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Today's
Stories
January 16,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush
Crosses the Rubicon
January 14
/ 15, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
What
the FBI Repairman Wore When He Tried to Bug Edward Said
JoAnn Wypijewski
What
is an Antiwar Movement?
James Petras
The State of the Empire, 2006
Ron Jacobs
Fifteen Years of War: Who's Better Off?
Brian Cloughley
Fly Boys and Lie Boys: Smart-Bombing Iraqi Families While They
Sleep
Marianne McDonald
The Madness of Ajax: a Play for Our Time
Bruce Tyler Wick
Bush on Torture Echoes Charles I on Arbitrary Imprisonment
Fred Gardner
A Last, Desperate Plea to Stay in Canada
Flavia Alaya
Victory at Passaic County Jail
Gary Leupp
A Neocon Plan to Plant WMDs?
Dr. Susan Block
Peeping Tom in the Bush: Nonconsenual Voyeurism and the NSA
Nicole Colson
The House Jack Built: The Abramoff Giude to Buying Friends and
Influencing Politics
Jeffrey Kolakowski
Senator as Illusionist: the Hypocrisies of John McCain
Missy Comley
Beattie
The Stepford Hearings of Samuel Alito: The Senator, the Weepy
Wife and a Secret Annoiting
Charles Thomson
Is Serota Dead in the Water?: the Ofili Scandal at the Tate
St. Clair /
Walker / Vest
Playlsts: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel, Ford and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Historians Against the War
January 13,
2006
Ralph Nader
The
Two Questions the Senate Should Have Asked Alito
Leonard Weinglass
The
Singular Story of the Cuban Five
Amira Hass
Prisoners in Their Own Land: 800,000 Palestinians Sealed Off
by IDF in West Bank
Chris Kutalik
/ Jennifer Biddle
Airline Workers Fight Back
Lawrence R. Velvel
Alito and the Democrats
Dave Lindorff
Eight Who Dared: a (Short) Congressional Honor Roll
Mike Whitney
Countdown to War with Iran?
David Price
How
the FBI Spied on Edward Said
January 12,
2006
Jennifer Van
Bergen
The
Unitary Executive: Why the Bush Doctrine Violates the Constitution
Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith
Command Responsibility: Torture and Legal Accountability
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Alito
Refuses to Answer Fundamental Questions
Ralph Nader / Robert Weissman
Corporations, Originalism and the Bill of Rights: an Open Letter
to Justice Scalia
Jackie Corr
Killing the Big Sky's Golden Goose: Marc Racicot and the Deregulation
of Montana Power
Jared Bernstein
The Wage Doldrums
Russell D.
Hoffman
New Horizons in Space, New Lows in Government
Aubrey Streit
I Was Born in a Small Town: the Fate of Rural America
Clancy Sigal
Hugh
Thompson and My Lai: He Broke Ranks; He Did the Right Thing
Website of the Day
Nukes in Space
January 11,
2006
Kevin Zeese
NSA
Spied on Baltimore Peace Group (And They've Got the Documents
That Prove It)
Ray McGovern
The
Big Wiretap
Allan Maass
/ Joe Allen
Schwarzenegger's
Hit List: Smearing Mandela, Killing Tookie
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Snatching at King's Legacy: Mythmaking, Profiteering & Outright
Distortions
Annie Murphy
Evo Morales' Sweater
Allan Lichtman
Abramoff's
Kind of Big Government
Ramzy Baroud
Politics of Chaos: Gaza's Turmoil in Context
Joshua Frank
MoveOn Surrenders to Hillary
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
"Eating
Palestine for Breakfast": the Real Sharon
Website of
the Day
Memoirs of Rummy's Geisha
January 10,
2006
Uri Avnery
The
Post-Sharon Landscape: Three Fingers, No Fist
Saul Landau
Different
Americas
Noam Chomsky
Beyond the Ballot: Iraq, Iran and China
Brian J. Foley
Playing with Fire: Congress and Executive Power
Lenni Brenner
The War Within the Antiwar Movement
Ronan Sheehan
Sheehan to Sheehan: Cindy Sheehan's Irish Interview
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Con Jobs
January 9,
2006
Behzad Yaghmaian
Who
is to Blame for the Deaths of the Sudanese Refugees?
George Bisharat
US
Aid to Israel is Out of Hand
Dave Lindorff
How the US Press Squelches Bush Impeachment Drive
Norman Solomon
Smoke a Marlboro, Then an Iraqi: How Media War Images Distort
Not Inform
Christopher Brauchli
The Generosity of Credit Card Companies
Aharon Shabtai
A Poet's Letter on the Occupation
Andrew Cockburn
How
Many Iraqis Have Died Since the US Invasion in 2003?
January 7 /
8, 2006
Lawrence Velvel
The
NYT's Unconscionable Decision to Sit on the NSA Story for a Year
James Petras
AIPAC on Trial: Them or US
J.L. Chestnut
Racism and Injustice in Alabama's Courts
Mike Ely
The Dead Miners in Sago
Andrew Wilson
The Dying of Ariel Sharon
Lila Rajiva
Two Moms Go to Capitol Hill
William Cook
The Rape of Palestine
Ramor Ryan
The Sub Motorcycle Diaries: On the Road with the Zapatistas
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff
An Interview with Michael Scheuer on the CIA's Rendition Program
Peter Montague
Inherit the Wind: the Global Spread of GMO Crops
Ron Jacobs
Would Ethan Allen Pay to Protest?
Neve Gordon
Images of Real Eco-Terrorism in Twaneh
Fred Gardner
Business as Usual in San Diego
Josh Mahon
Idaho Timber Industry Leader Advocates Violence Against Green's
Mom
Dr. Susan Block
Abramoff Family Values: the Lobbyist Who Screwed Us All
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of the Weekend
Bush Crimes Commission
January 6,
2006
José
Pertierra
Posada
Carriles May Soon Hit the Streets
Joe Allen
Gary Freeman's Struggle: a Black Radical from the 1960s Fights
Extradition to the US
Winslow T. Wheeler
Huge Defense Budget, Lousy Equipment
John Bomar
A Former NSA Officer on Snoopgate: the Squawkers Should be Congratulated
Jason Leopold
Snoop and Shred
Norman Solomon
Axis of Fanatics: Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad
Robert Pollin
Remembering
Harry Magdoff: the Man Who Explained the Empire
January 5,
2006
Scott Boehm
Big
Profits, Buried Lives: Bulldozing the Dead in New Orleans
Zoltan Grossman
New
Challenges for the Antiwar Movement
Heather Gray
Whistling
Dixie Yet Again
Haninah Levine
Simple
is Dangerous: the Pentagon's Plan for a Manhattan Project on
IEDs
Pierre Tristam
The Sham of Homeland Security: a West Virginia Parable
Remi Kanazi
Stroke of Luck?: Political Hemorrhage in Israel
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon
Meets His Maker
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
What Hillary Clinton Doesn't Know About Palestine
January 4,
2006
Ron Jacobs
Pity
the Miner: A-Diggin' My Bones
Lila Rajiva
Terror
Hits Bangalore
Huibin Amee
Chew
Why
the War is Sexist
Pat Williams
How the West Turned: Biting the Hands That Steal
Linda Milazzo
The House That George and Jack Built: Ownership Society Meets
the Entrepreneurial Style
Nick Dearden
The Fantasy of "Even-Handedness": Blair's Cynical Policy
on Palestine
James Petras
Evo
Morales: All Growl, No Claws?
Website of
the Day
Rat Out a Lobbyist for Jesus
January 3,
2006
James Ridgeway
Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and 9/11: How Much Did the Bush Administration Know?
Laith al-Saud
Iraqi
Intellectuals and the Occupation: an Interview with Dr. Saad
Jawad
Dick J. Reavis
Border
Walls: the View from Mexico
Joshua Frank
Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran
Rochelle Gause
Inside Rafah: Collective Punishment as Normalcy
Missy Comley
Beattie
How My Mother Went from a Republican to a Screaming Progressive
Paul de Rooij
A Glossary of Dispossession
January 2,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Gestapo Administration
Clancy Sigal
A Trip to the Far Side of Madness
Cindy Sheehan
A Tour of Europe: Friends Don't Let Friends Commit War Crimes
Alexander Cockburn
A
NYT Editorial Contemplates Iraq
Dec. 31 / Jan.
1, 2005/6
Patrick Cockburn
The
Year in Iraq
Alexander Cockburn
Who Are We to Complain?: a Diary of 2005
Ralph Nader
Rumsfeld vs. the Military: a Pentagon of Loyalists and Enforcers
James Petras
The Politics of Language: "Escalation" or "Retaliation"
in Israeli Attacks on Palestinians
Peter Montague
A Darker Bioweapons Future
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
Black Forever: Race, Class and Activism in the South
Vijay Prashad
My California Vacation: Conversations with Indian Americans
P. Sainath
Farm Suicides in Vidharbha
James Brooks
The Spoils of War: Israel's Corruption was Inevitable
Eileen E. Schell
The Farmer Wants a Wife: Hayseeds and Hickxploitation in the
Land of Reality TV
Christopher
Brauchli
Birds of a Feather: George and Vlad
Jo Guldi
Politics, Gay Marriage and Christianity
Fred Gardner
America's Only Legal Grower
Ben Tripp
A Hapless New Year
St. Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening To This Week
Poets Basement
Engel, Albert, LaMorticella, Buknatski, Davies, Ford and Bear
Dog
Website of
the Weekend
Commit Bloggamy with Dr. Suzy
December 30,2005
Evo Morales
I
Believe Only in the Power of the People
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
The
Toxic Air in Black America
Dave Lindorff
Bush's NSA Spying Jeopardizes National Security
Gary Leupp
Targeting Iran and Syria: Goss Builds Case for Turkey-Based Attacks
Ron Jacobs
A
Dead New Year's Eve
Brian Concannon
Down
in Haiti, the Chickens are Coming Home to Roost
Sandra Lucas
Inside TeenScreen: the Making of Mental Patients
T.W. Croft
The
Wind Has Changed: Gulf Storms, Fables of Reconstruction and Hard
Times for the Big Easy
Website of
the Day
Images
of Mass Consumption
December 29,
2005
Norman Solomon
Journalists
Should Expose Secrets, Not Keep Them
Missy Comley
Beattie
Christmas
Without Chase
Dave Zirin
Over the Edge: the Year in Sports
Kevin Zeese
Top
10 Antiwar Stories of 2005
Derrick O'Keefe
Bolivia and Venezuela Offer an Alternative to Neo-Liberalism
Sam Bahour
Turning the Page in Palestine, Again
Macdonald Stainsby
What's Behind Paul Martin's Broadside Against Bush?
Bill &
Kathleen Christison
Let's Stop a US/Israel War on Iran
Website of the Day
Deconstructing the Democrats
December 28,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The
Worst Day of Ted Stevens' Life?
Lila Rajiva
Operation Romeo: Lessons on Terror Laws from India
Amira Hass
The Humanitarian Lie
Joshua Frank
Let the Drilling Begin: Iraq's IMF Loan
David Swanson
Leaking Top Secret Lies
Richard Thieme
High Time for Torture
Paul Craig
Roberts
Three
Books to Wake You Up
Website of the Day
Conyers Report: "Constitution in Crisis"
December 27,
2005
Evan Jones
Whither
the National Guard?
Uri Avnery
The Peretz Shuffle
Mike Whitney
Pop Goes the Bubble!
Gideon Levy
Dusty Trail to Death
David Swanson
Kurt Vonnegut: a Man Without a Country
Norman Solomon
NSA Spied on UN Diplomats During Push for Invasion of Iraq
December 26,
2005
Lawrence R.
Velvel
The
Usurpers of Our Freedoms
Lance Olsen
The Toughest Challenge for Intelligent Design
Ben Terrall
No Holiday Compassion for Haiti's Political Prisoners
Scott Boehm
Santa Drove a Bulldozer
Charlie Ehlen
A Vietnam Vet's Appraisal of Bush
Tom Kerr
The Atheist Dad at Christmas
December 24/25,
2005
Aleander Cockburn
The
Year of Vanished Credibility
James Petras
Iran in the Crosshairs: Israel's Deadline
Ralph Nader
Talkin'
About the "I"-Word
Lila Rajiva
Horowitz's New Project: Begging for Brownshirts
Fred Gardner
Dialogue with the DEA
Ron Jacobs
When Impeachment was Taken Seriously
Dave Lindorff
Xmas Games for a Gitmo World
Gary Leupp
Happy Birthday Mithras!: the True Meaning of December 25th
Saul Landau
Bush's Year in Review: a Report Card from Santa
John Chuckman
A Christmas Tale for Bushtime
Dr. Susan Block
Merry XXX-mas!
St. Clair / Vest / Pollack
/ Donnelly
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Holt, Jones, Landau, Ross and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Merry Xmas, From the Beatles
December 23,
2005
John Ross
The
Corrido of Death Row: Mexico Ends the Death Penalty
Chris Floyd
Gospel
Truth: Bush Hypocrisy, Radical Holiness and Woody Guthrie
Lawrence Mishel
/ Ross Eisenbrey
The
Economy in a Nutshell
Joanne Mariner
Bringing
Torture into Court: the Loopholes in McCain's Bill
Eric Johnson-Debaufre
The Trew Law of Free Democracies?
Ray McGovern
Cheney the Bully; Rockefeller the Coward
J. L. Chestnut,
Jr.
What
White America Doesn't Hear
Website of
the Day
BB King: What I've Learned This Year
December 22,
2005
Ingmar Lee
The
Citizen's Metamorphosis: I Awoke an Object of Suspicion
Elisa Salasin
Classrooms
in Cages
Christopher
Brauchli
Absolut Bush: "I Swear to Upturn and Rear End the Constitution
of the United States"
Robin Blackburn
Rudolf Meidner, a Visionary Pragmatist
Evelyn Pringle
Dan Olmstead, Autism & the Dangers of Thimerosal
Amira Hass
A 14-Year Old's Prison Journey: "I Refused and He Hit Me"
Francis A.
Boyle
Iraq and the Laws of War: US as "Belligerent Occupant"
Stew Albert
The
Spies Who Thought We Were Messy
Website of
the Day
How to Reach a Human Voice
December 21,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
One
Nation, Under Prosecutors: Presumed Guilty
Lila Rajiva
A Short History of Radio Free Iraq
Joshua Frank
Nancy Pelosi's Truth
Dave Zirin
The Bray of Pigs: Bush Nixes Beisbol Cubano
Ramzy Baroud
US Image Problem Rooted in History, Not Media
Sonia Nettnin
Connect the Dots: Decoding Bush's Mumbo Jumbo
Ben Saul
Torture as Calculated Policy
Jonathan Cronin
Anniversary of a Handshake: Cherry-picking History in Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
Election Spells Total Defeat for US
Website of
the Day
Nixon on Presidential Power
December 20,
2005
Jackie Corr
Natural
Gas: a Montana Tragedy
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Nothing
New About NSA Spying on Americans
Michael Donnelly
"Eco Terrorism": Cui Bono?
Gian Paulo
Accardo
Empire of Shame: a Conversation with Jean Ziegler
Pierre Tristam
Trifler, Fibber, Sophist, Spy: How Bush Flouted the Constitution
Norman Solomon
The Foulest Media Performances of the Year
Sen. Robert Byrd
No President is Above the Law
Dave Lindorff
Missing
Black Boxes in WTC Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by
NTSB, Concealed by FBI
Website of the Day
FBI's Spy Files: Got Yours Yet?
December 19,
2005
Mike Marqusee
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Gary Leupp
Feds Ask Student: "Why are You Reading that Little Red Book?"
Ron Jacobs
The Antiwar Movement, the Democrats and the Delusions of Bushworld
John Blair
Stealing the Golden Shovel: Lessons on Civil Disobedience
Gideon Levy
Sadism at the Qalandiyah Checkpoint
Kevin Zeese
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Missy Comley Beattie
Warnings from a Military Man and Dad
Don Santina
Ride 'Em Brush Cutter: Cowboy Imagery and the American Presidency
Website of the Day
A Call for Justice in Palestine
December 17
/ 18, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Time-Delayed
Journalism: the NYT and the NSA's Illegal Spying Operation
Gabriel Kolko
The
Decline of the American Empire
Susan Alcorn
Texas: Three Days and Two Nights
Werther
The Democrats are an Impotent and Tolerated Opposition Party
Ralph Nader
The Senator Without Guile: Proxmire of Wisconsin
Patrick Cockburn
Counting Ballots and Bodies in Baghdad
Fred Gardner
When Prosecutors Deceive: Did the Feds Frame Bryan Epis?
Dave Lindorff
Spy Scandal Far Larger Than Just NSA
Ned Sublette
Essence is Gasoline
Lee Sustar
The Class War Economy
Jason Leopold
Did Karl Rove Destroy Evidence in Plame Case?
Laura Carlsen
Report from Hong Kong: Deciphering the Language of Globalization
Jeff White
Teacher Fired for Talking About Peace?
Ray McGovern
Torture Between the Lines
Chris Floyd
Pale Fire: the White Death of Fallujah
William Loren Katz
Remembering the First Quagmire at Xmastime: Zachary Taylor vs.
the Seminoles
Rose Miriam
Elizalde
Mashenka and the Bear: a Tale for Our Time
Greg Moses
Pinter's Provocation: Self Love in America
Heather Gray
Privatizing the Social Contract
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience: the Sequel
St Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Landau, Engel and Albert
Website of
the Day
At Least Homeland Security Believes that Mao Still Matters
December 16,
2005
Tom Kerr
CNN's
Goddess of Vengeance: What's Not to Love About Nancy Grace?
Mark Engler
The
WTO in Hong Kong: Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty?
John Bomar
When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Votes; Now What?
Pierre Tristam
Iraq, Ourselves
William S. Lind
The Fine Art of Withdrawal
Cyril Neville
Why I'm Not Going Back to New Orleans
Robert Jensen
Monkey See, Monkey Do: Reason, Evolution and Intelligent Design
Saul Landau
Bolivian
Democracy and the US: a History Lesson
Website
CounterPunch & Dr. Price Vanquish Anthropologist Spies
December 15,
2005
Oren Ben-Dor
The
Ethical and Legal Challenges Facing Palestine
Stan Cox
"Agroterrorists"
Needn't Bother
Joshua Frank
Organic Inconsistencies: Federal Food Politics
Ben Terrall
Waivers for State Terror: Bush and the Indonesian Generals
Patrick Cockburn
Silence Descends on Baghdad
Monica Benderman
What Peace Needs
Walter A. Davis
Fear and Loathing in San Quentin
Vijay Prashad
Our
Torture Problem
Website of
the Day
Hourly Wages After Four Years of "Recovery"
December 14, 2005
Patrick Cockburn
Iran
Poised to Win Iraqi Elections
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lethal
Developments
Lawrence R. Velvel
A Bore Called Bob: On Trying to Read Woodward
Wayne Garcia
The Summer of Sami
John Sugg
Preach Peace, Sami; Get Truthful Prosecutors
Gary Leupp
Bush and the Constitution: "Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper"
Ray McGovern
Torture: a Defining Moment
Alan Maass
They Murdered a Peacemaker
April Hurley, MD
NPR Swallows Bush's Guestimate on Iraqi Dead
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Richard Pryor's Mirror on America
December 13,
2005
Stephen T.
Banko, III
Heroes
Patrick Cockburn
America's
War So Far: 1000 Days of Getting It Wrong
Laura Carlsen
What's at Play at the WTO
Karl Grossman
Nuclear Routlette in the Troposhere: Another NASA Plutonium Launch
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Original Sin
Kevin Zeese
Report from the International Peace Conference in London
Norman Solomon
At the Gates of San Quentin
Michael G.
Smith
Ending the Death Penalty
Stew Albert
California Killers
Bob Dylan
Song for Tookie: George Jackson
Phil Gasper
California Murders Tookie Williams: a Report from San Quentin
Website of
the Day
Boot Hill
December 12,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Defenders of Torture
Lawrence R.
Velvel
George the Disconnected
Jessica Stewart
My Husband is at the Gates of Gitmo
George Bisharat
Busharon: a Fusion of Like Minds
Nate Mezmer
Killing Tookie Williams: If a Black Man Dies in America, Does
It Make a Sound?
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Richard Pryor Wasn't Crazy
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience
Seth Sandronsky
Thank You, Richard Pryor
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq:
the Beginning of the End
Website of
the Day
Wrestling for Peace
December 10 / 11, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
All
the News That's Fit to Buy
Landau / Hassen
The Condemned of Nablus
Ralph Nader
The
Widening Wasteland of American Media
Linn Washington, Jr
The Philly Media and Mumia: When They Don't Bash, They Ignore
Bill Christison
Apathy, US Culpability and Human Rights Day
Mike Ferner
The Courage of Jim Loney
Elizabeth Schulte
Abortion and the Bush Court
Neve Gordon / Yigal Bronner
Murder in Jerusalem
Linda S. Heard
Saddam's Trial: Grandstanding in the Theater of the Absurd
Ingmar Lee
A Kayak Journey to Vancouver Island's Wildest Forest
Ray McGovern
Lies, Torture and the Six Blind Mice
John Chuckman
Torture and White Phosphorous: the Moral Hell of Condi Rice
John Ryan
An Honorary Degree in Child Sacrifice?: Madeleine Albright and
US Foreign Policy
Dick J. Reavis
From Waco to Baghdad
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Hired Pens
Behzad Yaghmaian
Trapped at the Gates of the European Union
Aseem Shrivastava
The Winter in Delhi, 1984
John Ross
Bushlandia in Black and White
Ben Tripp
War, What is It Good For?
St. Clair / Pollack / Vest
/ Despair
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Hassen, Bear Dog, Ford, Mickey Z, Albert & Engel
Website of the Week
Burn a Brick for Bush
December 9,
2005
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Roots
of Gitmo Torture Lie Close to Home
Dave Zirin
/ Mike Stark
On
Seeing Wesley Baker Die
Patrick Cockburn
Blair
Tries to Cover Up $1.3 Billion Iraqi Theft
Alexander Cockburn
Murtha Returns to Attack; Flays Bush
Lila Rajiva
Shooting the Mentally Ill
Gary Leupp
White House Liars on the Defensive
Jason Leopold
Rove Running Out of Answers, Time
Bruce K. Gagnon
So These Are the Democrats?
Andrew Cockburn
Meet
Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats' New Gatekeeper
Website of the Day
"X-mas Time for Visa"
December 8,
2005
Kathy Kelly
Blessed
are the Merciful in Baghdad
James Petras
The Venezuelan Election: Chavez Wins, Bush Loses (Again)
William S.
Lind
Questionable Assumptions: Dissecting the Stategy for Victory
Laura Carlsen
The Strange Mission of Vicente Fox: Free Trade and Mexico
Justin Akers
Bush's Border War
Thomas Graham, Jr
A Nuclear Pearl Harbor in Outer Space?
Norman Solomon
Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam
Tariq Ali /
Robin Blackburn
The
Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
Pigs at the Trough of War
December 7,
2005
John Ryan
Dershowitz vs. Chomsky: a Review of the Harvard Debate
Gary Leupp
Suicide
Before Dishonor in Occupied Iraq
Fran Quigley
How the ACLU Didn't Steal Christmas
Jeremy Brecher
/ Brendan Smith
Bush
War Crimes: the Posse Gathers
Joshua Frank
Bird Dogging Hillary
William W.
Morgan
Rendition, Torture and Democracy
Dave Lindorff
A Stunning Win for Mumia Abu Jamal
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam: "Come Visit My Cage"
Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture
Website of
the Day
Witnesses to Torture
December 6,
2005
Ron Jacobs
No
One is Illegal; No One is an Infidel
Patrick Cockburn
Inside
Saddam's Trial: Tales of the Human Meat Grinder
Yifat Susskind
Death, Politics and the Condom: African Women Confront Bush's
AIDS Policy
Mike Whitney
How Greenspan Skewered America
Pat Williams
Public Land Should Stay Public
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
to Europe: Trust Us
Website of
the Day
Debunking Woodward
December 5,
2005
John Walsh
The
Lies of John Edwards: What Did the Democrats Know and When Did
They Know It?
Brian Cloughley
The Poor Dead: the Relative
Value of Human Lives
Mokhiber /
Weissman
The Corporate Crime Quiz
Robert Jensen
How Big Money Eviscerates the First Amendment
Norman Solomon
Hidden in Plane Sight: US Media Ignores Iraq Air War Plan
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to the Justice Department: Pfizer May Have Violated
Federal Laws When They Fired Me
Lila Rajiva
The
Torture-Go-Round: CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons
Website of the Day
National Day of Counter-Recruitment
December 3 / 4, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
The
Revolt of the Generals
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Iraq,
Brains and Lies
Rev. William Alberts
The Forgotten Christmas Story: Saying No to King Herod
Saul Landau
Latino
Troops Have Parents
Ralph Nader
Consumerama
Paul Craig
Roberts
Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts
Mike Whitney
Blood Feast: Celebrating Executions in America
Allan Lichtman
The DeLay Scheme: Blatantly Buying Our Government
Dave Lindorff
A Sudden Rush for the Exits?
Brian Concannon,
Jr.
Haiti's Elections
Fred Gardner
Oregon NORML Honors Growers
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
On Freeing the CPT
Carol Wolman
Remembering the 60s
St. Clair /
Vest / Walker / Pollack
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Free the CPT
December 2,
2005
Stan Goff
An
Open Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad
Mike Ferner
Beware Iraqization: Melvin Laird, Vietnam and Christmas Bombings
Over Baghdad?
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Constitutional Kamikazes: Padilla's No-Win Dilemma
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Questions
for the President
Manuel Talens
The Chávez Theorem
Peter Phillips
Death By Torture: Media Ignores the Hard Evidence
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Alabama's
Taliban: Judge Roy Moore, Preachers and Dixie Hypocrisy
Website of
the Day
Support the Hampton University Peace Activists!
December 1,
2005
John Walsh,
MD
The
God Gaps
Ron Jacobs
Hard Rain: Toward a Greater Air War in Iraq?
Jenna Orkin
EPA's
Latest Betrayal at Ground Zero
Joshua Frank
Howard Dean's Blunt Message: Forget Palestine
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
Rank and File Resistance to Delphi
Missy Comley Beattie
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January
16, 2006
How Would Martin Luther
King Judge America?
Dreams and Nightmares
By ROBERT JENSEN
In Martin Luther King Jr's most famous
speech, he had a dream.
But in another of King's important addresses, he faced the depth
of our nightmare.
We all know the famous words -- "I have a dream" --
delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28,
1963: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise
up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
On this day that we mark with his name, all over this country,
that speech will be played, as it should be. King articulated
-- perhaps more eloquently than anyone had to that point -- the
demand that the United States make good on the American dream,
for all its citizens.
But on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York City,
in a speech titled "Beyond Vietnam," King spoke just
as eloquently of the nightmare that lies underneath that dream.
In that speech to Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam,
King not only made a compelling case for ending the U.S. attack
on Vietnam, but went beyond that to diagnose a failed society.
On this day that we mark with his name, we owe it to King --
and to ourselves -- to face that failure honestly.
This might sound crazy in a world in which the United States
dominates as no nation has ever dominated. After all, we won
the Cold War. We are the largest economy in the world. Our cultural
products circulate everywhere. The world fears our military.
We are the most affluent nation in the history of the world.
And we have a black secretary of state. A failed society? The
United States? To borrow from a younger generation, "We
rule!"
Yes, we rule, sort of, for a time. But we also are a failed society,
a society heading toward collapse. We might remember that nothing
looks quite as invincible as a great army on the morning of its
greatest defeat.
The majority of King's Riverside speech was dedicated to an analysis
of the Vietnam War and an argument for a political settlement
of that conflict. Although many wanted him to avoid the controversial
subject of the war, King said he was moved "to break the
betrayal of my own  silences and to speak from
the burnings of my own heart," to go "beyond the prophesying
of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based
upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history."
When he did that, King reached a difficult conclusion, that "the
greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" was "my
own government." He saw what imperial war does not only
to the target, to those on whom the bombs fall, but also to the
aggressor society: "If America's soul becomes totally poisoned,"
King said, "part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can
never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men
the world over."
We might pause to consider what that means for us today, as the
United States fights another imperial war, this one in the Middle
East. If we were to go beyond a "smooth patriotism"
and let conscience guide us to a "firm dissent," what
actions are required of us?
But I want to put aside for now the issue of wars, past and present,
and speak of King's deeper analysis in that speech. He knew that
simply condemning that war was "seductively tempting,"
but that his principles demanded that he "go on now to say
something even more disturbing." King was blunt: "The
war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within
the American spirit," a condition that had left the United
States "on the wrong side of a world revolution." He
continued:
"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side
of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical
revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a
thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines
and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered
more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism,
and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
"Our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional.
Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind
as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual
societies. This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly
concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality
a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men."
In short, Martin Luther King Jr. saw that the task of the United
States was not simply to transcend racism. He saw racism as inextricably
connected to militarism and materialism. And he saw a hyperpatriotic
nationalism not as virtue but as a problem to be overcome.
So, we find ourselves today in an odd place: In a country in
which we routinely repeat the phrase "God bless America"
with no sense of shame; in which conventional politicians all
clamor to be "tough" on national security and support
bloated military budgets; in which the shopping mall is the real
temple where people go to worship -- in that country, King is
a hero. That means the King who condemned not only racism but
nationalism, militarism, and materialism has to be pushed aside,
forgotten -- "whitewashed," if you'll allow the term.
King's radical political analysis and vision have to be rendered
invisible if we are to name a holiday after him. After years
of calling him a traitor and a troublemaker, white America is
willing to allow King is to serve as the icon for a national
quest for racial justice, but only so long as we don't actually
listen to what he had to say or take it seriously.
None of this is surprising; it's the nature of power: When faced
with demands for justice by a movement of oppressed people, dominant
groups tend to concede only as much as necessary to relieve the
pressure. When enough time has passed and the threat to the system
has been contained, then the importance of the movement and some
of its leaders can be acknowledged, but only if their legacy
can be constructed in a way that doesn't undermine the existing
distribution of power.
The nature of privilege is to ignore these realities when they
make us uncomfortable. We white people have that privilege. We
have that privilege because we live in a white-supremacist society.
It is true that the United States made enormous progress on race
in the last half of the 20th century, but we still live in a
white-supremacist society. What do I mean by that?
By "white supremacist," I mean a society whose founding
is based in an ideology of the inherent superiority of white
Europeans over non-whites, an ideology that was used to justify
the inhuman crimes against indigenous people and Africans that
created the nation and its wealth, an ideology that also has
justified legal and extralegal exploitation of every non-white
immigrant group in our history.
By "white supremacist," I also mean a material reality.
Forty years after the victories of the civil-rights movement
that ended legal segregation, dramatic racialized disparities
in wealth and well-being endure. On some measures, such as family
income and unemployment, the gap between white and black America
is wider today than it was in the immediate aftermath of the
civil-rights legislation of the 1960s. On other measures where
there has been some progress, such as home ownership, closing
the gap will take decades or centuries if current trends continue.
This is a society in which white people occupy most of the top
positions in powerful institutions, with similar privileges available
in limited ways to non-white people if they fit themselves into
white society. It is a society in which many white people hold
to that supremacist ideology, believing the culture, politics,
philosophy, and art that comes out of white Europe to be superior
to all others (even if they won't admit in public that they believe
this).
If white America were truly interested in racial justice, would
we not ask, simply, "why?" Why do so many still believe
that? Why are the racialized disparities still with us?
We don't ask because the answer is all too clear and painful:
Most white folks don't much care, and privilege allows us not
to care.
What will it take for the United States to transcend white supremacy?
It seems obvious that it requires a revolution. But what kind?
King called for "a true revolution of values" based
in a rejection of the fundamental injustice of the systems in
which we live. In King's words:
"A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on
the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation,
it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of
the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South
America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the
social betterment of the countries, and say: This is not just."
"A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world
order and say of war: This way of settling differences is not
just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling
our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous
drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending
men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped
and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom,
justice and love."
In 1967, King laid it out clearly: "A nation that continues
year after year to spend more money on military defense than
on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
In 2006, that spiritual death is closer than ever, as it is clearer
than ever that it is not "military defense" on which
we spend but "military offense."
At some level, I believe we all know this to be true. We all
know the grotesque and widening inequality -- within our own
society and between the First and the Third worlds -- cannot
continue indefinitely. We know that the belligerent militarism
designed to secure resources cannot continue indefinitely. At
some level, somewhere within us all, we know that the path this
society is on is not the road up to a better future, but a spiral
down to something that will look like hell made real in the world.
We rule, for now. But how long can that continue?
We know the cost to the world of the quest for domination. About
half the world's population lives on less than $2 a day, and
a quarter on less than $1 a day. Iraqis count their dead in the
tens -- perhaps hundreds -- of thousands as a result of U.S.
liberation. Those are the bills being paid elsewhere.
What of the cost to us? What of our spiritual death?
The shopping malls are full. Does it fulfill our longing for
community? Does it make us feel loved?
We "support the troops." Does it fulfill our obligations
to the world? Does it make us safe?
What judgment would Martin Luther King Jr. render if he were
with us today? Lucky for us, we don't have to face that. The
great thing about dead heroes is that they can't speak. The theologian
and historian Vincent Harding quotes a poem by Carl
Wendell Hines:
Now that he is safely dead
Let us praise him
build monuments to his glory
sing hosannas to his name.
Dead men make
such convenient heroes: They
cannot rise
to challenge the images
we would fashion from their lives.
And besides,
it is easier to build monuments
than to make a better world.
But, of course, it doesn't
matter what King would say. It matters what we say, and -- as
King always pointed out -- it matters what we do.
If you live in privilege, as I do, one thing is for sure: You
haven't done enough. I haven't done enough. We haven't done enough.
If we had, this world would look very different than it does.
We all carry that burden, one that is more than we should have
to face. In this world, it should be enough to just be a decent
person -- to work hard, treat folks around us fairly, care for
those we love. That's difficult enough in a world full of disappointment,
disease, and death. Just being an ordinary person is hard enough.
But at this moment in history, being decent in our private lives
is not enough. There is too much at stake, and too little time
to correct the course. We face crises on all fronts: Political,
economic, cultural, and most dramatically, ecological. We cannot
know how much time is left before destructive forces set in motion
cannot be turned back. We should be scared, and that fear should
motivate us.
King was scared. In the new book, At Canaan's Edge: America
in the King Years 1965-68, Taylor Branch writes about how
King was tired and struggling with depression in the last months
of his life. I believe King understood how little time there
was, not just for him but for us all.
So, we have to face what one writer has called "the long
emergency." There can be no illusions about the nature of
the struggle required to create a different world, a world based
not on domination but on a new communion among peoples. The choice
still remains the one King asked us to face: "nonviolent
coexistence or violent co-annihilation."
Privilege makes it easy to hide, but soon there will be no hiding
from the need to act. To turn from this knowledge of the world
and its demands on those of us with privilege is to turn from
the values of justice and equality that we claim to hold. Worse
than that, it is to turn away from our own humanity. And if the
call to justice, the yearning for our own humanity isn't motivation
enough, realize this: Soon, to hide will be to resign ourselves
to that hell on earth that we are creating.
To act is to have faith, in ourselves and in the possibility
that there is time. If King were alive today, we can be sure
he would ask that of us. And we can look to King's words on that
April night in New York in 1967 for a reminder of what fate awaits
us if we turn away:
"If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long,
dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess
power without compassion, might without morality, and strength
without sight."
If we act, there is no guarantee that we can make right all that
has been torn asunder. We cannot wait for certainty, but must
act out of love, with hope. It is through our action that we
learn to love and feel hope. That action is the way we make love
real in the world and find hope in our hearts.
I don't pretend to know what King would say if he were alive
today. I don't know what analysis he would offer or what strategy
he would propose. But he would certainly challenge all of us
to act -- every one of us here today, everyone in this country,
which has the opportunity to turn its power away from wealth
and war, toward justice and peace. Whatever else King would say,
he would say this:
Act. Now. Before the only path before us is that long, dark,
shameful corridor, which ends at a door we should all pray is
never opened.
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University
of Texas at Austin and a member of the board of the Third
Coast Activist Resource Center. He is the author of The
Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege
and Citizens
of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity. He
can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
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