Today's Stories

October 31, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Change That Really Means Something

October 30, 2008

Cockburn / St. Clair
McCain's Women Problems

Vijay Prashad
Smearing Rashid Khalidi

Paul Craig Roberts
World Tires of Rule by Dollar

Glen Ford
Turning the Tide of Ethnic Cleansing in America's Cities

Stanley Heller
Wall Street Bonus Madness

William Loren Katz
"Kill Him!:" a Political Chronicle

Joshua Frank
Memo to Progressives for Obama: What Happens After the Election?

James McEnteer
The Year of Unreliable Witnesses

Felice Pace
The Big Change: Can "Civic Unreasonableness" Save the Earth?

Jonathan Cook
The Executions at Kafr Qassem

Reza Fiyouzat
Boycott the Elections!

Website of the Day
An Open Letter to Whole Foods

October 29, 2008

Arno J. Mayer
The US Empire will Survive Bush

Eric Toussaint
How the Food and Financial Crises are Interconnected

Matt Gonzalez
What Do They Have to Do to Lose Your Vote?

Steven Conn
Obama and the Camp Followers

Jonathan Cook
Israel Bars Visit to a Father's Grave

Patrick Bond
Strauss-Kahn Strikes Again!

Ramzi Kysia
A Freedom Rider in Gaza City

Douglas Valentine
A Glimpse Inside the Head of Joe the Plumber

Stephen Martin
What America is Owed

Margaret Dooley-Sammuli
Alternatives to Incarceration

Amee Chew
Support Obama, Vote McKinney?

Website of the Day
N-Word Chant Doesn't Phase Palin

October 28, 2008

James G. Abourezk
How to Bail Out the Taxpayers

Andy Worthington
The Empty Chair at Guantánamo

Gary Leupp
The Specter of the Sixties: Palin v. Ayers

Paul Craig Roberts
The End of the American Road

Mike Whitney
Meet the World's New Currency

Gregory V. Button
What the Next President Must Do to Save FEMA

Ralph Nader
Share the Sacrifices, Share the Benefits

P. Sainath
Haunted by Socialism

Martha Rosenberg
Melting Pot in Hell

Charles R. Larson
Palin/Wurzelbacher 2012!

Website of the Day
Why You Can't See Across the Grand Canyon

October 27, 2008

Michael Hudson
Scenes From the Global Class War

Barbara Rose Johnston
The Clean, Green Nuclear Machine?

John Dinges
Palling Around with Dictators: McCain and Pinochet

Mike Whitney
Chickenhawks and the Horrors of War

Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power

Alan Farago
Origins of the Fall

David Michael Green
Remind Me Again: Who Won the Cold War?

Andy Worthington
The Collapse of Omar Khadr's Guantánamo Trial

George Wuerthner
Is Ranching Sustainable? The Story of Bob the Rancher

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Obamanations of Barack

Website of the Day
Heartland of Darkness

October 24 / 26, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Waiting for the Curtain to Rise

Ishmael Reed
Boogiemen: How Lee Atwater Perfected the G.O.P.'s Appeal to Racism

Mike Whitney
Down for the Count

Don Santina
How Maria Fell: Death in the Central Valley

Scott Boehm
Manufacturing Sympathy: Palin, Special Needs and Identity Politics

Saul Landau
Faith-Based Surge: Whining About Winning in Iraq

Ron Jacobs
Iraq and the Arrogance of Washington

Binoy Kampmark
Afghanistan the Un-Winnable

Linn Washington Jr.
The Great Vote Fraud Hoax

Nicole Colson
Mocking Our Rights: McCain's Disdain for Women's Health

Bernard Chazelle
The Humorology of Power

Brian Jones
Campaign by Codeword

Christopher Brauchli
Down the Drain with McCain's Vetters

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Rejects Neoliberalism

Val Strange
The Fraternity of John McCain: Scenes from North Carolina

Joe Mowrey
Name That Candidate: He Supports Petraeus, the Death Penalty, the Bailout, Nuclear Power, the Occupation...

Steve Early
SEIU Learns the Meaning of "No"

David Macaray
Patriotism and the Labor Movement

Allison Kilkenny
You Have the Right to Airport Harassment

Richard Rhames
Open Season

Jim Bell
Nuclear Power's Big Con

Kris De Welde
Domestic Violence and Financial Stress

Barry Clemson
John Wayne Syndrome

Adam Engel
Last Exit to Disneyland

Mark Scaramella
The World's Weirdest Pipe Organ?

Tuli Kupferberg
Nobody for President: the Original Version (Annotated)

Lorenzo Wolff
A Frustrated, Broken-Hearted Joy from Kidnapkin

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Swartzfager and Payne

Website of the Weekend
Patrick Cockburn Dismantles the Surge

October 23, 2008

Allan J. Lichtman
What Voter Fraud?

Todd Chretien
Why I'm Not Voting for Obama

John Ross
No Child Left Behind, Mexican-Style

Peter Morici
Strategies to End the Crisis

Mats Svensson
Short Film Clips at a Checkpoint

Marlene Martin
Don't Let Them Execute an Innocent Man

Robert Jensen /
Pat Youngblood
Looking Beyond the Election and Beyond Elections

Margaret Kimberley
Rightwing Obama Love

Deepak Tripathi
Post-Bush Scenarios

David Morris
Why Joe the Plumber is a Socialist (And You Are, Too)

Website of the Day
Voting While Black in North Carolina

October 22, 2008

Brian Cloughley
Kid Killers are Barbarians

Heather Gray
Raising Hell in the South: the Legacy of J. L. Chestnut, Jr.

Jeff Birkenstein
McCain's Disdain for Spain

Ralph Nader
The Song Remains the Same: Convergence and Avoidance in the Presidential Election

DC Larson
The Growing of a Heartland Nader Raider

David Swanson
Colin Powell, Not Qualified for Government Service

Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth

Larry Everest
9/11 and the Imperial Adventure in Afghanistan

Robert Fantina
Anything to Win

Martha Rosenberg
The Financier's Playbook

Stephen Martin
Giving It Up to the Combine

Website of the Day
Brokers with Hands on Their Faces

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 31, 2008

First the Revelation, Then the Revolution

Pickled Heads, Mudcakes, the Rivers of Babylon

By RICHARD NEVILLE

It has long been known by alert sections of the public that growth has its limits and overuse of natural resources leads to collapse. The first evidence of this is provided by the world’s oldest written records. These come from the civilization of Sumer, which flourished around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in an area that is now part of Iraq. Its story is eerily intertwined with events of today and the future of the West. Around 5000 years ago, the construction of a vast network of canals to supply water to Sumer’s bustling cities led to seepage, silting and over-irrigation, which increased the salinity of the soil. This played a key role in the break-up of Sumerian civilization. Today, a similar surge of salinity is destroying the world’s croplands.

The policy of modern governments is to pursue high growth, a goal that seems incompatible with achieving true sustainability. In 1987 the Brundtland Commission defined sustainable growth as “development that would meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. It sounds simple, but here’s the catch. First, sustainability can only be achieved if the vexed question of population control is faced. Then consumption and carbon emissions must be reduced. This applies to individuals, to the operation of farms and factories, to the design and construction of infrastructure. Yet growth is the engine that drives the economy, and economics is the prism through which the elite view the world. Growth is the Holy Grail, nature is an optional extra.

BICYCLES, ADBUSTERS, HAYSTACKS

It is natural for politicians to love growth, it funds schools and hospitals and social welfare programs, as well as arsenals. Growth means freeways, medical miracles, I-pods, refrigeration, non stop entertainment and brand name underwear. Sustainability evokes “small is beautiful”, self reliance and home grown vegetables. The clash of attitudes was never an even match. Growth is New York, Dubai, Beijing. Sustainability is Third World villages, farmers markets, carbon neutrality. Growth is Vanity Fair, Lear Jets, Sex in the City. Sustainability is Adbusters, bicycles, sex in the haystack. And now, just as eco awareness is spreading, the financial meltdown hits.

Hedge fund managers get death threats. Those behind the threats are probably similar spirits to those behind the hedge funds – driven by a desire for enormous wealth as quick as possible by any means necessary. The dumping of sub prime mortgages is an act of ethical terror which triggered an unexpected outcome. Millions of people are being forced to curtail their levels of consumption. For some this is tragic, for others it is merely belt tightening. It may also induce a shift of perspective, a reminder of things forgotten. I recently caught a fleeting news report on the situation in Haiti, where starvation is rife and families are living off mud cakes. Yes, real mud and clay. The agriculture of Haiti collapsed after the country was swamped with cheap imports of processed food from America. Yum, yum, anyone for Kellogs? When funds ran dry, imports ceased. (Same as happened in Jamaica.) Other factors were deforestation, soil erosion, droughts, flooding, natural disasters and a corrupt government.

Today in the West we worry about the security of our bank balance, while two thirds of the world worries about its next meal. The blame for the ever widening global wealth gap is often pinned on the poorer nations for being inefficient and/or corrupt, with a barely a mention of the decades of pillaging by colonial powers. The prosperity of the West is built on theft and slaughter; later re-packaged as a Boys Own Adventure.

YOUR LAND IS MY LAND

The recent screening of a documentary series on the treatment of the indigenous population of Australia by the British colonizers and their descendants is dramatically re-shaping the country’s view of itself. Informed by academics, documents, oral testimony and a wealth of shameful photographs, the series reveals a narrative that has long been hidden and steadfastly denied. The revelations of cruelty make grown men weep. We also learned this: some of our citizens stood up for justice, while successive governments generally behaved badly or were ineffective. Institutions that sounded benign, such as Aboriginal Protection Boards, were bent on exterminating aboriginals … in the nicest possible way.


Today’s swinging-dick rulers continue to cloak their crimes with misleading descriptions. The purpose of the “Defence” forces is not to defend, but to attack. Based on the “lowest credible estimates” at least two million civilians have been killed or seriously injured in Afghanistan and Iraq. Australians are still told their troops are in Afghanistan to build schools and infrastructure, whereas our purpose is to shape political outcomes to suit the West, never mind the dead civilians. It’s the same old geo-political game of exerting force to maintain power, wealth and leverage. While this is not emphasized in popular culture, the truth is there to find: violence is at the core of Western economic wellbeing. The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recently apologised to Libya for 30 years of colonial rule and agreed to pay $US5 billion as a “complete and moral compensation for the damage inflicted on Libya by Italians during the colonial occupation”. Other former occupiers are not rushing to imitate Berlusconi. Britain won’t return the Elgin marbles to Greece or the Rossetta Stone to Egypt, though some of its museums have been shamed into returning the pickled heads and other remains of aboriginals back to their homeland communities.

PLAYING DIRTY IN LEAR JETS

Kicking off with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, it took several decades of simmering pressure to catapult the issue of sustainability into global awareness; where it is now in danger of being waylaid by the economic meltdown. While the crash will curb the excesses of the shopping religion, it will also deter investment in renewable energy – for awhile. Then, as the world heats up, the rush will be on to slash emissions. Mining, manufacturing and retail sectors will slow. Academic futurist Bruce E Tonn, expects the economic impact of a world “characterized by lower material input” will result in the rise of NGO’s, the decline of corporations and a rebirth of people’s self sufficiency. As we make the inescapable transition to sustainability it is expected that GDP and the money supply will decrease while the pursuit of innovation intensifies. Cash once squandered on “must have” baubles will be re-directed to harnessing small scale technologies.

Herman Daly and other eco-economists put the goal as leapfrogging “beyond growth”. This evokes a carbon neutral way of life that nourishes self reliance, human rights and the bright ideas that keep civilization rolling along. What other choice do we have? Humanity's consumption already exceeds the capacity of Earth to regenerate its resources by 30 percent.

The mind shift will be hotly contested, especially by a traumatised corporate media clinging to the growth/spend/ Lear Jet paradigm and playing dirty. Expect incessant calls for war. Expect reports on future wars to be sanitized even more so than today. Right now CIA spooks in Langley, Virginia are able to instigate air strikes on any country they fancy, be it friend or foe and liquidate anyone they want - including women and children – and yet not have to answer for such deeds. Not a peep of complaint from the West. Also, do not expect corporate media to remind you that the ‘wars against terror’ are also wars that accelerate global warming.

Since March 2003, the Iraq war has produced over 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. According to Oil Change international “the costs of the war would cover all of the global investments in renewable power generation that are needed between now and 2030 in order to halt current warming trends”. Iraq meanwhile is a crime scene.

Five years of compulsive bombardment has wrecked Iraq’s “already weakened underground sewage systems… with a lake of sewage clearly visible on satellite photographs”, notes Michael Schwartz. The ultimate destination of this filth is the Tigris and Euphrates river system, now thoroughly contaminated. “Their water can no longer be safely drunk by humans or animals, the remaining fish cannot be safely eaten, and the contaminated water reportedly withers the crops it irrigates”. All this achieved by nations that claim a “moral authority”. We came for the oil, left a mountain of corpses and filled up the rivers of Babylon with shit.

Citizenship is about much more than casting a vote. Unless we take time to flush out the truth behind official fairy tales and confront the crimes of those in power, the place where civilisation began could well mark the spot where it ends.

Richard Neville has been around a while. He lives in Australia, the land that formed him. In the Sixties he raised hell in London and published Oz. He can be reached through his bracing websites,
http://www.homepagedaily.com/ and http://www.richardneville.com.au/

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