Today's Stories

March 20-22, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
When Things Fall Apart

P. Sainath
Slumdogs vs. Billionaires

Robert Weissman
Lessons From AIG

Saul Landau
Sliding Down in Anger: If We Bail Out the Banks, Why Shouldn't We Own Them?

David Michael Green
Obama and the Altar of Greed

John V. Whitbeck
Happy Birthday, Iran!

Andy Worthington
The Case of Ahmed Zuhair

Linn Washington Jr.
Supreme Test: the Latest Twist in the Mumia Case

David Ker Thomson
Actions: Things to Do Instead of Hailing the Chief

Laurent Jacque
Is the Euro Doomed?

Reiko Redmonde /
Larry Everest
The Cold-Blooded Murder of Oscar Grant

Kenneth Couesbouc
Where has the Consumption Gone?

Martha Rosenberg
Meltdown in the Drug Industry

Alan Farago
The Recession, the Developers and Baseball

Richard Rhames
Invisible But Not Completely Insolvent

March 19, 2009

Dave Marsh
Sir Bono: the Knight Who Fled From His Own Debate

Paul Craig Roberts
Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?

Mike Whitney
Why Business is Hysterical About Card Check (And Why America Needs It)

Sam Smith
The Economy in Two Eras of Democrats

Harvey Wasserman
The Crash of France's Nuclear Poster Child

Binoy Kampmark
Back Into NATO: the End of French Exceptionalism

Kathy Sanborn
Broken Culture: the Desecration of Iraq's Art Treasures

Christopher Brauchli
Taxing Problems

George Wuerthner
Permanent Damage From Temporary Logging Roads

Diann Rust-Tierney
New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty

Website of the Day
Bailout Plan: "Cross Your Fingers and Hope"

March 18, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Real AIG Conspiracy

Paul Craig Roberts
Israel's American Chattel

Nelson P. Valdés
Why Obama's New Cuba Rules Violate the Constitution

Jonathan Cook
Bedouin Villages Left in the Dark Ages

John Ross
The Death of the American Newspaper

Yifat Susskind
Where Are We Leaving Iraqi Women?

Dave Lindorff
Who's Calling the Shots Now?

Frances Moore Lappé
The City That Ended Hunger

Richard Grossman
Beware the Madoff Diversion!

Rev. William E. Alberts
On Being Whole Not Holy

Website of the Day
Three Weeks in Cuba: a Painter's Perspective

March 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
Mr. Bernanke Spreads the Fire

James G. Abourezk
Show Business: AIG and the Posturing Democrats

Harry Browne
Ireland's Blast From the Past

Joanne Mariner
U.S. Human Rights Abuses in the War on Terror

Alan Farago
The National Ponzi Scheme

Dean Baker
Getting Lehman Bros. Wrong ... Again

Peter Morici
Cuts for Autoworkers, Bonuses for Derivatives Traders

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Obama and the Empire

Richard Gott
Victory for the Left in El Salvador

Walter Brasch
Dog Mutilations vs. Cosmetics

Website of the Day
Single-Payer Action

March 16, 2009

Pam Martens
Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

Uri Avnery
The Rape of Washington

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Witness Protection Program

Ralph Nader
Americans Want Justice for Wall Street Crooks

Nikolas Kozloff
Down But Not Out: the Latin American Right

John Walsh
Redbaiting on the Left

Ron Jacobs
A Call for Common Sense

Binoy Kampmark
The Case of Tim K

Stephen Fleischman
Coxey's Army Will March Again!

Christian Christensen
A 25-Year Misunderstanding: Springsteen's "Born in the USA"

Scott Handleman
Shooting Tristan Anderson

Website of the Day
Clean, Green, Sustainable

March 13 / 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Parable of the Shopping Mall

Peter Lee
What the Chas Freeman Fight Was Really About

Diana Johnstone
NATO's Global Mission Creep

David Harvey
Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism?

Petrino DiLeo
Inside Obama's Housing Plan: Will Millions be Left Out in the Cold

David Ker Thomson
Tender to the Earth

Eric Ruder
Massacre in Slow Motion: an Interview with Haider Eid on Gaza

Fred Gardner
Cannabidiol Now!

David Yearsley
Music Torture

Saul Landau
How Israel Gives Jews a Bad Name

Laura Carlsen
Drug War Doublespeak

Robert Weissman
We Told You So

John Goekler /
Merle Lefkoff
The Struggle in Saffron

Tom Barry
Imprisoning Immigrants for Profit

Kathy Sanborn
Money Out of Thin Air

Chris Mobley / Leela Yellesetty
Criminalizing Poverty: the Jail Seattle Doesn't Need

David Michael Green
The Perils of Being Right and Wrong

Alan Maass /
Lee Sustar
A Socialist Moment?

Christopher Brauchli
Pity, the Poor Tax Collectors

Richard Morse
Clinton in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Taking It From the Streets: From Springsteen to the Wu-Tang Clan

Poets' Basement
Springate and Johnston

Website of the Weekend
Hear the Buffalo

March 12 , 2009

Sharon Smith
Bottom Feeders at the Trough

Christopher Ketcham
Full Spectrum Penetration: Israeli Spying in the United States

Mike Whitney
Haircut Time for Bondholders

Ray McGovern
Obama Caves to the Lobby

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
The Doublespeak of a Discredited IMF

John Ross
The War is Not Over

M. Reza Pirbhai
Men in Black: Another View of Pakistan

Chris Floyd
Lost Liberty Blues: Prisons, Profits and the Banality of Evil

Steve Early
Why Labor Doesn't Need a "House of Lords"

Quentin Gee
Hiding the Costs of Coal

Website of the Day
Amadee Coral Reef: a Spherical Panorama

March 11 , 2009

Mike Roselle
From Birmingham to Coal River: Why is the Environmental Movement So Timid?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Criminal Injustice System

Henry A. Giroux
Academic Labor in Dark Times

Nikolas Kozloff
The Death Cries of the Salvadoran Right

Norm Kent
I am Patient Number 380206011

Mitu Sengupta
Reforming the World Bank: Different Image, Same Tune?

Ludwig Watzal
The Structure of Israel's Occupation

David Macaray
The Battle Over EFCA Has Begun

William S. Lind
Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

Martha Rosenberg
A Merger From the Folks Who Brought You Vytorin

Website of the Day
American Indicator: One in Fifty Kids are Homeless

March 10 , 2009

Franklin Spinney
What Israeli Peace Process?

Vijay Prashad
What Did Hillary Clinton Do?

Stan Cox
There's No Free Lunch on Your Browser: the Internet's Energy Drain

Zoltan Grossman
Coffee Strong: Listening to the G.I. Voice at Fort Lewis

Reuven Kaminer
Pure and Unadulterated Racism

Jonathan Cook
Memoricide in the West Bank

Dave Lindorff
Business Rules

Brian McKenna
How Anthropology Disparages Journalism

Harvey Wasserman
Is This the End of the Age of the Automobile?

Corey Pein
He Told You So

Website of the Day
AIG and Systemic Failure: $1.6 Trillion in Insured Deriviatives

March 9 , 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the Sorkin Affair

Ralph Nader
Too Big...Period

Peter Lee
Meet Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: the US's Worst/Best Hope for Afghanistan?

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Charade

Peter Morici
Fixing the Banks: Treasury's Doomed Strategy

Dean Baker
Why Do We Need a Private Health Insurance Industry, Anyway?

Steve Ault
Kiss Thailand's Tolerance for Gays Goodbye

Stephen Lendman
Guantánamo Under Obama

Farooq Sulehria
Tennis Without Spectators

Belén Fernández
Chávez, a Cockfight and the Caracazo

Website of the Day
How Lincoln Learned to Read

March 6-8 , 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Harlots High and Low

Chris Floyd
Tangled Up in Karl

Uri Avnery
Remember Ophira?

Dave Lindorff
Kiss the Banks Goodbye

Mark Weisbrot
The Crisis vs. the Dogma

David Ker Thomson
Against Work

Phil Aliff
Soldier Suicides

Rebekah Ward
Georgia Injustice: Another Young Life Wrecked

Tracey Briggs
How Capitalism Feels in the Head

Dean Baker
Depression Nostalgia?

Daniel P. Wirt, M.D.
Remove the Handle From the Health Insurance Misery and Death Pump

Carl Finamore
The Recovery Plan: Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us

Wajahat Ali
The Pakistani Monster

David Michael Green
Smart is the New Stupid

David Macaray
The Minimum Wage Revisited

Michael Dickinson
On Financial Fools Day

Susie Day
Line in the Sand

Bob Sommer
Echoes of the Townhouse Explosion

Ben Sonnenberg
No Forgiveness for the Bourgeoisie: Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel"

David Yearsley
Sonic Fakery in "Slumdog" From the Mozart of Chennai

DC Larson
They're Writing Those Depression Songs, Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Live Truth: Music Sans Headphones

Poets' Basement
Dominquez, MacNeil and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Environment & Obama: a Conversation with Jeffrey St. Clair

March 5 , 2009

James G. Abourezk
This Time It's Mrs. Clinton's Turn

Kathleen and Bill Christison
U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Robert Weissman
Wall Street's Best Investment: Paying for Public Policy

Patrick Cockburn
My Day at the Terror "Charity"

William Blum
Being Serious About Torture...Or Not

Robert Fantina
From Iraq to Afghanistan: Augmentation All Over Again

Saul Landau
The Unseen Crisis

Benjamin Dangl
Striking a Blow Against the Beer Cartel: a Grassroots Victory in Utah

Christopher Brauchli
The New Leaders of the GOP

Website of the Day
The Angola 3: 36 Years of Solitude

March 4, 2009

Marjorie Cohn
Blueprints for a Police State

Mike Whitney
Blowing Up the Economy: How Securitization Lit the Fuse

Ron Jacobs
The Banality of Occupation: the Rand Papers

Ashley Smith
War by Another Name

Joanne Mariner
Obama's War on Terror

Dan Bacher
The California Water Wars: Why It's Not a Conflict Between Fish and People

Mark Engler
Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?

Franklin Lamb
"What's Hezbollah Done for Us Lately?"

Cal Winslow
Slugging It Out in California

David Mandelzys
Apartheid Week

Website of the Day
Guantánamo: the Definitive Prisoner List

March 3, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Ethnic Cleansing and Israel

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Long, Dark Night of Pakistan

Brian M. Downing
The Changing Game in Afghanistan

Robert Larson
External Damnation: Companies are Designed for Destruction

Daniel P. Wirt, MD
Single-Payer Health Reform

Russell Mokhiber
Burn Your Health Insurance Bill!

William Loren Katz
Obama, One Ape and Two Newspapers

Kathy Sanborn
The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

Pauline Imbach
A New Start for the World Social Forum?

Christopher Ketcham
The Best Journalism You'll Write is Priceless

Website of the Day
The Surveillance Self-Defense Project

March 2, 2009

Andrea Peacock
A Poisoned Town's Shot at Justice

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's Budget

Peter Lee
Pakistan Lurches Toward the Abyss

John Blair
Locking Down Big Coal

Peter Morici
Treasury's Flawed Plan for Citigroup

Uri Avnery
10 Ways to Kill Fatah

Michael Donnelly
Resistance to the War on the Wild

Fred Gardner
The Judge Who Ruled Marijuana is Medicine

Sonia Nettnin
Middle East Medical Mission Heroes

Andrew Lehman
A New Deal for the Web

Website of the Day
Pentagon Papers II?

Feb. 27 - March 1, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Is Nancy Pelosi Really Against War Crimes?

Harry Browne
Where the Cheats Have No Shame

Anthony DiMaggio
From Bush to Obama: Seven Years of Wartime Propaganda

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Dennis Ross and Iran: the Fox and the Chicken Coop

Mischa Gaus
The Banks' War on Workers

Felice Pace
The Economy and the Big Picture

Mike Whitney
Is Free Market Capitalism Possible Without Accountability?

Lee Sustar
Blaming the Autoworkers

Peter Lee
The Other Side of the Coin in Afghanistan

Nicole Colson
Ruining Young Lives for Profit

Roger Burbach
Et Tu, Daniel? The Betrayal of the Sandinista Revolution

Rannie Amiri
King Abdullah Has No Robes

Missy Beattie
Owning Disaster

Dave Lindorff
America's Stupid Health Care Debate

Robert David Steele Vivas
Intelligence for the President--and Everyone Else

John Ross
Teotihuacan Gets Mickey-Moused

Ralph Nader
Civic Heroism Awards

Yves Engler
Haiti's Harsh Realities

Alan Farago
The Story of Leonard Abess, Banker

Zulfikar Majid
Understanding Kashmir

David Yearsley
Don't Stay Up Too Late, Johan!

Charles R. Larson
Sleeping with Dogs

Kim Nicolini
Spitting at Dark Times: Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky"

Lorenzo Wolff
So You Wanna Be a Garage Rock Star

Poets' Basement
Puthoff, Payne, Gaffney and Gray

Website of the Weekend
Sleep Now in the Fire

February 26, 2009

Dave Lindorff
Obama's Address to Congress

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Military Mephistopheles

Patrick Cockburn
Did the US Learn Anything in Iraq?

Mike Whitney
The Geithner Put

Eamonn McCann
"Make Bono Pay Tax"

Tim Wise
Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism

Tom Barry
Napolitano's Hard Line

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Excellent Atomic Omission

Adam Turl
The Enemies of Unions and the Lies They Tell

David Macaray
When People are Fired Illegally

James McEnteer
Rush to the Rescue: Limbaugh's Secret Plan to Save the Economy

Website of the Day
The Carbon Casino

February 25, 2009

Chris Sands
Afghanistan: Chaos Central

M. Shahid Alam
Israel in 1948: Poised for Expansion

Chris Floyd
Obama's Non-Withdrawal Withdrawal Plan

Dave Lindorff
Wall Street and Bernanke: the Blind Leading the Blind

Norman Solomon
The Slow Pullout Method

Rachel Godfrey Wood
Neoliberals Do The Amazon

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Teacher and Student: the New Class Struggle

Ron Jacobs
It Ain't Over Till It's Over

Nadia Hijab
The First Waltz

Dennis Loo
The Water Line

Website of the Day
Hitchens Gets Stomped by Syrian Nerd

February 24, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
How the Economy was Lost

Uri Avnery
Coalition Theory

Peter Morici
Is Nationalization Inevitable?

Jonathan Cook
Arab Parties Face Most Hostile Knesset in History

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
The Man Who Shouldn't be King (of Afghanistan)

Andy Worthington
Who is Binyam Mohamed?

Brian Horejsi
Crisis Creates Hope for Reality

Julia Stein
I was a Writer for the Government

Norm Kent
How Judges Disgrace the Bench

Rachel Smolker /
Brian Tokar
Biofuels, Promise or Threat?

Dennis Loo
The Water Line: Doing What Must be Done

James McEnteer
The Oscar for Denial

Website of the Day
How to Destroy a Fox News Anchor

February 23, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Language of Looting

Mike Roselle
On Cherry Pond: Going Up Against Big Coal in W. Virginia

Patrick Cockburn
The New War in Iraq

Franklin Spinney
Obama Steps on the Pentagon Escalator

Einar Már Guðmundsson
A War Cry From the North

Ralph Nader
How Credit Unions Survived the Crash

Jordan Flaherty
A New Orleans Intifada?

Helen Redmond
Ted's Table: Kennedy and the Corporate Lobbyists Craft a Health Plan

Dennis Loo
The Water Line

Harvey Wasserman
Jet Crashes and Nuclear Reactors: Feds Ignore a Serious Risk

Terry Lodge
The Intelligence is Wrong

Website of the Day
BadCreditReport.Com

February 20 / 22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Lawyer's Tale

Michael Neumann /
Osha Neumann
Remove Our Grandmother's Name from the Wall at Yad Vashem

Ismael Hossein-zadeh
Herbert Hoover Copycats

Paul Craig Roberts
Bill of Rights Under Fire

Linn Washington Jr.
The NY Post's Chimpanzee Cartoon

Saul Landau
On the Road Again

Marjorie Cohn
War Criminals Must be Prosecuted (And Their Lawyers Too)

Binoy Kampmark
Cricket and Cartels: the Fall of Sir Allen Stanford

Dave Lindorff
Using the Recession to Hammer Workers

David Yearsley
Edward Said's Greatest Musical Writings

David Macaray
A Closer Look at the Employee Free Choice Act

James McEnteer
Last Mambo in Minnehaha

Rick Salutin
A Canadian Looks at Obama

Wayne Clark
South Carolina Nears the Abyss

Richard Rhames
Got Farms?

Stephen Martin
Silver Mist Descending

Mitu Sengupta
Slumdog Millionaire's Dehumanizing View of India's Poor

Charles R. Larson
Slumdog Reality?

Richard Morse
Carnival Ramble in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Desperation in an Unavoidable Groove

Poets' Basement
Three Poems of Tu Fu (Trans. K. Rexroth)

Website of the Weekend
Ron Paul: What If the People Wake Up?

February 19, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
The Cleanser: Lobbyists Whistle Up Cordesman to "Prove" Israel Waged a Clean War in Gaza

Harry Browne
How Ireland Went Bust

Robert Bryce
Why the Promise of Biofuels is a Lie

Brian M. Downing
The Winding Road: From Western Europe to Kyrgyzstan

Fred Gardner
The DEA Chief's $123,000 Flight

Andy Worthington
Obama's Uighur Problem

Wajahat Ali
Aftermath of a Beheading

Laura Carlsen
A New Attitude at the White House Toward Bolivia and Venezuela?

Deb Reich
Gaza: Choose Life!

Christopher Ketcham
Crisis? What Crisis?

Website of the Day
Taking Back NYU

February 18, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
President of Special Interests

Mike Whitney
Trouble at Treasury

M. Shahid Alam
Afghan Pitfalls

Patrick Cockburn
A Real Surge at Last

Conn Hallinan
Death's Laboratory

Dave Lindorff
Whatever Happened to Antitrust?

Rannie Amiri
The Perils of Blogging in Egypt

Gareth Porter
Pushing Back Against Petraeus on Pullout Risks

Eric Hobsbawm
Remembering V. G. Kiernan

Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Predicament

Martha Rosenberg
It's the Cymbalta Stupid

Website of the Day
Red Gold

February 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Oligarchs' Escape Plan

Mike Whitney
The Global Ditch

Ralph Nader
The One-Dimensional Congress

Joanne Mariner
Benchmarking Obama: How to Evaluate the New Administration's Counter-Terrorism Policies

John Ross
Commodifying the Revolution: Zapatista Villages Become Hot
Tourist Destinations

Belén Fernández
The Venezuelan Referendum From the Back of a Pickup Truck

Mats Svensson
Who is a Terrorist?

David Macaray
Why America Needs Labor Unions

Gregory Vickrey
$400 in Change

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
Another Hamastan?

Michael Dickinson
Unrest in Istanbul

Website of the Day
Take a Stand for Open Access

February 16, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Reconstruction: the Greatest Fraud in US History?

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
The Truth About Colombia's New Emperor

Paul Craig Roberts
Who Remembers Guns and Butter?

Uri Avnery
Livni's Bitter Options

P. Sainath
The Meltdown: Whose Crisis Is It?

Dedrick Muhammad / Michael Brown
White Recession, Black Depression

Carla Blank
A New New Deal for the Arts

Patrick Irelan
Venezuela Ends Term Limits

Dan Bacher
Is Delta Pumping Driving Salmon and Orca Decline?

Fidel Castro
Chavez's Clarion Call

Harvey Wasserman
Hail to the Spleef: Did George Washington Smoke Pot?

Website of the Day
Mining Black Mesa

February 13 - 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
On the Rocks

Joshua Frank
The Myth of Clean Coal

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Coming Out Party

George Ciccariello-Maher
Venezuela's Term Limits: More Hypocrisy From the NYT

Nikolas Kozloff
Venezuela Beyond the Referendum

Brian M. Downing
Pakistan on the Brink

Paul Craig Roberts
Deficit Nonchalance

Christopher Ketcham
Israel's Ball Boys

Ron Jacobs
At a Campus Sit-In Against Israeli Occupation

Dave Lindorff
Why Can Judd Gregg See What Obama Can't?

Alan Maass
Lincoln at 200

Chuck Spinney
Grassley Sounds Off on Obama's Man at the Pentagon

Phil Gasper
Mr. Darwin's Reluctant Revolution

Stephen Lendman
A Short History of Business Handouts

Charles Thomson
Tate Cruises: Caveat Emptor on the High Seas

Kathy Sanborn
The Suicide Rush

Saul Landau
Bowled Over

Len Wengraf
The Nightmare in Somalia

Harvey Wasserman
Striking a Blow Against Nuclear Power

David Macaray
An Easy Call for Obama on Joining a Union

Tom Stephens
Four Freedoms, Four Changes

Seth Sandronsky
Lincoln and the Collective Mind

David Yearsley
On the Road Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Freaking Out With Danny Barnes

Kim Nicolini
The Body of the Worker: What "The Wrestler" Says About the State of America

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Buknatski and French

Website of the Weekend
The Iranian Revoution and the US Dual Containment Policy: a Presentation

Weekend Edition
March 20-22, 2009

An Interview with Farooq Tariq

Pakistan in Turmoil

By RON JACOBS

Once again, the nation of Pakistan has found itself in what many commentators are calling a national crisis.  This time around, the civilian government of Asif Ali Zardari was forced to keep one of his party’s election promises—reinstating Chief Justice Chaudhury (who had been summarily dismissed by General Musharraf in 2007—a move which precipitated Muharraf’s downfall).  This reinstatement was the result of a popular movement spearheaded by lawyers and other elements of the religious and secular opposition.  One element of the secular opposition is the Labour Party of Pakistan (LPP), a democratic socialist organization launched in 1997 from various elements of the Pakistani Left.  In 2007, after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, I communicated with Farooq Tariq, the secretary general of the LPP.  After the recent events, I got back in touch with him. What follows is an exchange conducted the past couple of days (March 16-17, 2009) between myself and Mr. Tariq.

Hello Tariq.  To begin, can you give the readers an idea of what is transpiring in Pakistan? In your description, can you identify the parties and prominent individuals involved?

What is transpiring in Pakistan is mass power. A real sense of victory after the restoration of the chief justice Iftikhar Choudry is one of the main features of this movement. It will be difficult for any government in the future here in Pakistan not to implement what was promised. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was forced to accept a demand only and only with the emergence of mass power in the streets.

It is a victory of the people against the traditional power brokers of Pakistan. It is a victory of hope against cynicism. There were many saying that Iftikhar Choudry would never be reinstated because President Zardari will never change his mind. The sheer expression of mass uprising frightened all the major actors of the movement. They rushed to accept the initial demand of restoration even before the long march reached Islamabad. Had it (the long march) not been called off by the lawyers' leaders after the acceptance of the first demand, the list of demands would (probably) have been expanded from the political to the economic area.  This movement showed that the people of Pakistan can make a difference. Pakistan has changed and changed for ever.

The Long March of the lawyer's movement proved that a consistent struggle and militant actions can be fruitful. The tactics and strategy of the lawyers movement were a combination of the united mass action of political parties and civil society organizations and a successful propaganda campaign through the electronic and print media. Had the lawyers movement gone alone, they could not have won the battle.  The main political parties that were in the forefront of this struggle are Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, Tehreek Insaaf, Jamaat Islami, Pukhtoonkhawa Mili Awami Party, Awami Tehreek, National Party, Labour Party Pakistan, Khaksar Tehreek, Baluchistan National Party, Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party, National Workers Party, Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party and a majority of Pakistan social organizations. Of these Jamaat Islami is a religious party and rest are Left, liberal and progressive parties. 

Anyhow, the most consistent political parties that were part of the lawyers movement since it started on 9 March 2007 are Tehreek Insaf of Imran Khan, an emerging party of the middle classes, Jamaat Islami, a religious fundamentalist party and the Labour Party of Pakistan (LPP), a socialist party.  The rest of the parties were of and are part of the movement.  The most prominent figures of the lawyers movement were Ali Ahmad Kurd, president Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), and three SCBA presidents including Aitezaz Ahsan, Hamid Khan and Munir A Malik. They were all arrested but stood firm. From the political parties, Imran Khan, a former Pakistan cricket team captain has emerged as the most popular personality of the movement. His party was not very well known or active by movement standards , but because of the participation of Tehreek Insaaf (Justice Party) in this movement, it has become a household name in Pakistan.

From the Left parties, Labour Party Pakistan has gained to some extent. Also, the LPP is now better nationally known with a very militant position.  The party that got the most advantage from this movement is the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN). It won the February election arguing for the reinstatement of the top judges. It used clever tactics after the elections. It left the Alliance at the Center with PPP on this question. The PMLN leaders and the Sharif brothers made very radical speeches before and during the long march. The party (PMLN) was ready to take risks and loose the provincial government in Punjab on the issue. If there was an election today, this right wing bourgeoisie party would have a national land slide victory.

Does your party (the Labour Party of Pakistan) support any of the figures involved? If so why? If not, why?

LPP supported the leaders of the lawyer's movement all the time but with a critical attitude. Our literature produced during the movement helped to expand the nature of the movement. Our first poster read, "on the footsteps of the lawyers, till the end of dictatorship". We linked the restoration of the judges with the end of military dictatorship. We saw the potential of this movement to expand on a national level from the very beginning. We supported them because the nature of the movement was very progressive. It was not a religious movement of any kind although the religious parties tried to take it over.  However, the demand of an independent judiciary could never be termed as an Islamic demand.

We supported them (the movement) because it was producing an anti-militarist political tendency among a significant section of the middle class and was producing a new layer of young political activists who were not religious fundamentalist. We helped the movement and the movement helped the Left ideas to grow in both the political and organizational arenas. Those who were associated with the lawyers movement got a national identity and were heard everywhere.

Do the events occurring in Pakistan open an avenue for the Left? Will the PPP cease to exist as a party or will it return closer to its leftist roots?

It is a very complex political situation. The ideas of religious fundamentalism have a natural ally here. That ally is the presence of the NATO forces in Afghanistan. The objective situation is very favorable for the right wing ideas to grow. The nature of the Pakistan state is another help to them. (After all) It is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and not a people's republic. Yet, the ideas of the Left are growing as well. Our help from the international scene comes from the development of Left governments in Latin America and social movements in the advanced capitalist countries.

Internally, we are growing because of our tactics of helping and developing the mass movements of the workers, peasant women and the lawyers. The association with the movement is a key to our recent growth. Over 5000 have joined the Labour Party during our "peoples contact movement (drive)" in December and January 2009. Incidentally, our best growth was in North West Frontier Province, where over 2000 have joined during this time.

But our most stable basis is still the trade unions and peasant organizations. We have not left our work in this class base to join the lawyer's movement. It was possible for our comrades in Faisalabad, the third largest city of Pakistan, to lead over 100,000 against the shortages of electricity in January 2009. Twenty of them were arrested on 14 March 2009 and we had given a call for a general strike on 16 March, the day lawyers won. I was told by the comrade that the call has been supported by the traders as well. It would have been a total success if the lawyer's movement would have continued on the day (March 16). The success of the lawyer's movement has opened a new avenue for the growth of Left ideas. For the first time, we are witnessing the educated youth joining our party. Earlier, we were a handful of comrades within the party who had university degrees.

The PPP is the main loser of this whole episode. It has politically moved much towards the right since it came in power a year ago. It has tried to implement the neo-liberal agenda that was initiated by General Musharraf. It is seen as a party allowing the American imperialists to attack Pakistan directly without any state resistance. It failed to implement the promises of reinstatement of the judges despite written agreements three times. The leader Asif Zardari is probably the most hated politician among the mainstream leaders. He is seen as a liar, deceiver, swindler, trickster, charlatan, quack and cheater. A day after the reinstatement of the top judges, he made a statement that he wanted to reinstate the judges. This was after he was seen as the main hurdle in the path of reinstatement.

The PPP is distributing sweets all over Pakistan after the reinstatement claiming that they have fulfilled the promise of Benazir Bhutto. Yet for over eight months, their entire leadership was arguing that Benazir Bhutto never promised to reinstate them. They were saying that Iftikhar Choudry is a politicized judge. Their argument was that he should take a new oath like some other judges have taken. They were making a point that Iftikhar Choudry is just one person. They were using all sorts of  arguments against the judges in all the television and print media debates. Yet only a day later (after the reinstatement), they wanted the Pakistani people to believe that it was the PPP who had reinstated and fulfilled a promise of Benazir Bhutto. They believe the memory of the people is very short. They believe that we should forget our jails, arrests, tortures, ungrounded life, the barricades in the road to stop the long march and whatever else. The PPP leaders have become real hypocrites.

The party is not finished but is losing its support rapidly. It will remain as a major party unless another party replaces them with a revolutionary programme. The PMLN can never replace the PPP. It can win an election for the time being but it can never have the permanent support of the people because the nature of PMLN is almost the same as PPP. Both are right wing bourgeoisie parties with populist appeal at some times.

There is no possibility of the PPP taking a Left route. The reason is very simple, PPP leadership from top to bottom is committed to power and to (certain) people. They have proved again and again that they will serve the interests of the ruling class and imperialism and are not for the (majority of) the people. They have even abandoned the gesture of leftist ideas. It will remain in the political scene as a party of the capitalists and feudalists. All the time it is losing support. Benazir Bhutto's death gave it a breathing space but that is lost already.

What about the conflicts in Swat and other parts of the Northwest Frontier  Province (NWFP)? How are they affected by what occurs in Islamabad?

In Swat, the government signed a surrender pact with the religious fundamentalists. Under their pressure, so-called Sharia courts have been established and the normal judicial structure has ceased to exist at present. It is a victory of the extreme religious fundamentalists in the area. They now control at least major parts of NWFP including the Malakanad division. There is a peace in Swat at present at the cost of abandoning all sort of normal democratic institutions and ideas. The public girls schools are now open with a totally different character. They have become the public Madrassa. The girls have to read what the student girls are reading in (mosque-run) Madrassa.

The Islamabad answer to all this is to accept the Predator drone attacks by the Americans. On one side, they are signing surrender agreements with religious forces and on the other side (they are) helping American imperialism to fashion their air attacks. This entire situation is paving the way for the growth of extreme religious ideas in all parts of the NWFP. The government of the Awami National Party is unable to mobilize the mass support they had enjoyed only one year earlier on the question of peace in the region. The religious fanatics got less than three present votes in the February 2009 general elections as compared to 15 percent in 2002. The Islamabad government seems paralyzed in this situation. They are waiting for miracles to happen. They are still acting like it is "business as usual". There is no thought out strategy by Islamabad to handle the conflict with religious forces.

From your perspective, what role do you think Washington is playing in the struggle between the forces represented by Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif?

Washington is trying to bring them together and asking them to resolve their conflicts. The American ambassador in Pakistan is very busy between Raiwind, the residence of Nawaz Sharif, and Islamabad. They are asking both sides to come together to fight effectively the "war on terror". They always frighten both of them as to the consequences of the conflict between them. The best option (as Washington sees it, would be) that the both should form an alliance at (the) center and in other areas. Nawaz Sharif has been saying all the time that he was forced to go for the Long March. It was not his choice. He did not want the masses to come on the roads but the sheer bull-headedness of Zardari forced them to this situation. The feudal ego of Zardari has meant that the Sharif brothers are out of power for the time being. A day after the success of the movement, Nawaz Sharif told his supporters to behave and that he respects Zardari and Gilani of the PPP. His brother Shahbaz Sharif told a television that those who make a mistake in the morning and then come back home in the evening must be forgiven.

The last time I spoke with you (November 2007), I asked the following questions. I am hoping you can respond to them with your country's history since that time in mind: What, in your opinion, is the cause of the unrest in Pakistan? How much of a role do religious extremists play? How much of a role does the Army play?

There are multiple reasons for the constant unrest in Pakistan. The foremost reason is the inability of the ruling classes in Pakistan to solve all the basic problems faced by the masses. There exists a feudalistic relationship and land is not distributed to peasants. This brings a very feudal culture and atmosphere in Pakistan. Both the main bourgeois parties, PPP and PMLN, do not speak about it anymore. The major parts of the main leadership in both parties are from the feudal class. They use the ownership of land for political purposes and to win the elections. Sixty-one years of independence have brought no real independence for the majority of the people. This is the real crisis of leadership in Pakistan. Both main parties rely on the military generals. Even in this (most recent) crisis over the  days from 12-16 March 2009, the army chief was mediating between the president, prime minister and the Nawaz brothers. The Nawaz brothers (said they) were very thankful to the "positive" role of the army chief.

The failure of reformist parties like the PPP paved the way for the growth of religious extremism. The extremists were and are supported by a major section of the army. It is a very complex relationship between the rich, the army and religious extremists. It changes and adjusts all the time. 9/11 made an indispensable difference to this relationship. The fact is that the support of the ruling class for religious extremism is not open as was the case in the past, but the presence of the American forces in the region has given a real momentum for the growth of the religious fundamentalists.

The military is out of power in public but not in real terms. No military general has faced any truth commission after their unconstitutional rule. General Musharraf was given a guard of honor when he resigned on 17 August 2008. He still lives in an army house and enjoys all the privileges. The military power in the budget allocated to "defense", is a defense of the ruling class in real terms. Over 30 percent of national income goes to defense budget. The whole society is militarized.  (There are)  a lot of weapons everywhere and it is not decreasing.

Mr. Sharif was quoted after the crackdown by Pakistani police failed to stop the protests earlier this week as saying what happened was the "beginning of a revolution." Is this true? If so, would it be a revolution for the majority of the Pakistani people or merely the elites who seem to take turns ruling the country?

Mr. Sharif has used the words of revolution, rebellion and upsurge several times after his government dissolved in Punjab and governor rule was imposed. He told a gathering that he is flying a flag of revolution and to side with him. His brother Shahbaz Sharif has recited Jalib and Faiz Ahmad Fiaz several times in public-- both poets are known for their revolutionary poems all over Pakistan. The word revolution to Nawaz Sharif  means nothing and only comes out of his mouth when he is in the  opposition. The revolution means for them, their power and that is it. The Nawaz brothers economic priorities are absolutely the same as those of the PPP. They both are for the neo-liberal agenda and both are happy to work with American imperialism.

Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net 

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