Today's Stories

February 3, 2009

Conn Hallinan
When Mind Wounds Don't Count

February 2, 2009

Uri Avnery
Under the Black Flag: Israeli War Crimes

Ralph Nader
What to Do About Wall Street

Gareth Porter
Generals Move to Obstruct Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Orders

Paul Craig Roberts
The Death of American Leadership

Harvey Wasserman
The Nuclear Industry's Latest Money Grab

Rannie Amiri
Gaza and the Crimes of Mubarak

Cal Winslow
Stern's Gang Seizes UHW Union Hall

Steve Early
Checking Out of Stern's Hotel California

Alan Farago
Superbowl as Panopticon

Diane Farsetta
Banning Domestic Propaganda

January 30 / February 1, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama and the Oddsmakers

Michael Hudson
Obama's New Bank Giveaway

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
"Too Big to Fail:" a Bailout Hoax

Dave Lindorff
The Ugly Truth: the American Economy is Not Coming Back

Saul Landau
Freedom Fighters, Terrorists or Schlemiels?

Andy Worthington
Blame the Chef: How Cooking for the Taliban Can Get You Life in Gitmo

Subcomandante Marcos
Gaza Will Survive

Robert Jensen
Future Farming: an Interview with Wes Jackson

Ron Jacobs
Return of the Democrats

Gareth Porter
Is Gates Undermining Another Opening to Iran?

Allan Nairn
Hope for the Dump Cities?

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA's Dangerous Security Agenda

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Feelings of a Stranger

Christopher Brauchli
From Gitmo to Supermax?

Jules Rabin
Israel and the Bomb

Col. Dan Smith
Thoughts From an Inauguration Refugee

Missy Beattie
The US Garden of Evil

Tom Barry
Obama's Immigration Challenge

J. Michael Cole
The Downfall of an Academic

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Burning the First Amendment

Dan Bacher
How Dam Removal Can Save the Klamath River

David Rosen
Last Gasp of the Culture Wars?

Don Monkerud
Religion in the American Bedroom

Binoy Kampmark
Updike: Apostle of the Middlebrows

Lorenzo Wolff
Playing Down a Bad Reputation: the Lovin' Spooful's Near Perfect Record

David Yearsley
When Orfeo and Euridice Lived Happily Ever After in Upstate New York

Poets' Basement
Valentine and Rihn

January 29, 2009

Peter Linebaugh
Tom Paine's Birthday

Paul Craig Roberts
Is It Time to Bail Out of America?

Riz Khan
The Future of Gaza: an Interview with Jimmy Carter

M. Reza Pirbhai
Pakistan: a New Cambodia?

Wajahat Ali
Obama's Al-Arabiya Interview

Gregory Vickrey
What About the Environment? Cap and Trade and Selling Out

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
Whither the Two State Solution?

Alison Weir
Killing Palestinians Doesn't Count: Fact-Checking Ceasefire Breaches

Alan Farago
Economy Without Escape Routes

Walter Brasch
Taxing a House of Cards

Website of the Day
Madoff Inc.

January 28, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
Behind the Bloodbath in Gaza

Noam Chomsky
Obama's Emerging Policies on Israel, Iraq and the Economic Crisis

Patrick Cockburn
Is Mitchell's Mission Already Doomed?

Rob Larson
The Clinton Foundation Donors

George Wuerthner
Who Will Speak for the Forests?

Allan Nairn
South-East Asian Groups Threaten Retaliation Over Gaza Invasion

M. Junaid
Levesque-Alam
A Muslim's Memo to Obama

Stefan Simanowitz
The Silent Trade

Charles R. Larson
The Autumn of the Patriot

Website of the Day
Veggie Love: PETA's Banned Superbowl Ad

January 27, 2009

Winslow T. Wheeler
Save the Economy by Cutting the Defense Budget

Yigal Bronner /
Neve Gordon
Fueling the Cycle of Hate

Joshua Frank
Obama's Neocon: the Curious Case of Richard Holbrooke

Jordan Flaherty
Torture at a Louisiana Prison

Ralph Nader
Access to Economic Justice

Rev. José M. Tirado
How Iceland Fell: a Hundred Days of (Muted) Rage

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Looking Forward

Russell Mokhiber
What If Israel Were in Your Neighborhood?

Martha Rosenberg
Who Says Technology Transfer Doesn't Pay?

C. G. Estabrook
The Inaugural Address: the Digested Read

Website of the Day
Who Profits From the Occupation?

January 26, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event

Deepak Tripathi
The BBC's Day of Shame

Vijay Prashad
The India Lobby: Drunk with the Sight of Power

Peter Lee
Geithner's Pop Gun Volley at China

Allan Nairn
The Torture Ban That Doesn't Ban Torture

Uri Avnery
On the Wrong Side of History

John Sayen
The Next Shoe to Drop

Dave Lindorff
Afghanistan is No Threat to America

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff

David Macaray
Obama vs. Labor

Roger Burbach
Winds of Change in Cuba

Norman Solomon
The Ghost of LBJ

Website of the Day
Landscapes of Occupation

January 23 / 25, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Ghosts at Obama's Side

P. Sainath
The Freefalling Economy

Patrick Cockburn
In Israel, Detachment From Reality is the Norm

Saul Landau
Reasons for War?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Our Current Economic Crisis: the Monks' Cure

Alan Farago
The Problem with the Stimulus

Christopher Brauchli
When Due Diligence is a One-Way Street

Andy Worthington
Return to Law?

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pentagon: Bowing to the Masters of War?

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Four)

Henry A. Giroux
The Audacity of Educated Hope

David Yearsley
The Music That Wasn't There: Chamber Music for Obama's Masses

Raymond F. Gustavson
Here We Go Again: General Shinseki and Veterans

Dave Lindorff
The Way Forward

Roberto Rodriguez
Fighting for Migrant Justice in the Desert

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
The Struggle of an Un-People

Fidel Castro
Meeting Cristina

J. Michael Cole
Can Obama's Shift on Terror Succeed?

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
It's Time to Free Leonard Peltier

Ramzy Baroud
Breaking Gaza's Will

Mohammad Ali Shabani
The Aftermath of the War on Gaza

Richard Rhames
Panning for Pyrite on a Cold Day at the Mall

Stephen Martin
Voices in the Mirror

Lorenzo Wolff
Jurassic Radio

Kim Nicolini
Katrina's Endless Loop

Poets' Basement
Fleming, Henson, First, Jaramillo and Glendinning

Website of the Weekend
Cartoon Love

January 22, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Another Real Estate Crisis is About to Hit

Kathy Kelly
Worse Than an Earthquake

Allan Nairn
US Intel Nominee Lied About Church Murders

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Three)

Andy Worthington
Halting the Gitmo Trials

Peter Morici
How to Fix the Banks

Joseph G. Davis
The First MBA Presidency and the Business Academy: a Damage Assessment

Adriana Kojeve
The Democrats on Israel: a Brief Oral History

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Poised for Historic Vote

Website of the Day
Support the Gaza Community Mental Health Program

January 21, 2009

Gabriel Kolko
Understanding Gaza

Harry Browne
Obama's Work Ethic

Michael Colby
Ready. Aim. Organize.

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience

Audrey Stewart
Starting Over in Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Obama and the Muslims

Binoy Kampmark
The Marketing of Hope

David Kεr Thomson
Abolition

John Ross
In My Own Bones

Allan Nairn
Killer in Chief: Will This President Murder Civilians?

Sheldon Richman
The Peaceful Transfer of Violent Power

Website of the Day
Globistan

January 20, 2009

Chuck Spinney
Hosing Obama Israeli Style

Kathy Kelly
The Strongest Weapon of All

Raymond Deane
The EU, Gaza and the Lisbon Treaty

Ralph Nader
State Terrorism Against Gaza

Audrey Stewart
Why I am in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Doctrine of Destruction

Harvey Wasserman
A Ten-Point Solar Agenda for Obama

Christopher Ketcham
Inauguration Ad Nauseam

Robert Jensen
A Citizen's Oath of Office

Dave Lindorff
Commie Chorus on the Mall: This Land Really is Made for You and Me

David Macaray
SAG Watches It All Slip Away

January 19, 2009

Kevin Alexander Gray
Time for an New Divestment Campaign

Uri Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Mad

Kathy Kelly
Respite in Gaza

Mike Whitney
What Obama Left Out of His Economic Recovery Plan

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Bernie Madoff

Mats Svensson
For Fatima in Gaza

Harry Browne
Obama's Bard: Springsteen's Working on a Dream

Norman Solomon
The Return of Triangulation

Jeffrey Sommers
The Baltic Riots: Really Existing Thatcherism

Kenneth Libby
Manipulating MLK Day

Peter Ewart
Robbie Burns, Mackenzie and Gaza

Bob Sommer
"The Fierce Urgency of Now"

Website of the Day
Death of a Whaler

January 16-18, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to the Chief

Caoimhe Butterly
Terribly Bloodied, Still Breathing

Audrey Stewart /
Kathy Kelly
Suddenly Bombs Started Falling: Report from Gaza

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Geo. W. Bush, a Concise Biography

Ellen Cantarow
I Could Not Save a Single Child

Neve Gordon
How to Sell "Ethical" Warfare

Vijay Prashad
An African-American in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Attack Injures 1.5 Million Gazans

Rannie Amiri
The UN in Israel's Crosshairs

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Forgotten Child

Joshua Frank
Forecasting Obama

Dave Lindorff
Prosecuting Bush and Cheney

Brian Cloughley
Who Runs America?

Belén Fernández
Changing the Equation

Missy Beattie
Peace and Justice Denied

Fred Gardner
Growing Pot for Research

George Ciccariello-Maher
"Oakland is Closed!"

John V. Whitbeck
Democracy Not Partition

Stephen Fleischman
Card Check

Mischa Gaus
Medicare for All! Tackling Union Opposition to Single-Payer

Saul Landau
The End of the Affair

Norm Kent
Perils of the Grow House

Alejandro López
Give Bush the Shoe! (and Send Us the Photo)

David Yearsley
The Glory That Was Dresden

James McEnteer
Doin' the Time Warp Again

Lorenzo Wolff
An Album That Lives Up to Its Cover

Kim Nicolini
Patti Smith's Dream of Life

Poets' Basement
Three Financial Poems by Brian J. Foley

Website of the Day
Lancet: Medical Conditions in Gaza

January 15, 2009

Pam Martens
Wall Street Powerhouses Invested Alongside Madoff

Karl Grossman
Obama and the Military - Industrial - Scientific Complex

M. Shahid Alam
Gaza's Shattered Mirror

Jules Rabin
Gaza Besieged, Gaza Mauled

Alan Farago
The Nail-Gun Bailout

Ron Jacobs
The State of Black America: From Oscar Grant to Barack Obama

Timothy Seidel
Just Violence in Gaza? The Calculus of Proportionality

George Ochenski
Why No Montana Wilderness?

Todd Chretien
Taking a Stand for Justice in Oakland

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Marijuana Prohibition Acid Test

Website of the Day
Uranium Watch

January 14, 2009

Henry A. Giroux
Killing Children With Impunity

Kathy Kelly
Cease Fire, Cease Siege

Franklin Lamb
A Second Front? Hezbollah Militants Chafe as Gaza Burns

Mike Whitney
The Big Contraction: Why the Stimulus Alone Won't Work

Paul Craig Roberts
The Humiliation of America

Glen Ford
Sullying Dr. King's Legacy: the Congressional Black Caucus and Israel

Aditya Chakrabortty
The End of Property Porn

Dave Lindorff
Fattening the Rats: Feeding at the Bailout Trough

Jonathan Cook
Israel Bars Arab Parties From Elections

David Swanson
Conyers Explains Why He Didn't Push Impeachment

Martha Rosenberg
Fragile: Handle with Risperdal

Website of the Day
Report of a Red Cross Worker in Gaza

January 13, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Is Israel Using Experimental Weapons in Gaza?

Michael Neumann
Hamas and Gaza: Slave Revolts and Passionate Evasions

Coleen Rowley /
William John Cox
No Victors in the War on Dissent

Robert Sandels
Cuba and the Obama Administration: Subversion Through Trade?

Saul Landau
The Changeling: an Obama Nightmare

David Swanson
What to Ask Eric Holder

Wajahat Ali
Waltzing with War Crimes

Sam Bahour
No Other Option? A View From the West Bank

Stanley Heller
Why It's Useless to Lobby Congress on Gaza

Robert Jensen
Beyond Grief and Rage

Robin Mittenthal
Eating Away at the Land That Feeds Us

Website of the Day
The 50 Most Loathsome People in America

January 12, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Blood-Stained Monster Enters Gaza

Paul Craig Roberts
Our Collapsing Economy

Mike Whitney
Israel's Moral and Political Insanity

Ewa Jasiewicz
Oh, Quiet Night: Only Six Homes Were Bombed

Bill Quigley
A Day in Gaza

Dave Lindorff
From Vietnam to Gaza

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Blowback From a Tragic Error: a Message to Barack Obama

Jonathan Cook
Israel Ponders the Third Stage

Andy Worthington
Seven Years of Guantánamo

Kara N. Tina
Oakland on Fire

Brenda Norrell
Palestinians and American Indians: Russell Means Breaks the Silence on Obama

Nour Kharma
A Plea From a Teen in Gaza: "Will I Die, Too?"

Website of the Day
The Villages Group: an Antiwar Alliance in Sderot

January 9/11, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Israel's Onslaught on Gaza: Criminal, for Sure; But Also Stupid

Kathy Kelly
Tunnel Vision: Report from Arish, Egypt

Bill Quigley
Report From Rafah: Doctors Stopped at the Border

George Ciccariello-Maher
Oakland's Not for Burning?

Elaine C. Hagopian
Gaza: History Matters

Mike Roselle
Drowning in a Toxic River: What Can be Done to Save Appalachia?

Steve Hendricks
The Torturer-Elect?

Gary Leupp
Revisiting the Tale of Samson

Jonathan Cook
Outcry Over Israel's War Crimes

Karim Makdisi
The Ceasefire Plan: the UN Finally Acts, But Does It Mean Anything?

Rannie Amiri
Livni's Big Lie

Peter Morici
In the Jaws of a Depression

Peter Montague
Can Chemicals be Regulated?

Ralph Nader
Move Fast to Restore the Rule of Law

Andy Worthington
The Dying Days of the Guantánamo Trials

Nadia Hijab
A Music School Silenced in Gaza

Dan Bacher
Unholy Alliance: Nature Conservancy Backs Schwarzenegger's Big Ditch

Catherine Fenton
The American Peace Movement and Israel

David Macaray
Wal-Mart Caught Stealing

Valia Kaimaki
Why Greek Youths Took to the Streets

Richard Morse
Haiti's Gas Gang

David Yearsley
To Gotham City with Dexter Gordon

Charles R. Larson
The Horror, the Horror

Richard Rhames
Gaza and the Goon Squad Meet the Wizard

Stephen Martin
Meltdown Memo to Come?

Lorenzo Wolff
What They Sing About When They Sing About Love

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Beatty and Valentine

Website of the Weekend
Gaza Protest

January 8, 2009

Jean Bricmont /
Diana Johnstone
Gaza Seen From Paris

Franklin Lamb
How Dershowitz Misstates, Misrepresents and Misapplies the Law

Paul Craig Roberts
The Difficulty of Being an Informed American

Kevin Alexander Gray
Give Burris His Seat

Chris Floyd
The Enduring Priorities in Obama's Time of Change

Ewa Jasiewicz
Riding on Fire in Gaza

Steve Conn
Sanjay Gupta and Obama

Harvey Wasserman
Kill the Nuclear Stimulus!

Wayne S. Smith
An Opening to Cuba?

Linda Mamoun
Re-settling Gaza: the Real Goal of the Israeli Invasion?

Adam Turl
Unions and Young Workers

Chris Papaleonardos
Mourning Maria Dimitriadi

Website of the Day
On the Wing

January 7, 2009

Saree Makdisi
What Kind of Security Will This Barbarism Bring Israel?

Franklin Lamb
Bend Over Professor Dershowitz, It's Time for Your Check Up

William Blum
America's Other Glorious War

Belén Fernández
The Trauma Vortex: Israel's Monopoly on Psychological Suffering

Lawrence Davidson
What is New About Gaza?

Allan Nairn
Adm. Dennis Blair and the Church Killings in East Timor

Jonathan Cook
What is Israel's Objective?

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Watching the War on BBC

Deepak Tripathi
Bush, as He Leaves

Cal Winslow
Now is the Hour to Defend Democracy in the Labor Movement!

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Students Planning Careers: Be Mindful

Dr. Hannah Safran
No More Recycled Military Solutions

Website of the Day
CNN: Israel Broke the Ceasefire First

January 6, 2009

Pam Martens
It's All One Big Lie

Victoria Buch
Real Estate War in Gaza: the History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing

Neve Gordon
Israel's New War Ethic

Tami Sarfatti /
Yonatan Mendel
What Silence Says: Gaza is Still Waiting on Obama

Mike Whitney
The Gaza Bloodbath

Alan Farago
After the Fall

Gary Leupp
A Hamas Coup d'Etat in 2007?

Larry Everest
Silent Partner: the US-Backed War on Gaza

Ron Jacobs
The New Iraqi Sovereignty

David Macaray
Union-Busting is Alive and Well

Stephanie Basile
Where's Anna's Money?

Stacey Warde
An Uncle's Unrest

Website of the Day
Israeli Refusenik on Gaza

January 5, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Will There be a Recovery?

Sousan Hammad
Phoning Home to Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Flying While Brown

Mats Svensson
Longing in Gaza

Jen Marlowe
Abeer's Baby

Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Gaza Phone Tag

Brian Cloughley
Israel is Immune From Criticism

Faheem Hussain
Gaza and India: a View From Pakistan

William Cook
Consider the Realities of Gaza

Dr. Trudy Bond
The Madness Among Us

Christopher Ketcham
The Revenge of the Blogger at the National Press Club: a Rotten Washington Interlude

Steve Early
Who Rules SEIU?

Dave Lindorff
When It Comes to Terrorism and POW Cases, Equal Justice Under Law is a Joke

Website of the Day
The Endangered Fish of the Colorado River Basin

January 2 - 4, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Diary of 2008: an Incredible, Hope-Filled Year

Uri Avnery
Molten Lead in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of the Gaza Assault

Paul Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Western Morality?

Brian Eno
Stealing Gaza: an Experiment in Provocation

Ralph Nader
America Must Stop Shirking Its Responsibility on Gaza

Omar Barghouti
UN Complicity in Israel's Massacre in Gaza

Graham Usher
Where Pakistan's Generals and the ISI Draw Their Lines

P. Sainath
The Economy is Worse Than It Appears

Belén Fernández
Pardon Our Dust: Israel's PR Campaign for Gaza

Deb Reich
Shiv'a in Gaza, December 2008

Gary Leupp
Defacing Mr. Jefferson's Wall: Preachers and the Inauguration

Michael Yates
Top Chef or Top Wage Thief? Tom Colicchio and the Economics of Restaurants

Joanne Mariner
How to Close Guantánamo

Seth Sandronsky
Funding the Israeli Military: the US Pipeline

Cynthia McKinney
We Lived to Tell the Story

Sonja Karkar
Israel's Dogs of War

Deepak Tripathi
Gaza in Perspective

Robert Fantina
Obama, Afghanistan and Israel

John Ross
The Year No One Can Remember

Norm Kent
The Heat on Duval Street: Why Head Shop Raids are Unfair and Unjust

Larry Portis
Syria and the Arab Barbie Doll--Before the Deluge

Richard Rhames
Is Conscience Dead?

Dee C. Lubell
We Come From the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright

David Yearsley
A Gay German at the Courts of the Medici and Hanover, and of Course the BBC

Lorenzo Wolff
Joe Ely, the Fighting Rooster of Rock

Marc Catone
Looting Lennon's Legacy

Poets' Basement
Five Poems by Grzegorz Wróblewski

Website of the Weekend
Earth in High Rez

January 1, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
If Hamas Did Not Exist

Oren Ben-Dor
The Self-Defense of Suicide

Wajahat Ali
The U.S. Response to the Gaza Crisis: Unfair and Unbalanced

Saul Landau
In Cuba No One Man Could Steal $50 Billion From Other People

David Michael Green
What to Expect While We're Expecting

Website of the Day
Morbid Anatomy

December 31, 2008

Pam Martens
Wall Street's Collapse and the Ownership Society

Neve Gordon /
Jeff Halper
Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?

Ted Honderich
The First Casualty of Israel's War

Brian Cloughley
Five Little Girls on a Sofa: Gaza's One-Sided Images

Ron Jacobs
What is Hamas, Really?

Vijay Prashad
Hot Rod and His Sikh Warrior: Blago's Indian Connections

Franklin Lamb
Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down That Wall!

Mike Whitney
My Brilliant Career

David Macaray
What Really Killed the Auto Bailout

Richard Thieme
The Betrayal of the Commons

Mary Lynn Cramer
Who Wins What in Gaza?

Stephen Lendman
The Troubling Case of the Fort Dix Five

Worthy Group of the Day
Western Shoshone Defense Project

December 30, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
May We No Longer Be Silent

Tariq Ali
The Gaza Ghetto and Western Cant

Robert Bryce
The $775,000-a-Year GI

Jonathan Cook
Electioneering with Bombs

Gary Leupp
The Fishbarrel War

Dave Lindorff
Tough Guys Don't Walk: Will Cheney Seek a Pardon?

Brian McKenna
Ted Downing and Troublemaker Anthropology

John Walsh
The End of the Green Party

Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the World

Bob Sommer
The Education of David Frost

Worthy Activist of the Day
Support Marie Mason

December 29, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's Attempted Endgame in Gaza

Neve Gordon
What, Exactly, is Israel's Mission?

Joshua Frank
Obama and the "Special Relationship"

George Salzman /
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The War Against Palestine: Exception From Humanity

Norman Solomon
A Hundred Eyes for an Eye

Ewa Jasiewicz
Gaza Today: "This is Just the Beginning"

Rob Larson
The Banks Laugh All the Way to the Bank

Kenneth Libby
Arne Duncan's Dark Years in Chicago

Robert Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008

Elsa Johnson
High Noon at Black Mesa: Bush's Farewell Gift to Peabody Coal

Nicola Nasser
Resolution 1850: Bush's Parting Gift

Belén Fernández
Hanukkah Games

Worthy Group of the Day
Nuclear Information and Resource Service

December 26-28, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Medusa's Head

Dr Eyad Al Serraj
The Boming of Gaza: "An Earthquake on Top of Your Head"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Cancerous Air

Bradley Simpson
Obama's New Intel Chief, Dennis Blair, Ran Interference for Indonesia's Butchers

Ralph Nader
Government Without Laws

Gary Leupp
Obama and the Graveyard of Empires

Ellen Cantarow
Richard Falk, Israel and the NYT

Matt Landon
The Great Coal Ash Flood: a Report From Swan Pond Road

David Macaray
SAG's Terrible Dilemma

Patrick Bond
End of Neoliberalism? Sorry, Not Yet

Norm Kent
Invoking Bigotry: Obama and Rick Warren

Brian T. Ketcham
Fuel Efficiency is Easy--Just Don't Let Detroit Tell You How to Do It

Rannie Amiri
War Clouds Over Gaza

Larry Portis
Changing the Ethnic Vocabulary

Richard Rhames
Welcome to Soup Kitchen America

Stephen Lendman
29 Red Flags: Early Suspicions About Bernard Madoff

James L. Secor
Unheralded Coup

Ramzy Baroud
Iraq, the Plot Thickens

Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture

Cpt. Paul Watson
Tracking the Cetacean Death Star

Howard Lisnoff
Nixon's Cambodian Shock Treatment

Michael Dee
The Bill of Rights, Killed in Action by the War on Drugs

Steve Conn
Eight Predictions for 2009

Poets' Basement
Valentine, Kaung, Moser and Graham

Worthy Group of the Weekend
United Mountain Defense

December 25, 2008

Judy Gumbo Albert
What Were Those 1960s Terrorists Thinking, Anyway?

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Sole of Christmas

Hannah Mermelstein
Caution: Settlers Ahead

Worthy Group of the Day
Citizens' Coal Council

December 24, 2008

Bill Quigley
Five Bailout Lessons From Katrina

Saul Landau
Then and Now: Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

Sam Smith
Evangelism and Politics

Brian Cloughley
Torture, Slaughter and Lies

John Ross
Where's al-Zaidi's Pulitzer?

Eric Walberg
Cold War Shivers

Norm Kent
What Will Obama Do About Marijuana?

Stephen Martin
Reasons for Cheerfulness

Worthy Group of the Day
Collateral Repair Project

December 23, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Ponzi Paradigm

Michael Yates
The Tombstone Economy

Chuck Spinney
The New York Times Flames Out in Defense Dogfight

Vijay Prashad
India's Reckless Road to Washington, Through Tel Aviv

Brian Horejsi
Interior Decorating: Obama, Salazar and the Future of America's Public Lands

David Macaray
Obama's Best Pick?

Neil Watkins /
Sarah Anderson
Ecuador's Conscientious Default

David Michael Green
Hey, Reagan Democrats! Now Do You Get It?

Worthy Group of the Day
Focus on the Corporation

February 3, 2009

From Oakland to Santa Rita, the Struggle Continues

"Fired Up, Can't Take It No More"

By GEORGE CICCARIELLO-MAHER

“Town Bizness”

Efforts at the moderation and cooptation of the Oscar Grant movement had failed in the face of revolutionary pressure and state weakness. The various radical organizations that dot the Oakland landscape had slipped the yoke of the official organizations with links to Mayor Dellums’ campaign and enmeshed in the non-profit industrial complex. The place was the historic Black Dot Café in West Oakland; the event, a “Town Bizness” town hall meeting hosted by the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC) with the presence of Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. and a number of others, former and current Black Panthers included. “This ain’t like the other town halls where a preacher talks for three hours,” said POCC Minister of Information JR by way of introduction, in oblique reference to the weekly meetings held at Olivet Baptist Church.

Those gathered at the Black Dot were among the few organizations and individuals still insisting, with the unequivocal support of all the events that had come to pass in recent weeks, that organized rebellion in the streets had been fundamental in the arrest of Johannes Mehserle for the murder of Oscar Grant. Many of those present took aim at the “opportunists” and the self-appointed leadership which, by virtue of city contracts and non-profit status, had been perceived as hijacking a city’s anger and turned it down the path of institutional power (some hoping, no doubt, to ride the masses all the way to elected power themselves). As an alternative, those gathered at the Black Dot agreed on a list of demands, and on a strategy of mobilizing for the bail hearing of Johannes Mehserle, to be held on January 30th.

New Video, New Pressure

But in the intervening days, the political balance of forces had shifted dramatically, with the legitimacy of both the BART police and the OPD seemingly in free-fall. First, it was announced that the head of OPD internal affairs, Ed Poulson, had been suspended and that the FBI is currently investigating the force over the death in custody of Jerry Amaro some nine years ago. This combined with a threatened no-confidence vote for Police Chief Wayne Tucker partly over handling of the investigation into the murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey, led Tucker to announce his unceremonious resignation, leaving a gaping power vacuum at the head of this force, which would make itself felt later.

In addition, BART police chief Gary Gee, who seems hell-bent on infuriating the public as much as is humanly possible, was circulating a memo instructing all BART officers on how they could show their solidarity with Mehserle by making a donation to his defense. “You have our full support,” writes Gee, who went on to blame “public abuse and the media’s reporting” for placing undue stress on his department. As Grant family attorney John Burris put it, “It is unacceptable for the police chief, who ostensibly is investigating Mehserle and other officers, related to their conduct on the night that Oscar Grant was killed, to encourage officers to visit and make financial contributions to Mehserle.”

But perhaps the most important element in this new upsurge in public anger and disillusionment with the police was a new cellphone video release by KTVU news, and taped on the BART platform the night Oscar Grant was executed. The recording shows a different officer, now identified as Tony Pirone, who would later have his knee on Oscar Grant when he was shot by Mehserle, punching Grant in the face for no apparent reason, and clearly escalating the tone of the situation. While those in the streets have been demanding the arrest of the other officers as accessories to murder, this demand had been largely ignored until it gained a degree of tangible reality in that video, at which point BART officials announced an investigation would be opened.

“We Fired Up, Can’t Take it No More”

On January 30th, an overflow crowd filled the hallway of the Rene Davidson Courthouse in an effort to gain access to the bail hearing. Family members and an undisclosed number of BART officers had been escorted into the courtroom by a back door, and the nearly 100 gathered in the hallway were promised 44 available seats for the hearing. After some 20 had entered, the crowd was told that the courtroom was full. Spontaneous chants of “We are all Oscar Grant!” filled the hall, clearly audible to those within the courtroom itself, and at one point county police attempted to forcibly remove the crowd, seizing people one-by-one and pushing them into the elevators.

Inside the hearing, Mehserle’s newly-contracted attorney Michael Rains, who previously got corrupt OPD officers off in the Riders case, was making the case for bail. Mehserle had yet to open his mouth about what happened that night on the BART platform, a refusal that many interpreted as individual cowardice given the protests rocking the city. But if he wanted bail he would have to say something, and in the end, that “something” was not convincing at all. Mehserle’s lawyer simultaneously suggested that Mehserle meant to deploy his Taser against Grant, while adding that he thought Grant was reaching for a gun. Again, both claims have been thoroughly discredited: Mehserle had removed his Taser, which bears no resemblance to his gun, from the opposite side of his belt earlier, and Grant was face-down with Pirone holding his neck, showing no signs of struggle.

Moreover, if Grant were reaching for a gun, surely Mehserle would admit to purposefully pulling his own weapon. But there was a method to this madness, and it was this: Mehserle had to mention the Taser defense to leave open the possibility of a reduced charge, but he had to add that he thought Grant may be armed to leave open the possibility for a total acquittal under the tried-and-true police defense of “justifiable homicide.” Luckily, Judge Morris Jacobson noticed the ambiguity and wasn’t buying it: Mehserle, Jacobson acknowledged, did indeed represent a flight risk, and his contradictory story made him a potential danger to the community. However, under California guidelines, and since this was not a capital murder case, the judge nevertheless granted Mehserle a bail of $3 million. But concealed beneath this seemingly “technical” bail decision was a more important one: certainly, Mehserle has not been charged with a capital offense, but this is because he was white and a cop to begin with.

It was this fact more than anything that motivated the angry crowd that streamed from the courtroom, infuriated that this murderer would be released with a bond payment of only $300,000, surely not too much for someone from a well-off family with the full support of BART-PD and the police union. The crowd exited the court past a hungry press corps, eagerly sniffing out a controversial quote, which was delivered soon enough, as a young man insisted before the cameras that “if the court doesn’t get him [pauses] we’ll get him.” But while the press was quick to paint popular anger with the racist brush of vigilantism, he insisted that this wasn’t a threat, but instead an indicator of the fact that few have faith in the even-handedness of the court system.

Immediately, those gathered took up positions to block the exits to prevent Mehserle’s departure, with chants of “No Justice, No Peace, Fuck the Police!” But after a few minutes, representatives of the Panthers and POCC decided to set out on a march that would retrace the path of the street rebellion some three weeks prior. The crowd of around 100 surged up 14th to Broadway, where the intersection was closed and an AC Transit bus taken over, with a Black Panther addressing the crowd from the roof. After a few minutes, we moved down Broadway toward the OPD station, and as we arrived, a small contingent of police was hurriedly setting up a cordon to protect their home. After a brief standoff, the crowd began to move back up Broadway, by now 150-strong as passers-by and young students spontaneously joined in. Now, the chant was: “We fired up, can’t take it no more!”

As we stream past vehicles, some in the crowd notice a small, unmarked SUV full of cops, and the crowd showed its contempt in no uncertain terms. From a few feet away, I saw the rear window of the vehicle explode, revealing an officer pointing a rubber-bullet gun from inside the vehicle. Immediately, half a dozen flash-bang grenades were lobbed into the crowd, weapons which even the manufacturers admit are deadly and should only be used as a last resort. Now, of course, they were used as a first resort, and several protestors were on the ground screaming for medics from the impact of the explosions. People scattered, taking refuge behind cars as the officers climbed out of the vehicle, each tossing several more grenades in all directions to disperse the crowd.

“I’m Gonna Fuck You Up”

By now, the new OPD strategy was in full force, either on orders from Mayor Dellums or due to the power vacuum created by Tucker’s abrupt exit: heavy and prominent presence, blocking streets and repeatedly cutting the march into smaller and smaller segments in the hopes that it would disperse. At one point, we were completely blocked-in on 14th near Jackson, and the only exit appeared to be through the parking lot of the same McDonalds that was smashed three weeks prior. But upon reaching the other side, this path too was quickly blocked by a contingent of particularly aggressive cops with a bone to pick.

To be clear: no order to disperse had yet been read, and we were in the parking lot of a private business. As the crowd approached the police line, a fairly massive black officer named Smith began to taunt a much smaller demonstrator, urging him to give the cop reason to arrest him. When no reason was forthcoming, Smith grabbed the young man by his bandana and threw him into another officer, who then proceeded, along with some comrades, to brutally pound the young man and his friend for a number of minutes. When the crowd began to loudly protest the brutality they were witnessing, the cops made their intentions clear. As Smith himself promised me with a swipe of his baton: “I’m gonna fuck you up.”

And it wouldn’t be long before this hefty soldier made good on his promise. About 20 minutes later, after a dispersal order had been read at another intersection, the crowd was ordered to move to the sidewalks, and as a friend and I crossed a crosswalk (with the light green, no less) Smith and friends saw their chance. My friend was tackled from behind, his forehead smashed into a light pole. I hadn’t taken but two steps toward him when five officers flattened me. Skillfully navigating the avenues of pain and skirting the fine line separating a broken bone from a soft tissue injury, these portly knights of order made the most of their 30 seconds of absolute sovereignty, twisting and wrenching shoulder, elbow, wrist, and individual finger, kicking and punching me in the face and back.

In the back of the wagon, we were a sorry-looking lot, my friend bleeding profusely from the forehead, and one of the McDonald’s arrestees with a smashed nose. Our cellphones had been confiscated as “evidence” (as this article is published, we are told that these will not be returned until we consent to police downloading their contents). Our transporting officer, Miller, immediately promised that we were all “CRs,” cite and release, so no worries, we would be out soon. This, of course, was a lie for all but one, but it served another purpose: if any of the arrested wished to complain about excessive force and injuries (we all had suffered excessive force and were all injured to some degree), we would need to be transported to Santa Rita County Jail, where we would be spending the night so as to receive “proper treatment.” Such was the blackmail to prevent complaints.

Around the same time, we overheard an officer speaking to several black juveniles in the compartment in front, in a display of unmitigated racism urging them to hand over any “crack pipes” or weapons they might have. And in response to several officers persistently referring to him as a “body,” a Latino minor shouted angrily and in disbelief, “I am not a body!  I am a human being!”

Preaching at the Bully Pulpit

More painful than any injuries, more uncomfortable than the concrete slabs we slept on, more disgusting than the food, was the preaching we were forced to endure from police. I guess it’s easy to think you’re right when you only lecture to a handcuffed audience, but even so, the hypocrisies were breathtaking.

This began with the case of Oscar Grant himself, who a vast majority of the public agree was brutally murdered by BART cop Johannes Mehserle. All the fine Miller had to say was that “the media played a large role in the problem.” Evidently, “the problem” was the fact that Mehserle had been arrested, not that Grant had been murdered. To claims of racism, both against Grant and as an unspoken rule of policing, he appealed to demographics: sure, in Oakland his drug arrests were mostly of black and Latino men, but when he had worked in (mostly white) Hayward, he arrested mostly whites. Only the barest of logic is necessary to convince someone of something they already believe.

I brought up the 2007 murder of Gary King, shot in the back on Miller’s own beat as he fled. He insisted that while many argued King didn’t have a gun, he was sure that he did, and not just that, but he was “going for it.” When I asked how he could possibly “know” that there was a gun, and more to the point, “know” that King was “going for it,” when only Pat González, the murdering officer was present, the debate is over: he mutters “justifiable homicide” and changes the subject. We are quite simply speaking different languages.

Still worse was the lengthy lecture one imprisoned protester was given at fingerprinting. A young cop, insisting that he defends the right to protest, launched into a condescending explanation of the lessons of Martin Luther King Jr. It was tempting to point out that he had clearly failed to grasp the dynamics of the Civil Rights Movement, the necessary dialectic of militancy and nonviolence, of MLK and Malcolm, that had driven political change. It was tempting to suggest that someone in his position 50 years ago would likely have seen King as a communist and a terrorist, and most certainly as violent, as was the public perception and press portrayal before the Black Power Movement entered the scene and liberals rushed to the cause of moderate change. It was tempting, too, to note that the government and even some clergy turned again on King near the end of his life for his increasingly radical views and criticism of the Vietnam War and capitalism, reserving for this prophet of nonviolence an assassin’s bullet. But concrete walls, uniforms, and guns don’t generally make for productive debate.

When one of the arrestees requested food after being held for 9 hours, the response was gleefully insulting: “you should always make sure you’re full if you’re gonna get arrested,” one officer chirped with proud condescension, “maybe next time you should stop at Chili’s on the way to the protest.”

“Damn Another Santa Rita Weekend” --The Coup

At around 3am, after being systematically shifted between holding cells for more than nine hours to cultivate disorientation and prevent what little sleep was possible on a concrete bench or a filthy floor, we are transported to Santa Rita. They had lied to us about citing and releasing us, and without reading us our rights, without even telling us we were arrested, without telling us what the charges were or the bail amount, we were shipped out. There, the holding cell is even filthier, and while we are the first to arrive, by 8am the room is full to capacity with some 30 new inmates. Most, it seems, were grabbed on incorrect warrants or bogus charges that are unlikely to stick, but it doesn’t matter much: for those unable to post bail or bond, there is little recourse, and many were resigned to spending a month, or at least a “Santa Rita weekend” at the facility only for the charges to be dropped or to be found innocent. There’s no presumed innocence when you’re poor.

As day breaks, we are issued our 2XL county blues and fish-kits, and as we are preparing to be moved yet again, we begin to discuss the Oscar Grant case. Unsurprisingly, everyone in our holding cell knows about it, everyone has seen the video. Even less surprising, perhaps, is the fact that everyone knows what side they are on. One Latino inmate stands on the bench and begins an impromptu speech: “what we need to do is to attack the code of silence that binds these cops to each other, they know who kills who, and we need to get them to snitch on each other, that’s the only way we’ll get justice.” He ends his speech by advocating a generalized and indefinite hunger strike until the other officers on the platform when Grant was murdered are arrested as accessories to the crime.

After inmates are strip-searched, we move into the general housing unit bunk areas, or “pods.” We are disoriented from lack of sleep, but as soon as our pod-mates find out what our charges are, their support is immediate and unwavering. When I mention that I’m a writer, it is not but a few short moments before I am handed the small pen and the disheveled stack of paper with which I am writing this very document. “At least you in here on some real shit,” one remarked, fist in the air.

George Ciccariello-Maher is a Ph.D. candidate in political theory at UC Berkeley. He lives in Oakland, and can be reached at gjcm(at)berkeley.edu.

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