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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Report From the Afghan Front
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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter!
Report From the Afghan Front
It's Obama's War and It's Going Very BadlyExclusively for CounterPunch subcribers, Patrick Cockburn files a special report from Kabul: the Taliban's tightening grip on most of the country; plumetting US popularity in a bankrupt country rotted by corruption. For fifty years, Seymour Melman waged intellectual war on Pentagon capitalism, making the case for peaceful conversion. David Price brings to light decades of FBI secret surveillance. Senator Jim Webb is launching the first determined bid in forty years to overhaul the US criminal justice system at whose call is the American gulag. Alexander Cockburn reports on the prospects for his success. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories June 29, 2009 Ishmael Reed June 26-28, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Doug Peacock Daniel Wolff Mike Whitney John Ross David Rosen Emily Ratner Gareth Porter Farid Marjai Nadia Hijab Paul Craig Roberts Fred Gardner Carl Ginsburg Paul Watson David Ker Thomson Farzana Versey Geoff Berne Todd Alan Price Ramzy Baroud Jeff Sher Dr. Carol Paris Despite My Arrest by Max Baucus, I Will Continue to Advocate for Quality Health Care for All Walter Brasch Adultery as Family Value? Glen Johnson Charlotte Laws Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 25, 2009 Kathy Kelly Jack Bratich Wendell Potter Charles R. Larson Alan Farago Jonathan Cook Gareth Porter Bitta Mostofi / David Macaray Mark Schuller Website of the Day June 24, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Dean Baker Andy Worthington James Bovard Diana Gibson / P. Sainath Gareth Porter Robert Alvarez Dave Lindorff Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi Website of the Day
June 23, 2009 David Price Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway / Dave Lindorff Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero Gary Leupp Brian M. Downing Robert Bryce Nicholas Dearden Yousef Munayyer Website of the Day June 22, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Chris Floyd Jack Z. Bratich Atash Yaghmaian Laura Carlsen Paul Craig Roberts Vijay Prashad Fred Gardner Andy Thayer David Macaray Website of the Day
June 19 - 21, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Al Giordano Henry A. Giroux Anthony DiMaggio Paul Craig Roberts John Ross Gareth Porter Carl Ginsburg Tommi Avicolli Mecca Joe Bageant Serge Halimi P. Sainath Jim Goodman Dave Lindorff Rannie Amiri Robert Fantina Harvey Wasserman Walter Brasch David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Ben Sonnenberg Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 18, 2009 Uri Avnery Robert Sandels / Anthony DiMaggio Robert Weissman Joshua Frank Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Norman Solomon Ali Jawad James Ridgeway Website of the Day June 17, 2009 Carl Boggs Dr. Bryant Welch Winslow T. Wheeler Liaquat Ali Khan Jonathan Cook Binoy Kampmark Karim Makdisi Dave Lindorff David Swanson Gene Marx Website of the Day June 16, 2009 Patrick Cockburn John Ross Afshin Rattansi Marc Levy Paul Craig Roberts Behzad Yaghmaian Brian M. Downing Merle Lefkoff David Macaray Robert Jensen David Swanson Website of the Day June 15, 2009 Michael Hudson Reza Fiyouzat Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway Marjorie Cohn Rannie Amiri Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Leonard Schwartz Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day June 12-14, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Gareth Porter Mike Whitney Mark Ames Esam Al-Amin Franklin Lamb Patrick Cockburn Andy Worthington Heather Gray Felice Pace Ron Jacobs George Wuerthner Jeffrey Buchanan / David Ker Thomson Renaud Lambert Kevin Zeese David Macaray Evelyn Pringle Chris Genovali David Michael Green Brian J. Foley Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 11, 2009 Kathy Kelly / James Bovard Tristan de Bourbon Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Ralph Nader Harvey Wasserman Nicole Colson Mark Weisbrot Dan Bacher Website of the Day June 10, 2009 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Jennifer Van Bergen / Douglas Valentine Kathy Kelly Paul Craig Roberts Rev. William E. Alberts Peter Lee Carol Miller Emily Ratner Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff Website of the Day June 9, 2009 Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Stan Cox Sibel Edmonds Jonathan Cook David Macaray Robert Jensen Nadia Hijab Mark Weisbrot Website of the Day June 8, 2009 John Ross Paul Craig Roberts Franklin C. Spinney Franklin Lamb Uri Avnery Jonathan Cook Eric Toussaint Jim Goodman Norman Solomon Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day June 5 -7, 200 Alexander Cockburn George Galloway Paul Craig Roberts Jennifer Loewenstein Franklin Lamb Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Missy Comley Beattie Farzana Versey Stanley Heller John V. Whitbeck Robert Weissman Lee Sustar Dave Lindorff William Blum Ernest Callenbach / Greg Moses Ron Jacobs David Yearsley Tim Stelloh Belén Fernández David Ker Thomson Karyn Strickler Christopher Brauchli Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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June 29, 2009 The Discourse of CrisisJobs FirstBy GREG MOSES From a distance the Chinese mainland appears to be snorting through the global depression like a fire-breathing dragon. But a closer look at internet discourse reveals a giant in the throes of aftershock. When we hear tones of irritation from Chinese officials regarding "dollar problems" we could on the one hand consider their pain. On the other hand, whether you are listening to pro-dollar or anti-dollar partisans today, there is an eerie agreement between Marxist and Friedmanite alike that return on capital is the main thing. What we need to hear more often from both sides of the global mouth is how capital will only grow through labor. With the help of Google translate, the average monolingual yankee can cross the ocean and listen to the official pronouncements of ministers for the Communist Party of China (CPC) who have a thousand throats exhorting the masses to keep on the scientific path. What the scientific path sounds like in China today is a lot like what you hear weekdays over the chatterbox at the Capitalism-Knows-Best Channel (CNBC). For instance, the Chinese "socialist market economy" is being redefined scientifically into a "modern market economy under rule of law," which is exactly the way they like it at CNBC. From both sides of the Pacific you get pretty much the same news: double-digit downturns in profits across the board, dozens of gigantic projects suddenly scrapped and unplugged, trade routes collapsing, pages snatched from memories of capitalism past, the better to remind us how to survive. Even on the question of climate change there is a convergence of policy conviction that "the construction of ecological civilization" will help our damaged economies to "cope with the international financial crisis" through the material re-production of green technologies. Tuning into the thoroughly capitalized culture at CNBC—coming at you "live from the financial capital of the world"--bust is generally accepted as the price of boom. Mad Money man Jim Cramer said recently that if the stock market were to take another 150 point dive on the S&P 500 Index, investors from the boo-yah land of Cramerica could consider it a gift--"A GIFT!!" But over on the Chinese mainland, ministers seem to be talking to masses who haven't quite learned how to appreciate the opportunities of economic collapse. This is the time, say the ministers, to vigorously seek innovations in technology, reconfigure business models, bury dead capacities, and evolve the community through decisive calculations of "M&A." In the chatter of Chinese ministers sounds a worry that the "socialist market economy" could come out of the economic crisis fatter than it needs to be and therefore vulnerable to all the lean dogs that global capital is breeding as we speak. Of course every Wal-Mart shopper knows how much is owed to the enormous Chinese factories that punched out a dozen or so shopping seasons. But Chinese ministers know better how the tiny "Made in China" labels were not attached to Chinese-branded logos. And whereas the great logos of the global economy will likely recover on top of factories somewhere or anywhere (thank you Naomi Klein) there is no guarantee that the factories of China will be serving the logo powers next year. There is enough worry to go around. In the USA we don't know if the unemployment numbers will stop in time to provide the baby boom a respectful retirement. In China, the ministers don't know if plants and projects will stop shutting down in time to prevent a more colossal sacrifice in capital spending. Matching the positive image of the Chinese minister atop his nearly $2 trillion mountain of dollar reserves is the precise negative image of the average American consumer down in his valley of debt. And where the images should be joined at the middle term is across the rubbed glass surface of the Wal-Mart check-out counter, courtesy of MasterCard and Visa. Of course, there was a time not too many months ago when the era of dollar-fed arrogance seemed to be stalking the world with unchecked power as "dollar hegemony" rolled around the globe with tsunami force. These days however the dollar gets pulled up off its knees by other currencies at the most curious times, exactly in moments when the whole flow of things seems to shudder with collapsing pipes. What the dollar needs most right now is a national emergency declared in behalf of jobs. Enough diddling with yield curves and balance sheets already. Whatever it takes, we need folks back at work. Until we are busy creating value through labor, every dollar will stay busy shrinking. Which brings us to the final correspondence between CNBC and the ministers of China. By and large all these voices fail to inflect the urgency of the single outcome that will count most toward economic health--getting everybody back to work. If you are holding a pile of dollars the immediate question should be how to transform that cash into tools of productivity for workers of the world. Wealth today is paralyzed from not knowing how to become productive. This is the real problem. So whether you grew up on one side of the Pacific listening to warnings about the Midas touch or you grew up on another side of the Pacific sneaking lessons from Mencius you should know. When you mistake the real value of human economy for dollars, gold, or profit, you shall kill the order of things. Something about the discourse of crisis is chilling to the ear. Neither side of the ocean is talking early or often enough about how to forge wealth into tools that can be put to work. There is still time perhaps to put jobs first. Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Worker. He can be reached at gmosesx@gmail.com
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Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Yellowstone Drift:
Spell Albuquerque:
Waiting for
Lightning
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