home / subscribe / donate / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq
Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter!
The New Campus McCarthyism
There’s a McCarthyite campaign in full spate across higher education in the U.S. today. For every headline case, like Norman Finkelstein or Joseph Massad, there are three or four less-publicized smear campaigns. In the sights of the witch-hunters are faculty targeted as “anti-Israel”, as terror-symps, as leftists. In our latest newsletter we feature the personal history of Victoria Fontan, a Frenchwoman who came to a US campus from field work in the back alleys of Fallujah and found out just how devastating academic warfare can be. ALSO -- Saving the Florida Everglades – Alan Farago reports from the battlefront. PLUS -- They aimed at Moscow, They Hit Kabul: Serge Halimi on Sarkozy and NATO’s Mission Creep. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
|
Today's Stories March 31, 2009 Uri Avnery Nicholas Dearden Wiliam S. Lind David Michael Green Benjamin Dangl March 30, 2009 Michael Hudson Patrick Cockburn Henry A. Giroux Mike Whitney Ralph Nader Paul Craig Roberts Jeremy Scahill Robert Bryce Jonathan Cook Ray McGovern Website of the Day March 27-29, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Arno J. Mayer Michael Hudson José Pertierra Andy Worthington Mike Whitney Winslow T. Wheeler Souad N. Al-Azzawi Dave Lindorff Ian Masters Barbara Rose Johnston Jami Tarn Diane Farsetta David Ker Thomson Against Democracy Ramzy Baroud Rannie Amiri Wajahat Ali Nick Egnatz Gregory A. Burris Missy Beattie Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Ben Sonnenberg Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
March 26, 2009 Paul Craig Roberts Sharon Smith Neve Gordon Patrick Madden Gareth Porter Dave Lindorff Hannah Safran Keith Newell Todd Chretien Nelson P. Valdés Website of the Day
March 25, 2009 Robin Blackburn Conn Hallinan David Rosen Jonathan Cook Dean Baker Ron Jacobs Russell Mokhiber David Macaray Dave Lindorff Sarah Knopp Website of the Day
March 24, 2009 Robert Sandels Harvey Wasserman Franklin Lamb Michael Donnelly Norman Solomon Elizabeth Schulte John Goekler Nicole Colson Global Balkans William S. Lind Website of the Day
March 23, 2009 M. Shahid Alam Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Ralph Nader Brian Cloughley Dave Lindorff Amira Hass Chris Irwin Binoy Kampmark Michael Dickinson Website of the Day March 20-22, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts P. Sainath Robert Weissman Saul Landau David Michael Green Greg Moses Ron Jacobs Michael D. Yates John V. Whitbeck Andy Worthington Linn Washington Jr. David Ker Thomson Laurent Jacque Rannie Amiri Reiko Redmonde / David Macaray Kenneth Couesbouc Martha Rosenberg Alan Farago Missy Beattie Richard Rhames Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend March 19, 2009 Dave Marsh Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Sam Smith Harvey Wasserman Binoy Kampmark Kathy Sanborn Christopher Brauchli George Wuerthner Diann Rust-Tierney Website of the Day
March 18, 2009 Michael Hudson Paul Craig Roberts Nelson P. Valdés Jonathan Cook John Ross Yifat Susskind Dave Lindorff Frances Moore Lappé Richard Grossman Rev. William E. Alberts Website of the Day March 17, 2009 Michael Hudson James G. Abourezk Harry Browne Joanne Mariner Alan Farago Dean Baker Peter Morici Bill and Kathleen Christison Richard Gott Walter Brasch Website of the Day
March 16, 2009 Pam Martens Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Ralph Nader Nikolas Kozloff John Walsh Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Stephen Fleischman Christian Christensen Scott Handleman Website of the Day March 13 / 15, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Peter Lee Diana Johnstone David Harvey Petrino DiLeo David Ker Thomson Eric Ruder Fred Gardner David Yearsley Saul Landau Laura Carlsen Robert Weissman John Goekler / Tom Barry Kathy Sanborn Chris Mobley / Leela Yellesetty David Michael Green Alan Maass / Christopher Brauchli Richard Morse Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend March 12 , 2009 Sharon Smith Christopher Ketcham Mike Whitney Ray McGovern Eric Toussaint / John Ross M. Reza Pirbhai Chris Floyd Steve Early Quentin Gee Website of the Day March 11 , 2009 Mike Roselle Paul Craig Roberts Henry A. Giroux Nikolas Kozloff Norm Kent Mitu Sengupta Ludwig Watzal David Macaray William S. Lind Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day March 10 , 2009 Franklin Spinney Vijay Prashad Stan Cox Zoltan Grossman Reuven Kaminer Jonathan Cook Dave Lindorff Brian McKenna Harvey Wasserman Corey Pein Website of the Day
March 9 , 2009 Pam Martens Ralph Nader Peter Lee Mike Whitney Peter Morici Dean Baker Steve Ault Stephen Lendman Farooq Sulehria Belén Fernández Website of the Day March 6-8 , 2009 Alexander Cockburn Chris Floyd Uri Avnery Dave Lindorff Mark Weisbrot David Ker Thomson Phil Aliff Rebekah Ward Tracey Briggs Dean Baker Daniel P. Wirt, M.D. Carl Finamore Wajahat Ali David Michael Green David Macaray Michael Dickinson Susie Day Bob Sommer Ben Sonnenberg David Yearsley DC Larson Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend March 5 , 2009 James G. Abourezk Kathleen and Bill Christison Robert Weissman Patrick Cockburn William Blum Robert Fantina Saul Landau Benjamin Dangl Christopher Brauchli Website of the Day March 4, 2009 Marjorie Cohn Mike Whitney Ron Jacobs Ashley Smith Joanne Mariner Dan Bacher Mark Engler Franklin Lamb Cal Winslow David Mandelzys Website of the Day March 3, 2009 Conn Hallinan Fawzia Afzal-Khan Brian M. Downing Robert Larson Daniel P. Wirt, MD Russell Mokhiber William Loren Katz Kathy Sanborn Pauline Imbach Christopher Ketcham Website of the Day March 2, 2009 Andrea Peacock Paul Craig Roberts Peter Lee John Blair Peter Morici Uri Avnery Michael Donnelly Fred Gardner Sonia Nettnin Andrew Lehman Website of the Day
Tom Barry Harvey Wasserman Adam Turl David Macaray James McEnteer Website of the Day
|
March 31, 2009 The Mendacity of HopeThe Obama BetrayalBy DAVE LINDORFF We are witnessing one of the fastest betrayals of the Democratic Party base in modern memory, as President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party leadership in the Senate slither away from a crucial constituency, the labor movement, and from support of labor’s key legislative agenda item: passage of a bill, “The Employee Free Choice Act,” which would restore a measure of fairness to labor relations. Obama, who once supported the measure, and who campaigned saying he would sign the bill, has stood shamelessly silent as a massive corporate campaign mounted by such lobbying powerhouses as the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Retail Federation, hiding behind a fake “citizen action” organization called the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (sic), has descended on Congress, and especially the Senate, has worked to peel away support for the bill among both Democrats and swing Republicans who had formally backed the measure. The business lobbying campaign is having considerable success. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), who is facing a Republican primary threat next year from a conservative challenger, has already announced that he will not support allowing the Employee Free Choice Act to go to the floor for debate and a vote in the Senate. As well, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), a former co-sponsor of the bill when it was last introduced in the Senate in 2007, now says she will not support it. Since 60 votes are needed to move a bill past a Senate filibuster vowed by Republicans, Specter’s defection is particularly damaging. It is also a betrayal of the many unions that have consistently backed this sometimes unpredictable Republican. But Feinstein’s volte face is a Clearly, the key turncoat in this sorry tale is Obama, whose presidential campaign would have sunk into oblivion early had it not been for powerful support from key elements of organized labor. It was also undeniably organized labor’s army of grass roots backers that handed him victory, a majority of the popular vote, and a mandate for “change” in November over Republican John McCain. If Obama were to strongly advocate for Employee Free Choice, he could clearly line up the backing needed to win its approval in both houses. Moderate Republicans like Specter need Obama’s support for their own pet bills, and would have no hope of accomplishing anything, much less bringing home the bacon that they need in order to win re-election, without the president’s willingness to support them. This gives Obama enormous clout if he wants to use it. Wavering members of his own party, like Feinstein, would also certainly respond favorably to his calls for backing on a key issue for his base. But he has chosen instead to duck this issue. Anyone who thought, as I once did out of an excess of optimism, that this president was positioned to act in this economic crisis as did the once equally reticent Franklin Roosevelt before him, should see clearly now that this president is not that same kind of bold risk-taker as FDR. Obama, rather, is following in the well-worn path of gutless political hacks before him like President Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, kowtowing to the wishes of the corporate elite and taking the Democratic grassroots for granted. Employee Free Choice, which would have reversed 50 years of steady erosion of workers’ organizing rights by ending employers’ ability to stall off union elections for years, fire union organizers with impunity, and intimidate pro-union employees, by mandating that unions be recognized once they had obtained signature cards of support from over 50% of a work unit, is only one sign of this betrayal, of course, but it is a significant one. Meanwhile, even as the Employee Free Choice bill is swirling around the drain, a new study is giving the lie to the main argument the corporate lobbyists have been using to win over one-time backers like Specter and Feinstein: the fear-mongering claim that facilitating unionization in a recessionary time could lead to business failures. Not so, says labor economist John DiNardo of the University of Michigan, who just released a study titled “Still Open for Business: Unionization Has No Causal Effect on Firm Closures,” published by the Economic Policy Institute DiNardo’s study cites two surveys of similar enterprises at which workers either narrowly won union votes by 51% or narrowly lost by 49%. These surveys, covering the period 1961-2004, found “zero correlation” between a company’s being unionized and the likelihood of its failing. “I don’t think business leaders or people like Sen. Specter are crazy,” DiNardo says. “Many of them probably honestly do believe that having a union increases the likelihood of business failure, but the evidence is just not there. In fact, wages don’t always even go up when a company is unionized.” DiNardo speculates that what really may cause many corporate managers and business owners to bitterly oppose unionization is not the fear of business failure or even perhaps of higher labor costs, but rather the fear of losing control over workers. “Business managers in non-union firms are more like monarchs,” he says. “With a union, a company becomes slightly more democratic, and the manager becomes more like a president.” That puts the name of the anti-Employee Free Choice Act business lobbying coalition in an interesting light. Obviously no corporate lobbying organization is actually in favor of democracy in the workplace, as their name deceptively implies. This betrayal of workers is not the first betrayal of the Democratic base by Obama and Congressional Democrats. Scarcely two-thirds of the way through his first 100 days, Obama has also already betrayed a vow to end the Iraq War, having announced his intention to leave upwards of 50,000 trooops in that benighted and blood-stained nation for years to come. Instead of closing Guantanamo, he has made a vague promise to close that horror show a year from now, but then left open the possibility of continuing to hold people indefinitely without charge, and even left himself a loophole to torture them. Instead of restoring the Constitution, Obama has already begun adopting the Bush practice of using signing statements to assert an unconstitutional presidential authority to ignore laws passed by the Congress. Instead of assuring that the laws of the land be faithfully enforced, as he swore in his oath of office, and promised in his campaign, Obama has refused to order a Justice Department investigation into whether members of the prior administration should be charged with crimes such as torture or lying to Congress. This litany of betrayals shows that rather than audacity, this president has chosen mendacity. Instead of change, he is giving us at best small change, and when it comes to abuse of the Democratic base, no change. (And I haven’t even mentioned his wholesale betrayal of ordinary citizens in his pro-Wall Street bail-out of the big banks and financial institutions.) At least President Clinton waited two years before he began a wholesale sell-out of Democratic voters. Obama isn’t even waiting for the honeymoon to end to start his betrayal. Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). He can be reached at dlindorff@mindspring.com
|
Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Spell Albuquerque: Waiting for
Lightning
|