Today's Stories

October 22, 2008

Brian Cloughley
Kid Killers are Barbarians

Jeff Birkenstein
McCain's Disdain for Spain

DC Larson
The Growing of a Heartland Nader Raider

David Swanson
Colin Powell, Not Qualified for Government Service

Robert Fantina
Anything to Win

October 21, 2008

Vijay Prashad
Wealth's Apostles

Paul Craig Roberts
How Inflation Works: Why I Can't Buy an Old Ferrari

Corey D. B. Walker
Empire and White Supremacy

Steve Breyman
How to "Win" in Afghanistan

Eric Toussaint
The Economic Crisis and Latin America: Time to Delink

Wajahat Ali
Boo Radley Comes Out to Play: the Emerging Muslim-American Electorate

Robert Weitzel
Wasting a Vote for Lincoln's Radical Ideal (Or Why I'm Voting for Nader)

Brendan Cooney
Palinoscopy: an Exploration of Why Liberals are So Obsessed with Sarah Palin

Dave Lindorff
Cuba's Oil Reserves: a Game-Changer?

Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing
When You're a Black Candidate There's No Such Thing as a Safe Lead

Patrick B. Barr
Socialist, Socialist, SOCIALIST!

Omar Barghouti
The Boycott and Palestinian Groups: Countering the Critics

Website of the Day
How to Dismantle a US War Plane (and Get Away With It)

October 20, 2008

Michael Hudson
The ABCs of Paulson's Bailout

Anthony DiMaggio
The Scandal That Never Was: ACORN, Rightwing Media and Election "Fraud"

Tariq Ali
Zardari Bans My Books

Uri Avnery
Is Akko Burning?

Bill Quigley
Hammered by the Swedes

Ben Rosenfeld
The Politics of St. Joe, Martyr to a Lie

David Michael Green
Payback's a Bitch: McCain on the Ash Heap

William S. Lind
The Afghanistan Advantage

Chris Genovali
Drill, Baby, Drill (Wink, Wink)

Stephen Martin
The Last Man in America

Howard Lisnoff
Bad News for War Resisters

David Yearsley
Organ Meat

Website of the Day
Our Brother is Sick: the Steve Ferguson Cancer Fund

October 17 / 19, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Blow Ups and Bombers

Jeffrey St. Clair
Inside Hanford: a Trip to America's Most Toxic Place

Pam Martens
How the Banksters are Making a Killing Off the Bailout

Paul Craig Roberts
Government of Thieves

Mike Whtney
No More Investment Banks

Michael D. Yates
Bowling Alley Blues: Racism Dies Hard in Johnstown, PA

Suzanne Smith
The Energy-War Connection: McCain Said It, Why Don't We?

Carl Boggs
Prosecuting Bush

Ralph Nader
Closing the Courthouse Doors

Fidel Castro
The Global Crash

Dave Marsh
The Great Levi Stubbs

Saul Landau
Denial, the Election Musical Comedy

Jo Guldi
The Floods of Heaven

Kevin Zeese
Now the Cost of War Really Matters

Larry Everest
Afghanistan, Not a Good War Gone Bad

Steve Early
Stop, in the Name of Joe!

David Macaray
Hey, Joe

Ben Terrall
When Ike Hit Haiti

Missy Beattie
Palin and God's Children

Don Monkerud
American Exceptionalism

Helen Redmond
Health Care Now's Big Con

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision: Canals and Dams to Bail Out Big Ag

Wajahat Ali
Bush Gets Stoned

Farzana Versey
The White Tiger's Stripes and Gripes

Vladimir Frolov
Medvedev to Obama: We Come Not to Bury America, But to Buy It

Kim Nicolini
Frozen River: At Last, a Great Movie That's Neither Hip Nor Cool

Poets Basement
Gibbons, Corsale, Davis and Fleming

Website of the Day
The Real Sarah Palin?

October 16, 2008

Mike Whitney
The End of Friedmanite Economics: an Interview with Robert Pollin

Jonathan Cook
The Acre Riots

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Is Obama Playing to the Gallery? Or Has He Lost the Plot in South Asia?

Alan Maass
A Supreme Injustice: the Death Penalty Case of Troy Davis

Chuck O'Connell
Our Needs Do Not Fit on Their Ballots

Mary Lynn Cramer
Krugman's Prize: Iconoclast, Apologist or Propagandist?

P. Sainath
The Race May be Over, But Race Isn't

Andy Worthington
The Shrinking Case Against Binyam Mohamed: Justice Department Drops "Dirty Bomb Plot" Allegation

Peter Gelderloos
Enric Duran, the Good Thief?

Stephen Martin
The Nourishment of Idleness: Where Has All the Money Gone?

Douglas Valentine
Why I'm Voting for Obama

Website of the Day
The Mormon Worker

October 15, 2008

Steve Conn
The Real Story of Troopergate

William P. O'Connor
The Legend of John McCain

Robert Weissman
The Partial Nationalization of US Banks: Public Ownership, But No Public Control

Jonathan M. Feldman
Before the Second Wave of Crisis: an Alternative to the Triple Failure

Ron Jacobs
The Politics of Race in America: Is a Vote For Obama a Vote Against Racism?

Conn Hallinan
Targeting Unions in Colombia

Justin Podur
The Financial Economy and Real Economy

Karl Grossman
The New Nuclear Navy

Dave Lindorff
Is the Government Really Turning Socialist?

Eric Walberg
The Quiet Russian

Martha Rosenberg
Of Blood and Eggs

Uri Avnery
A Fairy Tale

Monica Benderman
No More

Website of the Day
Contractor Misconduct Database

October 14, 2008

Robert Richter
McCain: War Hero or War Criminal?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Bailout and the Smell Test

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The Wall Street Coup and the Bailout Scam

Steve Conn
Made in Alaska: Fear of the Fringe

P. Sainath
The Race Could be Over, But Race Isn't

Gregory Elich
How the Nobel Peace Prize Was Won

Stephen Martin
A Tectonic Shift in Hegemony at the G7

Rev. William Alberts
Don't Blink Twice

Laura Carlsen
The Fall of the Bush Dynasty Plan

Joanne Mariner
The Uighurs Come to Washington

Howard Lisnoff
Left Behind: a Biden Fundraiser and the Children of Holyoke

David Macaray
A Tale of Two Unions

Website of the Day
Six Degrees of Hank Paulson

October 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Farewell to Daniel Cassidy

Michael Hudson
Rescue for the Few, Debt Slavery for the Many

Patrick Cockburn
Pogrom Against Mosul's Christians

Chris Floyd
The God That Failed: the 30-Year Lie of the Market Cult

Fidel Castro
The Law of the Jungle: Racism, Obama and the Fall of the American Economy

Robert Weitzel
Olmert's Depths of Reality

Derek Wright
How Chrysler Killed My Uncle

Stephen Soldz
Guantánamo's SERE Standard Operating Procedures

David Michael Green
Greed is Not Good

Norman Solomon
Requiem for the Bailout: a Storyline

Charles R. Larson
Toni Morrison on Her Own Terms

Lisa Massaciuccoli
The Shoplifting Association of the Americas

Website of the Day
Arlo Guthrie: "I'm Changing My Name to Fannie Mae"

October 10 / 12, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Is McCain a Lot Sicker Than We Know?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Obama's Nuclear Ambition

Douglas Valentine
Mission CREEP: From John Mitchell to John McCain

Noam Chomsky
Exposing the Un-Democratic Face of Capitalism

Ralph Nader
The Derivatives Game

Syed Saleem Shahzad
Why the Neo-Taliban is Winning

Patrick Cockburn
War in the Time of Cholera

Paul Craig Roberts
A Possible Solution to the Economic Crisis

Mike Whitney
Run on the System

Peter Morici
The Deficit and the Damage Done

Christopher Ketcham
The End of the Economy

Stephen Martin
Shock and Awe in Economic Warfare

Chellis Glendinning
Wireless Mind, Gullible Mind

Saul Landau
All Guns, No Butter

Ahmad Faruqui
21 Days to Baghdad

Adam Turl
Sheriff Tom Dart vs. the Banksters

Serge Halimi
The Battle for the West

Anthony DiMaggio
Making a Killing: the Business of Elections

John Ross
The Sky is Falling on Mexico, Too

José M. Tirado
Meltdown in Iceland

Paul Krassner
Beat the Crowd in Denver: Cops and T-Shirts

David Macaray
Adventures in Unionism

Robert Fantina
Bankrupt and Belligerent

David Yearsley
The Playlist for Election 2008

Julian Clec'h
The Soap Washing Through Saudi Arabia

Adam Engel
Sexual Healing ... for the Planet

Phyllis Pollack
The Rolling Stones Go Home, Again

Missy Beattie
Going North: the Coming Nation of Alaska

Poets' Basement
Landau, Moser and Henson

Website of the Day
Sarah as Esther? New Video From Inside Palin's Church

October 9, 2008

Robert Bryce
From Enron to the Current Meltdown

David Vest
The Great Rescue of 2008: Could Whatever Follows Bush Be Even Worse?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Meltdown at the Pentagon

Andy Worthington
The Ordeal of the Wrongly Imprisoned Uighurs

Anthony DiMaggio
Obama the Subhuman

Helga Serrano /
Hector Tamayo
Ecuador Charts the Way

Dave Lindorff
When Money Flies

Mats Svensson
At the Checkpoint on the Day of Atonement

Rannie Amiri
The Time for Mordechai Vanunu is Now

Website of the Day
The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Support

October 8, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Imbecilic Tedium

Linn Washington, Jr.
Palin's Racist Remark

Mike Whitney
To the Bunkers!

Deepak Tripathi
The West is Broke

George C. Wilson
Butter Over Guns? McCain and Obama on Defense Issues

Andy Worthington
Seized in Pakistan

Charles R. Larson
"I'm John McCain and I Approved This Lie"

Patrick Irelan
Ecuador's Choice

Matthew Koehler
Log, Baby, Log: Bailing Out the Timber Industry

Stanley Heller
Time to Design a New Economy

Daniel Gross
Working Class Hero: Alexandra Svoboda

Kimberly Hartke
Raw Milk and Civil Liberties

Website of the Day
Olivia Wilde Does It Early

October 7, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Obama and McCain's Goofy Afghan Bluster

Gary Leupp
Seven Years in Afghanistan:
From "War on Terror" to
"War of Terror"

Uri Avnery
Olmert's Final Divorce
From "All of Eretz Israel"

P. Sainath
The Cop-Out Election
Major Candidates, Congress, Press, All Fail in the Big Crisis

Peter Morici
The Dow Tanks as Bank Bailout Fails to Restore Confidence

Conn Hallinan
The Great Game in the Caucasus:
Bad Moves by Uncle Sam

Martha Rosenberg
Training America's Youth
Today a Pheasant, Tomorrow Osama

Binoy Kampmark
Let's Talk About Extinction:
CERN and Halo

October 6, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
A Futile Bailout as Darkness Falls on America

Mike Whitney
Still on the Edge of the Abyss

Tariq Ali
Goodbye to Grosvenor Square

Emily Horowitz
How People Tell Cops They're Guilty Even When They Aren't

Michael Hudson
What Did Jesus Say?
A Christian Perspective on the Paulson Bank Bailout

Ron Jacobs
Winter Soldiers and Washington's Wars

October 3 - 5, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Creatures of Capital

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Paulson's Plan is a Fraud

Saul Landau
The Chutzpah of Hank Paulson

Jonathan Cook
The Souring of a West Bank Romance: Israel's Army and Settlers Fall Out

Andy Worthington
The Dark Heart of the Guantánamo Trials

Dave Marsh
Bono (Himself) Challenges Me to a Debate

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Using the IAEA to Spy on Iran

John Ross
Massacre in Morelia

Brian Cloughley
The Unacceptable Face of Capitalism

Wajahat Ali
Dueling Partners: an Interview with Tariq Ali on Pakistan

Robert Schwartz
A Serious Blow to the Rights of U.S. Workers: NLRB Limits Political Strikes

Alan Nasser
FDR's Response to the Plot to Overthrow Him: a Paradigm for Today's Democrats?

David Ker Thomson
The Case for Drunk Driving

Peter Morici
Gone in 30 Days: U.S. Loses 159,000 Jobs in September

William Blum
When is a Holocaust Not a Holocaust?

William S. Lind
War on Two Fronts: Without Railroads

Michael Donnelly
The Ghost of Gen. McClellan

Thom Rutledge
On Presidential "Rule"

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Science and the 2008 Presidential Elections: a Survey of the Candidates

Dave Lindorff
Calling the Problem Early

Cindy Ellen Hill
Waging a Sustainable Peace?

Paul Krassner
Dying to Get High: the Side Effects of Medical Marijuana

Daniel White
Vietnam's Masterspy

Poets' Basement
Corseri, Absher, Gibbons and Jenkins

Website of the Weekend
How We Lost Glen Canyon: a Legal Chronology

October 2, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Can a Bailout Succeed?

Joe Bageant
Speaking in the Tongues of Brokers: the Bailout in Plain English

Ralph Nader
Soulmates in Deregulation

Mike Whitney
Why the Bailout Stinks

Madis Senner
When Push Comes to Pull: How a Foreign Banker Invasion Sent the Markets Reeling

Winslow T. Wheeler
Congress as Usual:the Crisis Will Pass, But This Bunch Will Remain the Same

William Blum
A Boy's Game: the Origins of the Financial Crisis

P. Sainath
Wall Street Transforms Presidential Race

Website of the Day
McCain's Meltdown in Des Moines

October 1 , 2008

Glen Ford
The Last Hold Up

Steven Conn
Trashing Sarah Palin: the Boomerang Effect

Alan Maass / Lee Sustar
Why Not a Bailout for the Rest of Us?

Kenneth Couesbouc
The Blame Game: When Wall Street Pigs Sprout Wings

Stan Goff
How the Republicans Can Win (And Deserve It)

Adolfo Gilly
Racism, Domination and Bolivia

Rannie Amiri
Bombs in the Levant

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The Recurring Myth of Peak Oil

Adam W. Parsons
Food and Markets

Dave Lindorff
Bums' Rush to the Bailout: Where are the Hearings?

Douglas Valentine
The Bush Continuity Plan?

Adrien Rain Burke
The Party's Over: an Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi

Website of the Day
Sarah Palin's Beauty Pageant

September 30, 2008

Pam Martens
What Wall Street Hoped to Win

Chris Floyd
The Shadow of the Pitchfork: Elite Panic on Wall Street

Stephen Martin
A Biological Walk Down Wall Street

Deepak Tripathi
A Bitter Harvest in Afghanistan

Mark Engler
Bad Money

Jonathan Cook
The Attack on Zeev Sternhell: Has Israel Become a Breeding Ground for Jewish Settler Terrorism?

Dave Lindorff
The Power of No

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Time for a General Strike?

Ahmad Faruqui
In Cold Blood: Buried Alive in Pakistan

John Chuckman
Will the Bride Wear White? As Rome Burns, Bristol Palin Prepares to Tie the Knot with Mr. "Sex on Skates"

David Macaray
Blaming the Labor Unions

Fatemeh Keshavarz
What Obama Could Have Said

Website of the Day
538: a Cognitive Map of American Politics

September 29, 2008

Mike Whitney
Black Monday

Jeff Gibbs
"Just Say No!" to Reverse Robin Hood

Paul Craig Roberts
Why America Should Listen to Ahmadinejad

Peter Morici
The Bailout and the Economy

Tim Wise
Racism as Reflex

John Walsh
Sarah Palin is a Rotten Mom

Uri Avnery
Israeli Fascism: Yes, It Can Happen Here

Alan Farago
Hell to Pay: the Financial Collapse and the Housing Market

Andy Worthington
Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Running the 9/11 Trials?

David Michael Green
Where's the Repudiation?

Carl Finamore
Capitalism on Steroids; Labor on Tranquilizers

Iris Keltz
Postcards from the DNC

Bill Hatch
Take This Shrimp Slayer!

Website of the Day
Tina Fey as Palin, Round Two

September 27 / 28, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
How McCain Blew It

Linn Washington, Jr.
Alaska's Blacks and Palin: a Strained Relationship

Christopher Ketcham
An Israeli Trojan Horse

Mike Whitney
The People vs. the Banksters

Kevin Alexander Gray Race in the Race: Is Obama Shining Us On?

Anthony DiMaggio
The Unspoken War: Pakistan, the Media and Nuclear Weapons

Mary Lynn Cramer
Their Assets; Our Debts: How Economic Crises Are Overcome

Marc Levy /
Susan Erony
War Jokes Wanted: No Laughing Matter

Stan Cox
Livestock of Mass Destruction: Germ Labs in the Heartland

Saul Landau
Election Drizzle

Ali Khan
Meltdown in American Markets: an Islamic Perspective

David Rosen
The Great Fear: the Sexual Politics of Sarah Palin

Todd Alan Price
Bailing Out the Foes of Public Eduction

Matts Svensson
The Red and White Bird in Gaza

Ron Jacobs
Pakistan Through the Eyes of a Native Son

Robert Fantina
McCain and the Economy

Richard Rhames
Hank-ering for a Bailout

David Krieger
The U.S.-India Nuclear Proliferation Deal

Seth Sandronsky
Rethinking Charter Schools

Charles R. Larson
Dear Mrs. Abacha: a Nigerian Email Romance

Kim Nicolini
Sadism in the Desert

Poets' Basement
La Morticella, Holt, Moser and Buknatski

Website of the Day
The Great Schlep

September 26, 2008

Moshe Adler
Bailing Out Wall Street Won't Save Main Street

Bill Quigley
The U.S. War on Unarmed Working Mothers

Jonathan Cook
When Archaeology Becomes a Curse

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Visions of Pinpoint Control: the Romance of Laser Weapons

Madis Senner
Why the Bailout will Fail

Brian Cloughley
US Raids in Pakistan: Violations of Sovereignty

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Oh, Henry!

Joanne Mariner
Passport Fraud and Torture

Dan La Botz
The Financial Crisis: a View from the Left

David Macaray
Ralph's Management Indicted by Federal Grand Jury

Website of the Day
Nader and Obama Girl at the Office

September 25, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Insanity of the $700 Billion Giveaway

Sharon Smith
Democrats and Corporate Bailouts

Ralph Nader
Who Will Show Some Backbone Against the Bailout?

Christopher Ketcham
The Economy of Dead Sperm (or What I Learned From My Race-Car Grandpa Who Had No Bankers)

Eric Toussaint
Is Another Third World Debt Crisis in the Offing?

Robert Weissman
Getting Wall Street Pay Reform Right

David Estabrook
A Better Bailout Plan

Nikolas Kozloff
The Voyage of the SS Peter the Great

Steve Early
The High Price of Purple Dissent

Judith Scherr
Blue Helmets in Haiti

Laray Polk
South Ossetia and Abkhazia: Notes from the Inside

Website of the Day
Letterman Spanks McCain

September 24, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
The Bitter Fruits of Deregulation

Nikolas Kozloff
Palin at the UN: a Tutorial from Uribe

Robert Weissman
The Financial Crisis: How and Why Congress Should Play for Time

Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Trials: Govt. Says Six Years Not Long Enough to Prepare Evidence

Steve Conn
Will Nader's Warning be Acknowledged in the Presidential Debates?

Karyn Strickler
The $700,000,000,000 Power Punch

Diane Farsetta
Stealth Marketers Gone Wild

Dennis Loo
Poisoned Legacy

John Halle
Wealth Tax Now!

Khalil Nakhleh
Palestinians Under the Occupation

Website of the Day
Nader: Debate Crasher

September 23, 2008

Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr.
Bail Out on This Bailout

Michael Hudson
Henry Paulson and the New Yazoo Land Scandal

Tariq Ali
Why was the Marriott Targeted?

Patrick Dyer
A Death Row Visit with Troy A. Davis

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah and the Palestinians

Joshua Frank
Oppose Barack Obama? How Dare Thee!

Alan Farago
Pushing the Referees: How the Financial Crisis Occurred

Dave Lindorff
The Bailout Will Kill the Dollar

Tanya M. Kerssen /
Roger Burbach
Bolivia's Popular Upheaval

Harvey Wasserman
Nuclear Power Liabilities Dwarf Bush's Wall Street Bailout

Website of the Day
Hammered by the Irish: the Video

September 22, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Paulson-Bernanke Bank Bailout Plan: Will the Cure be Worse Than the Crisis?

Mike Whitney
Mushroom Clouds Over Wall Street

Christopher Ketcham
Let It Collapse!

Ron Jacobs
The Predators' Bailout

Anne-Marie McManus
Lost in the Rhetoric of Crisis

Robert Weitzel
The Twin Terrors of the Holy Land: a Sexy Fundamentalist and a White-Haired Zionist

Wajahat Ali
An Interview with Howard Dean

John Ross
A New Cold War Comes to Latin America

Steve Breyman
Does the U.S. Really Need Cluster Bombs?

Patrick Bond
On the Bellies of the Filth

Uri Avnery
Fly, Tzipora, Fly

Carl J. Mayer
An Open Letter to Michael Moore (AKA God's Pen Pal): Whatever Happened to Voting Your Conscience?

Website of the Day
Stop the Execution of Troy Anthony Davis

September 20 / 21, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Is This the Stake Through Neoliberalism's Heart?

Michael Hudson
America's Own Kleptocracy

Pam Martens
The Wall Street Model: Unintelligent Design

Lila Rajiva
Putting Lipstick on an AIG

Mike Whitney
Full-Spectrum Breakdown

Richard Rhames
A Bailout to Nowhere

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
The NY Yankees and the U.S. Economy

Bill and Kathleen Christison
The Making of Recent U.S. Middle East Policies: a New Study of Neocon Influence

Susan Block
Palin as Venus in Furs: the Dominatrix Politics of Drilling and Killing

Robert Fantina
Republicans and Subpoenas: Never the Twain Shall Meet

Heidi Walters
Hung Up on Route 36: an 18-Wheeler and a Nuclear Cask

David Yearsley
Germany's Lost Organs: When Bigger Was Better

Raymond J. Lawrence
The Politics of Tribulation: Sarah Palin and the Rapture

David Rosen
One Billion Pills Later: Viagra at 10

David Michael Green
Living in Sarah Palin's America

Anthony Papa
Imprisoned Voters and the Elections

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Freddie, Fannie, Daddy, Nanny

Howard Lisnoff
When We Notice the Homeless

John Goekler
Leaving Every Child Behind

Missy Beattie
Impalement

Dave Zirin
Leave Josh Howard Alone

Charles R. Larson
Holden Caulfield, Rest in Peace

Tim Matson
Too Big for His Birches: Woodlot Economics

Susie Day
Attack of the Angry Fetus

Poets' Basement
Corseri, Gibbons, Jenkins and Ford

Website of the Weekend
Dylan & Baez: Deportees

September 19, 2008

Steven T. Banko
McCain's Passion Play

Mike Whitney
The Point of No Return

Michael Hudson
The Dow Jones' Wonderfully Cheesy Addition

William Kaufman
Shattering the Glass-Steagall Act: the Bi-Partisan Origins of the Financial Crisis

Brenda Norrell
The Fall of Lehman Bros.: Blowback for Black Mesa?

Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor
The New Rhetoric of Racism: Why Won't Obama Call It Out?

Clifton Ross
Bolivia: Cleaning Up the Bull Ring

Dave Lindorff
Hang On to Your Wallets: the Government's About to Rescue Us!

Cynthia McKinney
Seize the Time!

Susan Hurlich
Storm Survivors: a Dispatch from Cuba

Michael Donnelly
Let's Hand It All Over to the Democrats (They Helped Create This Mess)

Website of the Day
The Crisis Explained

September 18, 2008

Benjamin Dangl
The Machine Gun and the Meeting Table

Harvey Wasserman
The Senate's Drill, Drill, Drill Scam

Susan Abulhawa
The Lobby Has Spoken: Biden and Israel

Robert Weissman
After the Fall: the Financial Re-Regulatory Agenda

Anne-Marie McManus
McCain's Cinderella: the Fetishization of Sarah Palin

Corey D. B. Walker
The Poverty of 21st Century Progressivism

William S. Lind
Senator O'Bush: Why Obama is Wrong on Iran and Afghanistan

Ron Jacobs
Washington's False Logic of Torture

Dave Lindorff
American and China: Joined at the Hip

Binoy Kampmark
How Damien Hirst Got Away With It

Website of the Day
An Invisible Army

September 17, 2008

Stephen Conn
Palin and the Politics of Big Oil

Forrest Hylton
Reactionary Rampage in Bolivia

Patrick Cockburn
Petraeus Leaves Iraq

Gregory Elich
Inside North Korea

Ralph Nader
How the U.S. Auto Industry Wrecked Itself

Franklin Lamb
The Palestinians of Shabra-Shatila

Pam Martens
The Gang's All Here: Bush, McCain and the Old Iran/Contra Team

Dave Lindorff
The End of the Blue Chip Economy

Peter Morici
The Damage Deepens

Stanley Heller
The Killing of Count Folke Bernadotte

Douglas Valentine
Rambling David Foster Wallace

Website of the Day
Free Cindy McCain!

September 16, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
US Economy: Rudderless and Reeling from Direct Hits

Tiphaine Dickson
Citizen Palin: Why Sarah Palin Quoted Westbrook Pegler

Stan Goff
America is Now Rome: an Open Letter to Christian Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

Uri Avnery
Tzipi's Choice

Michael Winship
Lipstick on Polar Bears

Jeff Halper
Warehousing Palestinians

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia Versus the Empire

Oscar Gonzalez
Who's Dumber? Ike's Refugees or Wall Street's?

Binoy Kampmark
Cheney and His Records

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Muslims are at Peace with You

Sen. Russ Feingold
Restoring the Rule of Law

Website of the Day
The Next Great Rock Band?

September 15, 2008

Mike Whitney
The Tumbrils Roll at Dawn

Peter Morici
Toxic Lehman

Patrick Cockburn
Take Another Look at the Surge

Charles R. Larson
The Maverick Has No Clothes

Jonathan Cook
The Expulsion of Palestinians from Jaffa

Nikolas Kozloff
Racist Rhetoric in Bolivia

Roger Burbach
Morales Confronts the Insurrection: Bolivia and the Echoes of Allende

Helen Redmond
Where's the Health Care Bailout?

David Michael Green
The Democrats Do Poland

David Macaray
The Boeing Strike

Ralph Nader
Remembering Peter Camejo

Website of the Day
The Ballad of Sarah Palin

October 22, 2008

The Political Choice Facing America

Giving It Up to the Combine

By STEPHEN MARTIN

 "Yes. This is what I know. The ward is a factory for the Combine. It's for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed product goes back out into society, all fixed up good as new, better than new sometimes, it brings joy to the Big Nurse's heart."

 -Ken Kesey

There is a wondrous truth in the extract above.

A deliberation from far outside.

Truth within apt setting - the ward of psychiatric institution.

But this small article is to be no exercise in literary criticism; rather a rage against such factory as  representing body Politic degenerate, and a financial crisis caused by wilful deliberation as part of attempt at Global Financial Dominance - as act of madness.

Against the Combine as Political Form, and Military Metaphysic as world view.  As attempt to delineate psycho politics in a knowing of the enemy as Fascism - and the power of fear. The fear that we most of us now know so well as disruptive of psyche; in the questioning of assumptions made and as in threat to  daily routine of lives - such the effects of shakedown of the Economy as Meltdown caused.
Such , as consequent of Combine seeking to grasp more power in the shakedown.

It is of Political origin  - and demands Political remedy.

Such the extent of damage as chaos inflicted that it does indeed call into question: ‘Has the world gone mad?’

The Combine isn’t that big really.

It is people who elect to give it such power as it has, through belief.

Through form of ideological tithe of the mind, of giving up proportion of  individuality.

Giving it up to the Combine is a choice.

Certain things in the mind as so given up, or as reconstructed through propoganda,  as pattern in the head of others to scheme,  are as  taboo in the mentioning. 

They are as Social Contract abused.

Excess proportion of tithe of the mind,  as it were.  Given  from completed product thereby.

Don’t know about you; but I don’t want to be a pattern in anyone else’s head.

Or to be ideologically occupied and conceptually restrained by Combine, or produced as completed product by Factory,   or to cause joy in such as  Big Nurse’s heart.

As completed product Political.

Especially  not to serve the needs of so few, at the expense of so many.

I do not wish to become fait accompli to Fascism, however unwitting or gentle as unconscious slumber may the path be, before finding myself adopting such World View, looking around in fear, feeling under attack-  and persecuting in my  hatred as expression of such hateful state of being. As product complete.

It is so easy to forget the power of ideas as beliefs in Politics, and for ideological tithe to operate unconscious such sense. But it is there as potential in each and every individual, as selective filter, in the interpretation of political events that is as apperception: as reflection of the precedence of existence over essence. It is there in the calculations made.

The essence of spin is to operate at such a level, getting in to the ideological tithe. To limit thought as in the prohibition. By pejorative label, stereotype, generalisation, the maxim of slogan as seed,  for example, as constituent of tithe fashioned.

But what can be given up can also be taken down.

It is a double edged sword.

Politics seen here as pattern within world view determined, subjugation of consciousness political form accordant, factory restrained the Fascist form; Craft enhanced the Democratic – and the Combine as having fucked up in a big way, the factories not working as before,  Psycho Political demand increasing as much as Economic sense gone beyond.

Is there such connection?

The wheels are turning, the puppets are dancing, the spinmeisters hard at work.

Despite such, a lot of products out there are questioning their completeness, myself included.

The straightjackets have been pulled too tight for illusion to prevail further that they are not there.

This; there in the horror felt in listening to ‘Drill, baby Drill!’ at Political rally, as suitable ‘build up’ as could be to such mindless chant as: ‘War is Peace! Freedom is slavery! Ignorance is strength!”

In the distance felt, in such horror;  awareness of the tithe.  As  unconscious operant no more, such the glimmering of insight.

The insight  as would see straightjacket on such others chanting so, - while ignoring one’s own little item of such apparel, albeit drawstrings not so tightly drawn. Yet.

The world has gone mad, and the lunatics are in charge.
The demand for tithe requisite to support such world view form, the reality of Economic Imbalance, inequity of distribution,  become  too great to support the quid pro quo of outstretched hand as born of calculation, as in the enjoinment of scheme.

That there be pretence as to Emperors new clothes whilst wearing rags oneself?

As a ragged trousered philanthropist to ideological tithe?

But; always to the Combine which wants more given up.

Economics and Morality demand control of belief and can become the triumph of illusion over reality, or reality over illusion. To Riefenstahl, to Hitler; the former expressed as ‘Triumph of the Will’.

Of Social Contract as Psychology based upon Economy of daily crust given expressive of the ‘Morality’?

Of the Gini Coefficient and Military Metaphysic in intimacy of relationship.  For  you can’t have one without the other, they are bound irrevocable in the body Politic.

But God knows we must have Billionaires, and ‘sharing the wealth’ be as obscenity in the tithe; taboo -  the very idea being as the sight of turd in a swimming pool.

Even although most people, truth be told, now need such greater sharing of the wealth more than ever. As it has become even more polarised in the possession.  As their sufferance grows.

Of pragmatism such relationship born; Machiavellian manipulation of energy constrained as by Spinmeister roving to hierarchy, divided, machine like in the consequence of abrogation as Fascism; or the  free collective summation of individuality as right to transcend, to be variant; egalitarian and  unifying, organic in the assumption, as Democracy?
This;  the choice staring America in the face.

‘Cui Bono?’ resounding starkly in the sufferance and misery as is.

Highlighting the possibility of much worse to come should wrong ‘choice’ be made.

Of Politics and Form as World View thereby determined.

Of  Fascism and Democracy as extent and type of ideological tithe.

This, two fingers to such factory serving Combine, Churchill like reversed; as in ‘V’ for ‘Victory’ – for the Combine have overstepped the mark this time in destroying the basis of world view propagated as illusion, in the removal from even the crumbs of consolation from the table, that in the taking from the sustenance for so many, reality prevails over illusion, no matter effort contrary.

No matter the ideological tithe.

The Combine has gone a bridge too far.

Theirs is a tithe now too demanding to support. The power of money to form of greed has crossed the Rubicon of Political Form. You cannot have Democracy when a small group has all the power money can buy, the demand such form is for Fascism.

This Fascism must not be allowed to be furthered.  As in statement of taboo:

The Combine must be dismantled, bit by bit, piece by piece.

There must be a cleanout of the Financial System which brought this catastrophe about.

Most notably the Federal Reserve.

In the sufferance caused by Combine machination gone wild by greed, eye on new field of exploitation, world view apparent; stark and staring from abyss; servitude for people as complete product in the extent of tithe threatened.

Because greed has destroyed the real factories, the real Companies as source of livelihood, destroyed the real Economy.

Because this is the reality staring us in the face, as madness of destruction brought about, as so many lives destroyed by so few, and for so little.

Like so many little men so tithed ideological, I am weary of the machinations, unable to continue to stand still in hope that the scythe passes by, hoping for freedom to grow again while sensing contrary.

Tired  all ‘sense’ around.

Of print,  radio and t.v, of mainstream media,  of  ‘news’; of talking heads and hateful mouths; of boot being stamped down upon face as evermore apparent in such bind as would be.

Such  tithing, such tithing.

Tired of the dance of puppets,  to music of the sellout,  the rhythm getting more frantic.

Tired of the Factory  such mindset as product manufactured.

Tired  of giving it up to the Combine.

Life is not death.

Liberty is not incarceration.

Happiness is not misery.

No matter such as may be paid in the contribution towards.
In giving it up to the Combine.

Whether as Wall Street Alumni, Government by shadow,  bad faith stooge or military metaphysic cheerleader.

To say as in moment captured, embrace private, share of love familial or in ecstasy orgasmic:

‘I am alive. I am free. I can be happy!’

Should not be as revolution attained against the odds;  against the body Politic.

Not as something to be repressed, rendered servile, destroyed.

But seen as gift of much greater mystery, surely much the more transcendent as shared.

Should be as everyday embrace of life anew - as routine and joyful as Sun rising.

To dawn of another day.

In  a Democracy.

But yet, when it boils down to it; we are most no less than two pay checks from the street.

So many are already there.

When the Combine turns screw too far, this much apparent as fear way beyond; pragmatic such as black box vote hacked; water board in stateless Gulag, electro shock applied to one who would question , protest zone or free speech cage;  the trend seen clear.

Choosing to tolerate such goings on - that may be seen as complete product?

What next to acceptor of the tithe; what next ….?

In giving it up for the Combine

In the fear cultivated; strangulation of the willingness to speak up, each individual so bound by tithe;   another quiet slipping away.

Of  Democracy.

That Politics can be such exercise of control; of mind, of love, of soul?

No more!

No longer such world as constrained; to accept what is told acceptable – thankful for crumb fed , mind  bent - and in such kneeling; ‘joy’ to  heart of big nurse.

Not while staring into the abyss of meltdown; looking at life anew in the huddle, to such clear reflection of Combine – and their tithe of mind.

In such staring, dreams and belief seen as through broken screw on thumbnail instrument of torture and control; as Socratic insight upon release from shackles; of pleasure as the relief from pain.

The military metaphysic now apparent in all it’s monstrosity - for all but the most tithed of to see.

No more the belief that Factory serving  such Combine can be good, when the fowl and evil consequences produced stare us in the face.

All around.

That such given up, as of world view, as in tithe, was worth it for the common good; as served peace; ‘individual’ survival?

Despite the wars in far off lands, despite the desperate pretence of gain as happiness found in materialism extreme, despite Economic crash, sufferance of neighbor if not of self?

In such protective insularity,  as between margins, a tragedy of failure, as on my behalf, seen - as the victory of illusion over reality.

In giving it up to the Combine.

But the dominance  and demands increasing.

Democracy in America is slipping away, the ideological tithe growing in the accretion of lie upon lie.

The biggest of such lies?

That this Financial Meltdown was accidental; the results of a few greedy individuals, held up as scapegoats.

When the Combine gambled upon field anew, it knew the risk. It knew the downside. It knew the price of ‘all or nothing’, the trend as must be followed, the fear as must be exerted as instrument of control, the mechanisms to be changed, the levers to be pulled.

The patterns of the Military Metaphysic must indeed be changed – the question is by whom - and which form accordant; descent or ascent?

The tithe must change.

Yet in the crisis for the people there is also a crisis for the Combine.

Is someone to arise, who shall step forward on behalf of the people, and change the tithe - in turning the tide?

In such seeing, making announcement clear, so cutting to tithe, so destructive of the Combine and their control?

With words recognising what lies underneath.

Words such as:

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Franklin D Roosevelt

That fear, that terror as is as in giving it up to the Combine, form of ideological tithe. As causes retreat, prevents advance.

Such as leads one to plead:

Speak up now Citizen, or lose the ability, let alone the right to do so.

In giving it up to the Combine.

Stephen Martin can be reached at: stephenmarti@yahoo.com

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