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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Drug Companies and Psychiatrists
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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter!
Drug Companies and Psychiatrists
Partners in CrimeEugenia Tsao reports on the upcoming revision of one of the most important books in America, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Here’s where the drug lords, the shrinks and the insurance companies collude in establishing hundreds of bogus psychic conditions requiring the psychotropic drugs from which they reap billions every year. There are about 250,000 migrant laborers in Israel, mostly from the Philippines and Thailand. Meanwhile tens of thousands of Palestinians can’t find work. From Tel Aviv, Yonatan Preminger reports on Israel’s vicious employment strategy. Also in this latest newsletter Andrew Cockburn updates his CounterPunch world exclusive on how the U.S. has secretly helped build Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. 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 t-shirts make great presents.
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Today's Stories July 3-5, 2009 Eamonn Fingleton July 2, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Nikolas Kozloff Wendell Potter Ellen Hodgson Brown Christian Christensen Iran: Networked Dissent? Patrick Irelan Binoy Kampmark Returning Iraq Nicola Nasser Brian Tokar Dan Bacher Website of the Day July 1, 2009 Vijay Prashad Alberto Vallente Thorensen Paul Craig Roberts Robert Weissman Manuel García, Jr. Victor Figueroa-Clark / Pablo Navarrete Norman Solomon Franklin Lamb Martha Rosenberg Diane Rejman Website of the Day June 30, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Benjamin Dangl Jonathan Cook Franklin Lamb George Wuerthner Todd Gordon Ron Jacobs Kenneth Libby Julian Vigo Website of the Day
June 29, 2009 Ishmael Reed Nikolas Kozloff Clifton Ross Patrick Cockburn Uri Avnery Conn Hallinan James G. Abourezk Ralph Nader Carol Miller Greg Moses Website of the Day June 26-28, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Doug Peacock Daniel Wolff Mike Whitney John Ross David Rosen Emily Ratner Gareth Porter Farid Marjai Nadia Hijab Paul Craig Roberts Fred Gardner Carl Ginsburg Paul Watson David Ker Thomson Farzana Versey Geoff Berne Todd Alan Price Ramzy Baroud Jeff Sher Dr. Carol Paris Despite My Arrest by Max Baucus, I Will Continue to Advocate for Quality Health Care for All Walter Brasch Adultery as Family Value? Glen Johnson Charlotte Laws Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 25, 2009 Kathy Kelly Jack Bratich Wendell Potter Charles R. Larson Alan Farago Jonathan Cook Gareth Porter Bitta Mostofi / David Macaray Mark Schuller Website of the Day June 24, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Dean Baker Andy Worthington James Bovard Diana Gibson / P. Sainath Gareth Porter Robert Alvarez Dave Lindorff Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi Website of the Day
June 23, 2009 David Price Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway / Dave Lindorff Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero Gary Leupp Brian M. Downing Robert Bryce Nicholas Dearden Yousef Munayyer Website of the Day June 22, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Chris Floyd Jack Z. Bratich Atash Yaghmaian Laura Carlsen Paul Craig Roberts Vijay Prashad Fred Gardner Andy Thayer David Macaray Website of the Day
June 19 - 21, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Al Giordano Henry A. Giroux Anthony DiMaggio Paul Craig Roberts John Ross Gareth Porter Carl Ginsburg Tommi Avicolli Mecca Joe Bageant Serge Halimi P. Sainath Jim Goodman Dave Lindorff Rannie Amiri Robert Fantina Harvey Wasserman Walter Brasch David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Ben Sonnenberg Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 18, 2009 Uri Avnery Robert Sandels / Anthony DiMaggio Robert Weissman Joshua Frank Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Norman Solomon Ali Jawad James Ridgeway Website of the Day June 17, 2009 Carl Boggs Dr. Bryant Welch Winslow T. Wheeler Liaquat Ali Khan Jonathan Cook Binoy Kampmark Karim Makdisi Dave Lindorff David Swanson Gene Marx Website of the Day June 16, 2009 Patrick Cockburn John Ross Afshin Rattansi Marc Levy Paul Craig Roberts Behzad Yaghmaian Brian M. Downing Merle Lefkoff David Macaray Robert Jensen David Swanson Website of the Day June 15, 2009 Michael Hudson Reza Fiyouzat Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway Marjorie Cohn Rannie Amiri Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Leonard Schwartz Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day June 12-14, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Gareth Porter Mike Whitney Mark Ames Esam Al-Amin Franklin Lamb Patrick Cockburn Andy Worthington Heather Gray Felice Pace Ron Jacobs George Wuerthner Jeffrey Buchanan / David Ker Thomson Renaud Lambert Kevin Zeese David Macaray Evelyn Pringle Chris Genovali David Michael Green Brian J. Foley Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 11, 2009 Kathy Kelly / James Bovard Tristan de Bourbon Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Ralph Nader Harvey Wasserman Nicole Colson Mark Weisbrot Dan Bacher Website of the Day June 10, 2009 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Jennifer Van Bergen / Douglas Valentine Kathy Kelly Paul Craig Roberts Rev. William E. Alberts Peter Lee Carol Miller Emily Ratner Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff Website of the Day June 9, 2009 Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Stan Cox Sibel Edmonds Jonathan Cook David Macaray Robert Jensen Nadia Hijab Mark Weisbrot Website of the Day June 8, 2009 John Ross Paul Craig Roberts Franklin C. Spinney Franklin Lamb Uri Avnery Jonathan Cook Eric Toussaint Jim Goodman Norman Solomon Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day June 5 -7, 200 Alexander Cockburn George Galloway Paul Craig Roberts Jennifer Loewenstein Franklin Lamb Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Missy Comley Beattie Farzana Versey Stanley Heller John V. Whitbeck Robert Weissman Lee Sustar Dave Lindorff William Blum Ernest Callenbach / Greg Moses Ron Jacobs David Yearsley Tim Stelloh Belén Fernández David Ker Thomson Karyn Strickler Christopher Brauchli Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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Weekend Edition Extra Ice?How We Spend Our MoneyBy DAVID MACARAY
In about three weeks (on July 24), the federal minimum wage will be raised 70-cents, from $6.55 to $7.25. At the new rate, if you work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and never miss a day, your annual gross will be $15,059. That’s before any deductions, and assuming you can land a full-time, 40-hour a week job. I used to live in India, back when it was still a “poor” country. I’m being facetious, of course. Despite what we hear about all those U.S. jobs being shipped over there, and the prodigious wealth of tycoons like Ratan Tata, president of the Tata Steel conglomerate, India remains a crushingly poor country. While there’s been enormous economic growth over the last three decades, India, with a population of just under 1.1 billion, still has hundreds of millions of illiterate people condemned to subsistence-level poverty. Malnutrition haunts the subcontinent, infant mortality is high, and universal rural electrification is still a fantasy. And because India is a poor country, it behaves like a poor country. Unlike America, where poor people make the lifestyle choice of “pretending” not to be poor, Indians don’t have that luxury. For that matter, neither do the underclass Mexicans living and working in the U.S.—those who wash our dishes, scrub our floors and pick our fruit. They don’t lease new cars or dress beyond their means. That’s more or less an American story. Poor Indians are easy to identify because they don’t step outside themselves. A poor Indian would never think of saving up to buy $90 running shoes or splurging on a rented limo, to see how it feels to live large. At Indian markets you can buy a single egg or single cigarette, because people can’t afford full cartons or packs. By contrast, it’s amazing how we Americans spend our money. The same conscientious consumer who’s willing to drive five miles out of his way to save 5-cents on a gallon of gasoline will, without flinching, pay $3.50 for a cup of Starbucks coffee, and $12 for a container of popcorn and a soft drink at a movie theater. What makes this phenomenon “amazing” is that these people have to know, on some level—consciously or subconsciously—that for that same $12, they could go to a supermarket and buy a case of soft drinks and enough raw popcorn kernels to make, literally, twenty or thirty containers of theater popcorn. And of course, as if the mark-up on movie beverages isn’t already exorbitant (what’s the wholesale cost of a squirt of syrup and some carbonated water?), these customers drive the profit margin even higher by uttering the three words every concessionaire longs to hear: “Extra ice, please.” Yep, fill that canister so full of ice, it will barely require any “cost” ingredients at all. There are bars in Santa Monica that sell a bottle of imported beer for $9. That computes to $54 a six-pack. Mind you, we’re not talking about paying top dollar for some exotic dish prepared in a specialty restaurant, something you could never hope to duplicate at home. We’re talking about paying $54 for the identical six-pack you can buy at your local liquor store for a fraction of the price. When I bring up these grim economic facts to friends (yes, even on my “consumer” high-horse, I’ve managed to keep a few friends), they pooh-pooh me; they argue that my examples are bogus comparisons, that you can’t look at it that way, that what you’re really paying for is “service.” Some of them have even said, cryptically, that it “all evens out in the end,” whatever that means. But there’s a larger issue here. Not to sound holier-than-thou, but it should be noted that the same people who willingly pay $14 for a hot dog and cup of beer at Dodger Stadium—who impulsively blow $15.99 for Season One of “Hill Street Blues” (and then never get around to watching it)—are resistant to giving immigrant workers a leg up. It’s hard to explain. When it comes to sharing our purse with those who toil at society’s crappiest jobs, we become less generous. For whatever reason, when given the opportunity to spread it around to those on the bottom, we tend to hold out. The same people who tip Las Vegas casino dealers don’t leave a nickel for the housekeepers who clean their hotel rooms. The same patrons who are willing to pay $18 (say what??) for a deluxe mango margarita at an upscale LA restaurant—and then leave a commensurate gratuity for the actress-cum-waitress—don’t bother tipping the guys at the local carwash who work their tails off. One could almost applaud this willingness to throw away money on wildly frivolous stuff—write it off as some post-millennial, “easy-come, easy-go” mentality—if only these good people would throw their money at manual laborers the same way they throw it at blackjack dealers and cocktail waitresses. But they don’t. Instead, they argue with Mexican gardeners over their rates, and complain about how lazy their Mexican baby-sitters are. They haggle with those day-laborers outside Home Depot, trying to convince them to clear their whole goddamn backyard for $50. They won’t slip the trash collector so much as $10 at Christmas. People are already complaining about the increase in the minimum wage. The same people who have no problem with monthly cable TV fees rising every month for no apparent reason, regard an increase in the minimum wage as unfair. A person I know (an insurance executive) fears the increase could actually destabilize the economy by (drum roll, please) “causing inflation.” He’s the same guy who supports a trillion-dollar banking bailout, the same guy who opposes limiting executive compensation. Alas, he’s the same guy who orders “extra ice.” David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright (“Americana,” “Larva Boy”) and writer, was a former labor union rep. He can be reached at dmacaray@earthlink.net
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Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Yellowstone Drift:
Spell Albuquerque:
Waiting for
Lightning
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