|
|
|
The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! How Cops Extort Confessions;
|
home / subscribe / donate / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq
The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
How Cops Extort Confessions;
How the U.S. “Justice System” Really WorksNinety-two per cent of felony convictions in the U.S. are obtained by plea bargains or confessions. Without them the “justice system” would grind to a halt. In an important piece in our latest newsletter, available only to subscribers, Emily Horowitz shows how totally innocent people will “confess” under police pressure, even without physical torture. Horowitz outlines the powerful case for banning confessions altogether. Also in this new edition Marcus Rediker, co-author of the legendary The Many Headed Hydra, writes of popular heroism and resistance in the favelas of Medellin, Colombia. Alexander Cockburn reports on how America’s oldest bank, patronized by the global elites, washed billions smuggled out of Russia, and how the Russians might win their money back, shaking the world’s banking system if they do so. Serge Halimi describes the real battle for the soul of Europe. Get your copy 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 August 5, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts August 4, 2008 Uri Avnery Saul Landau David W. Remington Rev. Jesse Jackson Dave Lindorff Peter Morici Joanne Mariner Ramzy Baroud Christian Wright Website of the Day August 2 / 3, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Winslow T. Wheeler James Abourezk Andy Worthington Brian Cloughley Robert Fantina Benjamin Dangl Marlene Martin David Yearsley Fatemeh Keshavarz David Michael Green Obama as Dukakis Harvey Wasserman Jason Hribal Phyllis Pollack Laray Polk Ron Jacobs David Macaray David Rosen Dan Bacher Joe Allen Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 1, 2008 Jonathan Cook Nikolas Kozloff Rannie Amiri Peter Morici Christopher Brauchli M. K. Bhadrakumar Patrick Cockburn James J. Brittain Dan Bacher Website of the Day
July 31, 2008 Michael Hudson Carl Finamore Mike Whitney Joshua Frank Andy Worthington Ralph Nader Bill Moyers / Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff Website of the Day July 30, 2008 Brian M. Downing Chuck Spinney William S. Lind David Ker Thomson Karl Grossman Mike Whitney Martha Rosenberg James Murren Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Website of the Day July 29, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair John Ross Peter Morici Alison Weir Gary Leupp David Macaray Brenda Norrell Marjorie Cohn Eric Ruder Website of the Day July 28, 2008 Dr. Bryant Welch Kathy Kelly Mike Whitney Peter Morici Christopher Brauchli Clifton Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day July 26 / 27, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair James G. Abourezk Joseph Nevins Uri Avnery Linn Washington, Jr. David Yearsley Binoy Kampmark Saul Landau Joshua Frank Brendan Cooney Jonathan Cook Robert Fantina Lee Sustar Michael Winship David Macaray Missy Beattie Robert Weissman Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend July 25, 2008 Harvey Wasserman Paul Craig Roberts Alan Farago Paul D'Amato Gary Leupp Niranjan Ramakrishnan Mike Whitney Paul Krassner Mike Roselle Website of the Day July 24, 2008 Greg Moses Andy Worthington James Bovard Joe Bageant George Wuerthner DC Larson William Willers David Macaray Website of the Day July 23, 2008 Winslow T. Wheeler Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Mike Whitney Susie Day Website of the Day July 22, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Patrick Cockburn Soldz, Olson, Reisner Arrigo and Welch Moshe Adler Martha Rosenberg Dan Bacher Harvey Wasserman Anthony Papa Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day July 21, 2008 Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Scott Pellegrino John Ross Robert Weitzel Mike Stark Website of the Day July 19 / 20, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Dave Lindorff Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Uri Avnery Neve Gordon Roane Carey Robert Fantina Christopher Brauchli Fred Gardner David Macaray Richard L. Hutto Bill Moyers / Ronnie Cummins David Yearsley Alison McKenna Wajahat Ali Poets' Basement Website of the Day July 18, 2008 Corey D. B. Walker Mike Whitney Robert Bryce Mike Roselle Bouthaina Shaaban Eve Spangler Website of the Day
July 17, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts James G. Abourezk Ralph Nader Allan J. Lichtman Andy Worthington"Screwed Up" and"Abused": Omar Khadr's Interrogations at Gitmo Ronnie Cummins
July 16, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig Roberts Conn Hallinan Dave Lindorff William S. Lind Christopher Brauchli Website of the Day
July 15, 2008 Michael Hudson Brian Cloughley Patrick Cockburn John Ross Howard Lisnoff Website of the Day July 14, 2008 Uri Avnery Paul Craig Roberts Trish Schuh Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Alan Farago Seth Sandronsky Phyllis Pollack Website of the Day July 12 / 13, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair James Abourezk Nicole Colson Stan Cox Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Wajahat Ali / John Stauber Alan Farago Missy Beattie Robert Fantina Rannie Amiri Gregory Kafoury Fran Shor Martha Rosenberg David Macaray Andrew Wimmer Ron Jacobs Farzana Versey Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend July 11, 2008 Kevin Alexander Gray Sasan Fayazmanesh Peter Morici Mike Whitney Manuel Garcia, Jr. Robert Weissman Ramzy Baroud Kelly Overton Adrian Burgos Website of the Day July 10, 2008 Brian McKenna Paul Craig Roberts Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Joshua Frank Peter Morici Alan Maass Robert Weissman William Blum Alan Farago Website of the Day July 9, 2008 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Luis Rodriguez Sheldon Richman Fatemeh Keshavarz Chad Hanson Sen. Russ Feingold Niranjan Ramakrishnan Dave Lindorff Stanley Heller Philip Rizk Website of the Day July 8, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Laura Carlsen Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Patrick Irelan Chellis Glendinning David Macaray Dave Lindorff John Chuckman Phillip Doe Website of the Day July 7, 2008 Patrick Bond Kathy Kelly Andy Worthington Clifton Ross Elizabeth Schulte Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Binoy Kampmark Stephen Fleischman Website of the Day July 5 / 6, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair / Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Robert Fantina Binoy Kampmark Rannie Amiri Eric Ruder Brian Cloughley William Blum Frank Barat Christopher Brauchli David Yearsley Ron Jacobs Karim Makdisi Wendy Thompson / N. D. Jayaprakash Ramzy Baroud Kelly Overton Richard Neville Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
July 4, 2008 Kathy Kelly Dave Lindorff Paul Krassner Jackie Corr Laray Polk Dan Bacher Walter Brasch Charles Modiano Website of the Day July 3, 2008 Sharon Smith Andy Worthington Laura Carlsen Peter Morici Ramzi Kysia Martha Rosenberg Anne Landman Dave Zirin Kristin Bricker Website of the Day
July 2, 2008 Patrick Irelan Vijay Prashad Brian Cloughley Ralph Nader Robert Fantina Dave Lindorff Parvez Ahmed Robert Bryce Website of the Day July 1, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Mike Whitney Douglas Macgregor Steven Higgs Andy Worthington Binoy Kampmark Dave Lindorff Roger Burbach Richard W. Behan Gary Leupp Website of the Day |
August 5, 2008 Obama and the Apotheosis of Co-optationThe Audacity of DespairBy
EAMON MARTIN “Hope” in an election year is nothing new. It's just that after eight years of Bush administration wreckage served up by a compliant and servile Democratic congress, that the currency of people's hope has become so much more of an indispensable commodity to be exploited. Along comes Barack Obama. As everyone with a pulse is all too much aware, the Obama campaign has made nice-sounding words like “hope” and “change” it's centerpiece for the fresh, young senator who just happens to be African American. The Clinton campaign had tried it's damnedest to wrest away those valuable propaganda memes with all of the relentlessness and ferocious intensity of a pitbull. But in the end, it was decided that the man was better suited to maintain the status quo. Fear not though, Clintonistas. After such a long, grueling, American Idolesque fight which conveniently shoved actual issues like war and home foreclosures to the nation's back pages for months on end, party “unity” was quickly achieved, somehow magically. Look! Over there! It's Obama's foreign policy team --a crew of Clinton family insiders that could warm the cockles of any jaded Hillary fan, including ex-Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and Madeline “we think the price of 500,000 dead Iraqi children is worth it” Albright. You see, there's still hope for you too! After all, it's all about the personality, not the policy, right? “Hope” now springs eternal. With public opinion polls showing enthusiasm for the Democratically-controlled Congress hovering near the gutter of single digits, you better believe in the crushing necessity of hope. Perhaps anticipating this sad state of affairs, Obama even named his best-selling book, “The Audacity of Hope.” Suddenly, hope is not the last resort of apathy and anti-intellectual foolishness, but a revolutionary act. The audacity! The audacity and unctuousness of this black man to believe in and promote the empire at the precise hour of its decay, while it runs rampant at home and abroad. If he can still believe, shouldn't you? One should not just pull a lever and “hope” for the best. I understand. It's been like this for awhile. But that a candidate's electability has been degraded and reduced to the extent to which they can generate and foster mere “hope” for the future is a testament to just how pathetic and demoralized our collective disenfranchisement is. In a healthy, functioning democratic system, a candidate is ushered into public office by the informed consent and demand of the popular will to effect specific change. Once in office, it is understood that this public servant will endure high-pressured expectations, and should they not perform as promised, they will be held to account and thrown out on their ear for failing the republic. But I know, that's strictly fairytale fare. I forgot. This is the era of “executive privilege.” We can only “hope” that our elected leaders will do what we want, even if a clear and broad majority of us want it –like a national health care program or the troops home now (and no, not a “phased redeployment”). Best illustrating the political debasement of this zeitgeist is MoveOn.org's brand new, prize-winning Obama commercial to be aired on MTV and Comedy Central. It's theme and title: “It Could Happen To You.” This short, insipid advertisement is based on the suspense of fleeting, non-sequitur, PSA-style testimonials from hip-looking thirty-somethings fessing up to what the viewer might expect to be an STD or erectile dysfunction. But in the end (big laughs, now)...the punchline is that it's not drug addiction they're talking about, but presto --it's hope! Hope --that amorphous and pliant, feel-good, four letter word that needs no explication. Hope –it's a noun! It's a verb! Like the best post-modern marketing campaign, it's so durable –it's anything you want it to be! It's an all-purpose sponge-mop that can absorb all of those anxieties, fears and insecurities you've been accumulating all these years and then, squeeze it and –voila, that's no gray water, it's hope! Screw the facts! Have a big, mushy helping of hope on your plate instead. It goes down much easier than critical thinking. Hope trumps Thought. For example, it's much easier to hope that if Obama is president, he will “end the war in Iraq” rather than more carefully examine his statements which reveal a more evasive, open-ended and outright hawkish policy involving keeping tens of thousands of troops in Iraq as an occupying, “residual force,” escalating the war in Afghanistan and making provocative threats towards Iran. So this is what “change” will look like, eh? In this way, “hope” has taken on a profound, new level of meaning and co-optation, representing a new low --nay, a quantum low in social discourse away from it's antecedent “blind faith.” Clearly embodying and best exemplifying the symptoms of this political illness –this hope-- appropriately enough, is none other than MoveOn.org scion Eli Pariser who in a recent McClatchy article revealed his complete ignorance about Barack Obama, much less U.S. Foreign policy. His quotes are a revelation for understanding the malaise of hope. Upon reading them, suddenly it makes sense that MoveOn is at the frontlines of the liberal soup line, ladleling out the Kool Aid of Hope to millions (and making a profit to boot). Asked about Obama's recent trip to the Middle East, Pariser gushed: "So far the trip has been out of the park. It's an enormous moment." He then confessed he wasn't fully aware of Obama's call for a residual force in Iraq and evaded commenting on Afghanistan because at this late hour he still needs to get a focus group of his membership together for their feelings about it. That MoveOn.org commands such an enormous membership does not fill me with the hope that the power of intellectual progress will eventually prevail. It sickens me with dread. But since it is the order of the day, I'll jump on the bandwagon to tack on just a few, rudimentary things I think should be included in any Obama voter's toolkit of “hope”: --Hope that Barack Obama was only telling the Israelis what they wanted to hear when tripping over himself to profess his "unshakable commitment to Israel's security," which included fibbing about belonging to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee (which he doesn't) to pass “a bill to call for divestment from Iran as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon” (which he didn't). --Hope that Barack Obama was also only telling the Israelis what they wanted to hear while repeatedly making the outstandingly controversial claim that Jerusalem is their nation's rightful capital --a statement that singlehandedly outraged the Arab world and squashed any hope they might have had for real change in US foreign policy in the Middle East and the beleaguered occupied Palestinian territories. --Hope that Barack Obama is only trying to talk tough to get elected while (like President Bush) he relentlessly and dangerously “ratchets up the pressure” with Iran by “taking no (military) option off the table,” at the same moment his new Israeli friends openly talk about potentially imminently attacking that country. --Hope that Barack Obama isn't really serious about “redeploying” thousands of troops to Afghanistan to win what he describes as being a better war to fight. --Hope that Barack Obama, once elected, will be willing to betray and confront his big backers in the ethanol industry with the unpleasant problem of mass starvation and environmental havoc they have unleashed across the planet at a breakneck pace. --Hope that Barack Obama will also be willing to betray and confront his big backers in the coal industry whose designs for the immediate future portend an even grimmer forecast for the consequences of global warming. --Hope that Barack Obama's top campaign staff which (like John McCain) has counted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac chief executives and lobbyists amongst them, doesn't enjoy intimate influence such that an Obama presidency merely bails them out and leaves you homeless. Don't get me wrong. I do find the prospect of certifiably stupid and insane John McCain jockeying the Oval Office to be a much, much more terrifying scenario. But it is with the utmost humiliating resignation that I admit that come November, for lack of any viable alternative, save for expatriating to another country and daydreaming about a sudden and miraculous US reclamation of our revolutionary heritage, that I too will vote for Obama. I'm not drinking the Kool Aid. But for my own dignity and for the millions or people whose hearts will be broken when the “change they can believe in” never appears beyond the color of Obama's flesh, let it be said that “hope” as a political commodity reached it's apotheosis of co-optation... and what really transpired was the most audacious exploitation of despair. Eamon Martin is editor and co-anchor of The Global Report
|
Now Available from CounterPunch Books!
RED STATE REBELS:
Edited by  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy AMERICAN BOOK AWARD!  Click Here to Buy! Click Here for Dates & Venues Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz  Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order! How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism     
    
 
 Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed                   |
