trap

Website of the Day
In Goldman Sachs We Trust?

October 2-4, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Geezer Renditions

Saul Landau
News From Raul Castro

Diana Johnstone
After the German Elections: Is Socialism Really Dead in Europe?

Greg Moses
Cramming for the Downside

William Blum
The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Another Cold War Myth

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Nuclear Program: Where's the Proof?

Russell Mokhiber
Welcome Back, Michael Moore

John Ross
Chomsky in Mexico

Ellen Brown
IMF Catapults From Shunned Agency to Global Central Bank

David Ker Thomson
Cop Shocks

David Macaray
The Audacity of Toyota

Gary Engler
Unions in a Rut

Robert Fantina
Meet the New Boss (Same as the Old Boss)

Lisa Stolarski / Naomi Archer
Pittsburgh: Still a (Coal) Company Town

Anthony Papa
Here is Your Chance to Help End the Failed War on Drugs

Joe Allen
The Good Wife: Bad View of a Corrupt System

Harry Browne
Tarantino Scalps His Audience

Ron Jacobs
Collective Fiction

Charles R. Larson
Cultural Warriors: Austrialian Aboriginal Art Triennial

David Yearsley
Hanns Eisler's Great National Anthem for East Germany is Available: Make It America's

Poets' Basement
Taylor, Gardner and Landau

Website of the Weekend
Wrongful Convictions of Youth

October 21, 2009

"In the Name of False Necessity"

On Harvard's Financial Crisis

By PATRICE HIGONNET

To Michael D. Smith,
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

October 20 2009

Dear Professor Smith:

I read with great interest as I am sure we all did your letter regarding Harvard's finances. It's a long document, many parts of which only a professional accountant could truly understand.

It reveals what could not be concealed. It could therefore have been at once much longer in some of its parts and in others, a good deal more short and plain. You make three basic and simple points:

1. The first is that this financial crisis is nobody's fault, really. Mssrs. Mr Summers and Rubin are never mentioned. The message is instead that other universities did even more poorly than ours, that we did the best a reasonable person could do, and so on. In brief, who did what to bring us to this juncture in our affairs is all water under the bridge. We move on.

2. The second is that the situation is now under control. Other people may be suffering, but basically, we are not doing that badly. None of us, after all, have been fired, and especially not in University Hall. We should be prudent, of course, but we should not be too alarmed. Things are OK. So, here again, then, we move on.

But the third point of your message – which has to do with the presence of an absence - is the one that interests me most: nary a word do I find in your report about the 275 people who were dismissed from our staff, 77 in connection to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. There too, is it your point that we should move on? I read your unwritten message to be that we have our problems, and that they have theirs: am I really mistaken in thinking this?

I was profoundly disturbed by these dismissals, as were many other members of the teaching staff. (It would incidentally have been nice if we had been able to discuss such a move on the Faculty floor.) As I see it, the implication of your silence on this issue has to be that although we are, by your own count, still worth 26 billion dollars, we could not find the money to keep on our payroll these employees who have served us well. And this in a society where unemployment often means the end of medical coverage, and even for some, homelessness, a sad reward incidentally for those of them who had faith in the reckless message of Mssrs Summers and Rubin, both of whom, incidentally, we might well want to censure for their strikingly incompetent management of our fortunes, our investments, and especially, our expenses.

Your silence here is eloquent: what it tells us is that the world's richest educational institution, upon reflection, decided that it could not afford to keep its weakest members afloat. This is for me immensely discouraging. Your reasoning (i.e: "these cuts were painful, of course, but necessary") would perhaps have been wise if you were running some banal firm. Or bank. But you are not. In my view, your message is inappropriate coming as it does from for someone who is in charge of the world's leading - and richest -educational institution, a university on a hill as it were, and a flagship for academic life world over.

I do not know what President Lowell did about our monies during the 1929 depression because that is not what now matters about his years at Harvard. But his approval of the violently contested execution of Sacco and Vanzetti does still matter, as do homosexuals driven to suicide. I know that the years of Mr. Conant's presidency marked the beginning of Harvard as a world University, for which we are all grateful; but I also remember his endorsement of the decision to destroy – many would say murder – not once, but twice tens of thousands of Japanese civilians by atomic war. By contrast, what Mr. Conant did with Harvard's wealth, few people today know or care.

World historical issues for a world historical institution like ours are not about millions or even billions. What will be remembered of your deanship is not the figures of your report, but the pain which in the name of false necessity you chose to impose on our community's least influential members. This is not a matter of life and death, obviously – I hope so in any case - but it is of some consequence

When we emerge from this crisis, and have forgotten the arrogance, self-indulgence, and recklessness of our former managers, what will still matter is not the dry facts of your report, but its hidden spirit. What we will all recall it is that in a moment of manageable crisis, Harvard University chose to become a cruel employer without much regard to those like myself who want to find it "sans peur et sans reproche."

In an age that prizes human rights and socially responsible employers, your decision will be remembered as a sad and unworthy moment in the historical annals of our University. It's not the present that should hold your attention: it is our future and above all else, our past, checkered at times but quite glorious also.

Your report should have two additional paragraphs. I urge you to add them as a footnote to your pages. The first would provide us with a precise figure: it would be a statement regarding the exact amount of money that we secured by inflicting woeful pain on the University's staff, together with your justification of that decision. Had we kept them on, how far now would we be below our current 26 billion mark? A calculation made by exact tenth of one percentage point would be welcome.

And the second would be an assurance that no further dismissals will be made. Many other universities as you know have somehow managed to be more generous than we have been. Harvard must set the highest moral standards as well as highest intellectual standards for our nation. In this difficult time, in which so many Americans are suffering the consequences of irresponsible fiscal policies, Harvard really should do better. It is our silence that has allowed its former handlers to go forth, cynically, into the wider world. This is the moment also for our university to show America and the world that the riches of a great educational institution cannot be measured only in dollars and cents, in millions or billions. This is the moment for Harvard to show that true responsibility in a fiscal crisis means sheltering loyal and vulnerable by-standers instead of absolving the powerful. Such a move would be widely hailed.

Patrice Higonnet is Robert Walton Goelet Professor of French History at Harvard. He has written major works on the French and American Revolutions and on 19th and 20th century Political History.

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