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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! Why Wall St is Betting Millions on Obama In part 2 of her investigation, market veteran Pam Martens traces the money big Wall Street players are sluicing into Obama's war chest and exactly why they are investing big-time in the "campaign for change". Plus more on the "No federal lobbyists on my team" fraud. You've heard about the plutonium-powered spy transmitters the CIA tasked climbers to haul up 25,000 feet to the high peaks of the Himalayas? What happened to the one they lost and to the men who carried them? Peter Lee gives CounterPunchers the full amazing story. 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 holiday presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !

Today's Stories March 4, 2008 Wajahat Ali Mumbo Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed March 3, 2008 Jennifer Loewenstein Gazan Holocaust Alan Farago American Politics and the Faltering Economy Richard Gott Colombian Deaths in Ecuador Wajahat Ali Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup Poll with John Esposito Paul Craig Roberts The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution Robert Weissman When Multinationals Say Adieu Uri Avnery Good Morning, Hamas Martha Rosenberg When Your Meat is a Downer Eva Liddell Leave the Next Dance for Bill Michael Donnelly Will Ferrell Does Flint Website of the Day Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues   March 1 / 2, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Race Card Paul Craig Roberts The Political Trial of Don Siegelman Kathleen and Bill Christison Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism Nelson P. Valdés Cuba After Fidel Christopher Brauchli Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick Ron Jacobs Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge John Ross The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico Robert Fantina Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins Robert Weissman Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy Mohammed Omer Fear in Gaza Remi Kanazi Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia Bob Jackson Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd? Richard Rhames Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury Franklin Lamb Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole Rannie Amiri Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon David Michael Green The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam Conn Hallinan Notes from the Southern Cone Faheem Hussain Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy Poets' Basement Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford Website of the Weekend The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!     February 29, 2008 Matt Gonzalez The Obama Craze Jonathan Cook Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel Joshua Frank Obama and Israel Anthony DiMaggio The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback of American Law Linn Washington, Jr. Cop Abuse in America Binoy Kampmark Hubris and Nemesis Robert Bryce Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy Use Sonja Karkar Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel Dave Lindorff A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush? Website of the Day Olduvai George   February 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn "Iraq" Falls Apart Fred Gardner The Birth of NAFTA Michael Levitin The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning William S. Lind The Fake State of Kosovo David Macaray A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor Stephen Fleischman Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod? George Wuerthner The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron Laura Carlsen The North American Union Farce Carl Finamore Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off Michael Dickinson The Day I Bombed the House of Commons Website of the Day Plane Stupid   February 27, 2008 David Rosen Playing the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political Dirty Tricks Vijay Prashad Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War Harvey Wasserman Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink? Andy Worthington Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns, Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense Wajahat Ali Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's Military Economy Peter Morici The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal Stephen Philion Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement Michael Donnelly Obama by Unanimous Decision Erica Rosenberg / Janine Blaeloch After the Land Deals: Will There be Any Wilderness Left to Protect? Website of the Day Dress Blues   February 26, 2008 Debbie Nathan Confessions of a Gitmo Guard Alan Dershowitz v. Frank Menetrez On Finkelstein Harvey Wasserman How Ohio Got Nuked Michael Colby Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals Gary Leupp Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade David Orchard The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan Martha Rosenberg The Big HRT Fran Shor The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow Serge Halimi The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan for the French Left Global Balkans Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans: an Interview with Tariq Ali Website of the Day Texistentialism   February 25, 2008 Roger Morris A Death in Damascus Anthony DiMaggio Military Bases, the Media and the Democrats Ralph Nader Why I'm Running Patrick Cockburn Iraq Broils Paul Craig Roberts Kosovo and the Empire Crazies Peter Morici Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms Dave Lindorff General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That Minot Nuke Incident Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film Heather Gray James Orange, Civil Rights Legend Robert Weitzel Accomodating Torture John Halle Kucinich Goes Down Website of the Day Do the Trunk Monkey! February 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain Paul Craig Roberts Obama and Global Trade Wajahat Ali Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon on the 9/11 Commission Ralph Nader Neutering the FDA Jürgen Vsych "What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?" Fidel Castro Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo David Macaray Unions Under Assault Jeremy Scahill The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence David Krieger Stanley Sheinbaum Caging the Cold War Monster Ron Jacobs Building for the Future Michael Garrity The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies Brian McKenna Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down Missy Beattie Over the Hill with John McCain Fred Gardner American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly) Boris Kagarlitsky The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement Mike Ferner Kick That Barrel Dan Bacher On the Trail with the Border Angels Christopher Ketcham Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread Poets' Basement Davies and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Obama Mariachi   February 22, 2008 Mike Whitney The Bonfire of Capital Jason Hribal Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet Liaquat Ali Khan Arresting Musharraf Joshua Frank That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child Dave Lindorff Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for Her! Liliana Segura When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion Robert Fantina Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen? Yifat Susskind The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women Norm Kent Pushing 60 with Pot Website of the Day Bush Gets Down in Liberia February 21, 2008 Saul Landau Fidel Steps Aside Elizabeth Schulte Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed Helen Redmond Health Care as a Human Right Benjamin Dangl Undermining Bolivia Michael Levitin Kosovo's Dilemma Liam Leonard Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle Patrick Irelan Land and Food in Venezuela Linn Cohen-Cole Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto Michael Simmons Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music CounterPunch News Service A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs Website of the Day Cop Abuse in Shreveport   February 20, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Lies and Spies Paul Krassner My Brief Encounter with Fidel Castro Fawzia Afzal-Khan The Pakistani Elections Farzana Versey The Great Dictator: Musharraf, Peace and the Autumn of the Patriarch Allan Nairn Dying for a Second Round: Israel's New Plan to Attack Lebanon John V. Whitbeck If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine? Niranjan Ramakrishnan A Balcony Seat to Our Own Balkanization? Steve Eckardt Cuba Sans Fidel: No News is Big News Lee Sustar Union-Busting at Freightliner Mike Ferner How Sick of It are You? Website of the Day The US Military Index   February 19, 2008 Uri Avnery Blood and Champagne Paul Craig Roberts Paying Insurgents Not to Fight Gary Leupp The Independence of Kosovo Fidel Castro The Moment Has Come David Macaray Management's Dirty Little Secret Reza Fiyouzat Buck the Circus! The Left and the Elections Valerie Morse The New Zealand Terror Raids: Land of the Long White Lie Walter Brasch Bush on Safari Website of the Day Don't Think Twice, It's Alright   February 18, 2008 Wajahat Ali Free Pakistan: an Interview with Imran Khan Diana Johnstone NATO's Kosovo Colony Paul Craig Roberts What Do We Stand For? Andy Worthington Gitmo: "We're Making This Up as We Go Along" Debbie Nathan Bernie Ward's Sex Tapes Anthony DiMaggio Following the Money Trail: the Democratic Party and the Business of Elections Bill Simpich Ten Years Ago, People Power Stopped Clinton in Iraq Eva Liddell A Short History of Super-Delegates: Hope, Yes! But Pay in Cash Christopher Brauchli The President Who Couldn't Keep His Word: Short-Changing Veterans Stephen Soldz Wikileaks is Under Attack! Johann Rossouw The Ouster of Thabo Mbeki: South Africa and the Costs of Neoliberalism Website of the Day Sick of It Day!   February 16 / 17, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Tower, Lower Manhattan Ralph Nader We the Corporations ... David Macaray The Big Buy Out: Did GM Drive Another Nail in Labor's Coffin? William J. Peace Wheelchair Dumping Ron Jacobs War on the Psyche: Shellshock and Redemption Diane Christian War Corrupts Alan Maass Oil, Blood and Greed: Taking Upton Sinclair to the Big Screen (and Beyond) Ramzy Baroud Iraq and the US Elections Michael Donnelly Genitalia First! Old Guard Feminists Play the XX Card Cpt. Paul Watson The Art of Finding Whalers James L. Secor China Diary: Spring Festival and New Year 2008 Eve Bachrach Bush Returns to Africa Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez's Anti-Imperialist Army Stephen Gowans Steven Spielberg, Faux-Humanitarian Missy Beattie To Vote or Not to Vote? David Michael Green Warming Slowly to Obama Wajahat Ali Attack of the Info-tainment Circus Poets' Basement Gibbons, Willson, Mickey Z., Orloski and Reuther Website of the Day Yellowstone's Bison Need Your Help--NOW!     February 15, 2008 George Szamuely The Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo Patrick Cockburn Ground-Truthing the Surge: Is the US Really Bringing Stability to Baghdad? Wajahat Ali Pakistan is Burning: an Interview with Steve Coll on the Taliban, Bin Laden and the Bush Administration Mike Whitney Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Economic Hindenberg Alan Farago God and the Democrats Chris Genovali Alberta's Black Gold Rush Jacob Hornberger Courting Injustice: Scalia on Torture Dave Lindorff Snoops Always Ring Twice: Bush's Protect America Bill Bull Website of the Day Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams     February 14, 2008 Kathleen and Bill Christison Palestine in the Mind of America Mike Whitney Swan Song for NATO Clancy Sigal Strike Notes from a Screenwriter George Wuerthner A Bloody Sham: the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter Peter Morici Is Bernanke Headed for the Exit? John Ross Drug War Mayhem Boils Over from Border to Border Allan Nairn Mafia Rules in the Middle East: If You're Big Enough, You Can Whack Anyone Rannie Amiri Lebanon's Warmongers Niranjan Ramakrishnan The New Tractatus: Where Wittgenstein Meets Feinstein Donna Volatile Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It Seth Sandronsky The Student Squeeze: Fighting California's Tuition Hikes Website of the Day Conventions: the Land Around Us   February 13, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Meet John McCain: Mr. Big Stick in Latin America Alan Farago Hell to Pay: Warren Buffett on the Goal Line Christina Kasica King's Dream Foreclosed: the Subprime Crisis in Black America Vicente Navarro How to Read the U.S. Primaries Hall Greenland Australia's Finest Hour Lee Sustar Strange Stimulation: Too Little for Those Who Need It Most David Macaray The Writers' Strike Finally Ends Roderick Frazier Nash Celebrating Wilderness Patrick Irelan Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT Anthony Papa Mean Mister Mukasey: AG Tries to Block Crack Cocaine Releases Carl Finamore Another Parade Passes Me By: Don't Let Your Movement be Coopted by Politicians Website of the Day John He Is   February 12, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez The Case Against Alan Dershowitz Paul Craig Roberts War Without End Dr. Trudy Bond The Elephant at Gitmo: Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink Andy Worthington The Guantánamo Six: Why Charge Them Now? What About the Torture? Col. Dan Smith The Psychology of Killing: Close In or Far Away? Ronnie Cummins Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road Ralph Nader Open the Government John V. Walsh Antiwarriors, Divided and Conquered Dave Lindorff Obama and Progressive Change: Let's Hope the Movement Transforms the Candidate Michael Donnelly Who's Pimping Whom? The Clintons' Selective No Talk Rules Ron Jacobs La Lucha Continua: Castro's "Life" Ben Tripp Beggars Collide Website of the Day Springsteen and Youngstown   February 11, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Lessons for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate? Wajahat Ali A Discussion with Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby Ray McGovern Waterboarding for God and Country Allan Nairn The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta Uri Avnery An End Foreseen? Chris Floyd American Psycho: the Meaning of Mitt Romney's Exit Speech Martha Rosenberg School Lessons in a Lunchbox: Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows Stephen Fleischman The Bonnie and Clyde of American Politics Marc Lamont Hill Not My Brand of Hope Liliana Segura Obama and Torture: the Sounds of Silence and Equivocation Peter Morici Challenges for the New President Christopher Brauchli A Drug Rant from a Former Taker Website of the Day Annie vs. the Blue Angels   February 8 / 10, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Does the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves? Patrick Cockburn Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold? Mike Whitney The Great Bust of '08 Anthony DiMaggio How the Press Covers Waterboarding Andy Worthington The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists? Linn Cohen-Cole Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto? Firmin DeBrabander Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency Cpt. Paul Watson The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering and Deaths of the Great Whales Kenneth S. Pope Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association Jacob G. Hornberger American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy Robert Bryce Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ... Then What? P. Sainath The Last of the Buccaneer Editors Allan Nairn Give Me Back My Land Fred Gardner / Pebbles Trippet "The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the Law!" Andrew Wimmer Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death Robert Fantina America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr David Michael Green Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves Kevin Zeese Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd? Peter Morici Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence Chris Driscoll Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008? Prairie Miller Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen Poets Basement Davies and Buknatski   February 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Why Baghdad Will Explode Again Bill Christison Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians David Anderson NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for the Sake of Ratings Ron Jacobs Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing Jane Rockefeller The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation Andy Worthington On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden Dave Zirin Instep Intifada Saul Landau The "Honestest" Candidate Since Lincoln Susie Day Our Blob in the White House Website of the Day George Carlin on Voting   February 6, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Super Tuesday's Vote for Chaos Ben Rosenfeld Informant Games: The Disturbing GreenScare Case of Briana Waters Vijay Prashad An Intellectual Hustler Lays It All Out Joe Bageant Nine Billion Little Feet on the Highway of the Damned Michael Donnelly What White Women Do In Private Voting Booths Allan Nairn Does the US Need a Civilizing Mayan Invasion? Kathryn Gray Wilderness on Edge: The Fate of Donner Summit Ray McGovern Powell's UN Fiasco Sheldon Richman The Whining Empire Paul Cantor / Roger Sparks A Presidential Aptitude Examination John Chuckman Political Bits and Pieces Website of the Day Save the Albatross February 5, 2008 Winslow T. Wheeler The Chaos in America's Vast Security Budget Tariq Ali Why I Will Not Participate in the Turin Book Fair Stephen Soldz The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq: Did Rumsfeld Authorize War Crimes? Chris Floyd Strange Fruit: America's Gulag and the Good War William S. Lind Saddam's Secret War Strategy: Die and Win Martha Rosenberg Live From the Killing Floor Heather Gray Conversations with Georgia Voters Ayesha Ijaz Khan Obama, Bhagwandas and the Battle for a Secular Politics David Macaray Unions Need to Stop Being So Nice Eliza Ernshire Making Music and Laughing Till the Tears Run Brenda Norrell Hated Nation Website of the Day The Things I Used to Do     February 4, 2008 Marc Levy Winter in America Patrick Cockburn The Bird Market Bombings Saree Makdisi Strangling Gaza Uri Avnery From Stalingrad to Winograd Alan Farago Let's Get Bambi! Someone is Slaughtering Florida's Key Deer Ben Tripp Spare Change: the Whine of the Progressive Voter Paul Wolf Civil Wars North and South Paul Craig Roberts Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed? Joshua Frank MoveOn's Obama Endorsement: Why There's No Hope for Change John Halle Whither Progressive Democrats? Website of the Day How to Cheat in School   February 2 / 3, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Hot Democratic Properties Pam Martens Bankers Gone Bonkers: Global Finance and the Insanity Defense Ralph Nader The Great Clinton-Obama Debate: Questions They Weren't Asked John Ross Hilaria vs. "El Moreno" Wajahat Ali Hillary, Obama and the Clash of Civilizations: an Interview with Imam Zaid Shakir Robert Fantina A Colony by Any Other Name: Iraq as Stepchild of the American Empire B. R. Gowani Not All Veils and Guns James L. Secor China in Winter: On the Western Edge of the Great Snow John V. Walsh The Invisible Green Primary Niranjan Ramakrishnan Barack's Bubble, Bubba's Trouble Dave Zirin Who Stole the Super Bowl's Soul? Jeremy Scahill Blackwater and Blood Fidel Castro Reflections on Lula Joe Allen Tet Reconsidered: the Turning Point in the Vietnam War Stephen Lendman Life in Occupied Gaza Patrick Irelan What Happened to the Streetcars? Andrej Grubacic Ziga Vodovnik Caligula's Horse: the USA, New Europe and Kosovo Josh Karpoff Dead Soldiers and the Antiwar Movement Ron Jacobs Carl Oglesby's War Paul Krassner Tom Waits Meets Super-Joel Website of the Weekend Company Woman: Hillary and Wal-Mart   February 1, 2008 Ray McGovern The Iniquities and Inequalities of War Diane Farsetta The Wild Career of James "Dow 36,000" Glassman Patrick Cockburn The Most Dangerous Country in the World for Journalists Tariq Ali Et Tu, New York Times? Allan Nairn Eating Dirt for Lunch in Haiti Rannie Amiri Collective Punishment in Beirut Ramzy Baroud People Power in Gaza: They Simply Did It Kenneth Couesbouc The Mother of All Snowballs Peter Morici Recession Looms Mumia Abu-Jamal Witha "Brutha" Like This: Bill Clinton as White Negro Rosemary Jackowski 27 Reasons Nader Should Run for President Scott Campbell Direct Action to Stop the War Re-emerges Website of the Day Betes et Hommes   January 31, 2008 Saul Landau Return to Afghanistan Andy Worthington Horror at Guantánamo Mike Whitney Rate Cut as Dagger: America's Teetering Banking System Jeff Ballinger Sustainability for Dictators Initiative? Clinton Praises the "Suharto of the Steppe" Tiffany Ten Eyck The Saga of the Freightliner Five William Loren Katz Waterboarding: Torure or Mystery? Alan Farago Why the Republicans are in Deep Trouble Col. Dan Smith Oh Say Can You See the 2009 Budget? China Hand Slouching Toward Islamabad Dave Lindorff The Usual Suspects Once Again Wadner Pierre Fake Democracy in Haiti Website of the Day One Big Union   January 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair McCain vs. Clinton? Christopher Ketcham The Genius of the Development Industrial-Complex Robert Weissman America By the Numbers: The Shameful State of the Union Neve Gordon An Experiment in Famine Paul Craig Roberts Regulation or Deregulation, Which is Worse? Joanne Mariner How Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Free Speech David Macaray Labor's Only Real Weapon Liaquat Ali Khan Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan? Raymond J. Lawrence Prankster-in-Chief: Bush's Troubling Non-Verbal Communication Dan Bacher The Collapse of the Central Valley Salmon Website of the Day Onward Through the Fog   January 29, 2008 Franklin C. Spinney Bush's New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off Mike Whitney The Great Credit Unwind of 2008 Alan Farago Buyer Beware: Florida, the Candidates and the Latin Builders Association Patrick Cockburn "The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction" Gary Leupp "We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans:" a Sibel Edmonds Timeline R. F. Blader A World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania Ahmad Faruqui Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect Fran Shor Obama, the Kennedys and "Change We Can Believe In" Jeremy Scahill Secret Trials and Criminal Convictions: the Ordeal of the Blackwater Protesters Allan Nairn Bush's SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All Website of the Day The Ghost of Rambo   January 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Return to Fallujah Paul Craig Roberts The End of American Liberty Allan Nairn The Breaking of the Gaza Wall Eyad al-Sarraj / Sara Roy Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza Martha Rosenberg Obit for the "Front Page" City Corporate Crime Reporter How They Rip Us Off David Michael Green Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War Jennifer Van Bergen What's Left? Nancy Oden Survival Tips for Hard Times Divya Karnad Saving India's Sea Turtles James L. Secor Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp Website of the Day Yellow Journalism?         Subscribe Online

March 4, 2008 Naming Names with Ishmael Reed Mumbo Jumbo By WAJAHAT ALI "Hey, Waj. Come on in. Did you bring your mom's Biryani?" asks an eager and excited Ishmael Reed, the MacArthur Genius recipient, Pulitzer Prize nominated author and all around, all-star, controversial rabble-rouser. "Sorry, mom couldn't make it this time. She asked for a rain check," I reply and see Reed's anticipation and grin fall for a moment. "Well, it's ok, no problem. Next time. Hey, does that Pakistani joint on San Pablo in Berkeley still serve goat? I think we'll go get the goat special. Here, come on in to the kitchen, let's do this." Entering the Reed household is like stepping foot into a delicate and vast Archival section of a genius-detective's library. A wondrous display of books--running the gamut of diversity from novels to poetry to politics to sociology--somehow elegantly juxtaposed to African, European, and American art sculptures and paintings. Then, there's the papers, including newspapers, reports, journals, and essays, piled on top of one another like a carefully constructed Jenga puzzle ready to blow over at the threat of a loud, inappropriate violent sneeze or negligent and thoughtless sway of a reckless hand gesture. Boxes of books and decades old papers, no doubt a culmination of research Reed uses for his novels and polemical essays, line the stairwells and hallways. This is a house is where documents come to retire: a senior citizens home and Valhalla for pugilistic evidence. An open laptop sits on Reed's kitchen table which is currently sharing space with nearly a dozen books and short stories Reed is reviewing and editing for an epic short story Anthology he is publishing in the Summer: Pow Wow: A Century of Short Fiction from Then To Now. The television is on; it's CNN covering the Democratic Primaries. "Ok, Waj. I'll give you 1 hour. Let's go." And so, we sit for nearly 2 hours, where I quickly realized my role in this conversation was to simply sit back and let Reed do what he does best: rhetorically combat, as he does with his writings, all the intellectual con men, self serving politicians, racist academics, poisonous prejudices and stereotypical misconceptions, in his highly unorthodox, extremely controversial, but always entertaining voice. This is the first part of a two part exclusive: the most in-depth interview Reed has given in nearly ten years. The bell rings: Round 1. ALI: People say Toni Morrison referred to Bill Clinton as the first "Black President"-- REED: I was the first one. April-- wait, I have it here. ALI: In the Baltimore Sun, right? REED: Right. Mine was in April 19th 1998. Toni Morrison's remarks, which were similar to mine, incidentally appeared in the New Yorker in October, 1998. I think that's just coincidence. But, I was the first. However, Jack White of Time magazine says he was the first, but nowhere in his article does he specifically refer to Clinton as the "black president." He says Blacks treat him as one of their own, but he doesn't specifically refer to him as a "black president." ALI: What about his personality made you characterize him as such? REED: In my article on CounterPunch, I said he comes from a tradition of Southern demagogues. He's got this Anglo, Yale background. He went to England to study. So, most don't recognize him as a Southern demagogue. I belong to something called the Calhoun House at Yale; I'm a Calhoun Fellow. John Calhoun was a Southerner. They named a House after him. I mean, you can't get any more Southern than Calhoun; he was for nullification. Harvard, where I'm a Signet Fellow, even contemplated casting a Memorial for Confederate soldiers who attended Harvard.The Black students countered that if they were going to do that they should also cast a memorial for the Japanese Admiral who led the attack on Pearl Harbor. He also attended Harvard. So Southerners have graduated from both Yale and Harvard: Clinton and Calhoun. ALI: Calhoun was a secessionist, right? REED: Right, a secessionist. They are another type of Southern demagogues. I mention them as those who hang out with Blacks and are friendly with Blacks like Huey Long. But, basically, they are segregationists. They pal around with African Americans-- just like Jefferson Davis did. His biographers say Davis pal'd around with his Black help, but when the Union troops invaded his property, a black slave told them where-- (Laughs.) where his papers were. There was a Union spy, a black woman, who stayed in the Jefferson Davis household throughout the war. In fact, she's been cited in the Museum of Military Intelligence. Unfortunately, her relatives destroyed her diary. So, the idea was that Clinton hangs out with Blacks, is familiar with Blacks, and picks up some of their style. Sort of like an Elvis Presley figure. But, who uses race as a wedge issue when he campaigns for whites. ALI: Don't you think that was a foreshadowing comment in 1998? Because, now we see the polls suggest Clinton's presence is a major reason for Hilary's downturn and Obama's upswing especially in the Southern states with Black voters. REED: When he first ran, I appeared on a radio program, and my fellow guests Playthell Benjamin, an African American intellectual who wrote a book on W.E.B Dubois, and Paul Robeson Jr., son of the famous singer, said I should stick to creative writing only and writing novels; because, they were all backing Clinton. I said Clinton had character problems. This was on the basis of the Sister Souljah incident [Clinton criticized rapper Sister Souljah for her "racially charged" rap lyrics] where he again used a Black audience to send a signal to Whites. Obama does the same thing. Obama goes to Black churches and preaches "personal responsibility." Now, Whites have been the most subsidized group in the history of the United States and maybe the history of the world, while Blacks were enslaved and were the assets of Whites. Slavery, [we were] like property. Native Americans were driven off their land. Lincoln even took part in the Black Hawk campaign against the Native Americans in Illinois. While they were being exterminated and driven off their land, Whites were collecting assets. The Great Society programs were for Whites. Two thirds of those who gained from the War on Poverty were White. I mean Marlon Fitzwater, former Reagan aide- when he talked about the Los Angeles riots, where the typical rioter was Latino, and the Whites burned down Korea Town but they blamed on Blacks. He said the riots were a result of the Great Society programs, pushing the myth of Black dependency, when 80% of the people getting Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security are White. Also, the mortgage tax write-off is benefiting Whites to the tune of trillions since the FHA has discriminated against Blacks for many years. They have come around, half-heartedly, only recently. My mortgage was just sold to Wells Fargo; they will not give up records about their lending to African Americans as well as Whites. A report issued by the Association of Community for Reform Now in Sept.2005, said of Wells Fargo's lending practices:" When reviewing the combined totals of all of Wells Fargo's lending operations, one out of every four mortgages made to African-Americans was a high rate loan (24.71%), and one out of every nine loans made to Latinos (11.65%) had a high rate, compared to just one of out every thirteen loans to whites (7.44%). In comparative terms, this means that African-Americans were 3.3 times more likely than whites to receive a higher cost subprime loan from Wells Fargo and that Latinos were 1.6 times more likely than whites." So, African Americans who have the same credit or better credit are charged higher interest rates than Whites. That's been documented: the Center for Responsible Lending, another place people can go to. Contray to newspaper myths, two thirds of those homeowners who have been caught in this sub prime mess had good credit. They went to the sub prime predators because they were denied loans by red lining banks. So, I'm in the position of backing White businesses and homeowners because of my mortgage is at Wells Fargo. So, they use my money to finance White businesses and White mortgages. So, we're out trillions of dollars over the years for financing White industries. In other words, why don't Obama and Henry Louis Gates and other "post race" intellectuals and politicians preach "personal responsibility" to Whites? ALI: Is Obama's decision to move "beyond race" a convenient form of skirting the race issue? Is he an icon of a modernized society that has evolved in its racial consciousness, or is all this dirty laundry being hidden under the bed? REED: My friend Gerald Vizenor, a hip, you know, Native American writer; we were hanging out yesterday. He was emphasizing that Obama has a White, Irish mother and a Black, Kenyan father; Obama isn't what you call "traditional African American." So, part of Obama's appeal is that he's not one of us, not to say he's not "Black" enough, I mean that's a ridiculous argument. I mean anyone who is dark skinned in this country who speaks English is black. (Laughs) That's it! Period! You know the "Average White person" doesn't parse things, they lump things; they're lumpers. If you're dark skinned, then you're Black. My friend Emil Guillermo, Asian Week, said that on the basis of yellows and browns voting for Clinton in California that yellows and browns should form an alliance. I advised him that if China shot down another American spy plane, Whites on the west coast might agitate for yellows to be incarcerated, which was the talk show gab after China brought one down a few years ago. Many Whites can't tell the different yellow groups a part. As for what the ignorant press calls " Latinos," millions of them have Black ancestry, a fact that's being ignored by the stupid cable talk about the Latino--Black divide. If there is a breach in the relationship between Latino and Blacks, nobody has told the students here at the University of Albuquerque, New Mexico, because, I see Latino and Black students dating here.( Reed was visiting the university while this interview was being conducted). I had dinner with a famous Puerto Rican poet and two Puerto Rican scholars on the lower East Side in November. I had them in stitches as I told them a joke that comedian Paul Mooney tells. He said that Cubans and Puerto Ricans are Negroes who can swim! He didn't say Negroes. While the "Latino" journalists argue that Latinos support Black candidates, the all White cable panels ignore this. MSNBC's expert on race relations is Pat Buchanan, a guy who defended a concentration camp guard and brought Charles Murray's Neo-Nazi tract about Black inferiority to the attention of Richard Nixon. A couple of days ago in a rant where he was joined by Tucker Carlson about how White men are the victims, he implied that no Blacks fought in the Civil War. I sent a correction to MSNBC pointing out that 186,000 Blacks fought on the Union side alone. I get called a crank for writing such corrections that are for the most part ignored, but until Blacks get something like the Anti-Defamation League, the media have to deal with me. I think a lot of Obama's support emphasizes the fact he is European and African, but he's not really what one would call a "traditional" African American. ALI: Is he an exotic? REED: I don't know if he's exotic. I like the guy. I think he's a real inspiration. For once, African American kids, especially the boys, are able to see someone handle intellectual combat. Like Jesse Jackson or Sharpton. Instead of the way they restrict us to athletes, or entertainers, or criminals. ALI: Here's a recurring criticism of you: Why is Ishmael Reed always so angry? Why does he hate White people? Why does he always play the "blame game"? Why can't he move beyond the past? REED: They've been calling African American male writers "angry" for over one hundred years. I mean I get most my information about what's happening in the United States from reports and studies, which are often in conflict with what you read on the editorial pages, or handouts from right wing institutions like the American Enterprise Institute. When USA Today issued a report about single parents contributing to the lack of assets among Blacks, they sought Robert Rector's opinion. He's from Heritage or American Enterprise. He once advocated that strychnine be place in the narcotics supply so that addicts might be identified. The Right Wing pretty much runs the editorial pages. The Black spokesperson they choose are sort of like, what I call "mind-alikes" or "colored mind doubles." They reflect the reality that the editorial board approves of. ALI: Can we name names? REED: Sure. The Washington Post just set up a blog for Henry Louis Gates, who calls himself an intellectual entrepreneur. Gates [An African American critic and intellectual] is someone who spends a lot of time preaching "tough love" to 35-year-old grandmothers living in the projects when studies I've read suggest that multigenerational welfare families are rare. There are so many people making money off of projects in Chicago. I've suggested that the project dwellers do what Indians do for tourists on reservations; like set up food stands and souvenir shops and things, for all these invaders from PBS and HBO, who are all coming there and making money from entertaining White audiences with the misery that goes on there. Like the television show The Wire, and writers like Richard Price, who has made millions from what he calls " brief forays into the ghetto." They even have hired an Indian to do it: Sudhir Venkatesh wrote "Gang Leader For A Day," a book that resulted from his hanging out with a project gang. He and Scott Simon were laughing it up a few weeks ago on NPR about the antics of some deadly stupid gang that was terrorizing project dwellers. I'd like to get Venkatesh's views on the oppression of Indian women in India in Indian American households, or how some Indian women are imported for the purpose of sexual slavery. I'd like to get D'Nesh D' Souza, who has made millions performing circus acts like mocking Black English, to comment about the thousands of Indian children in India who are sold into sexual bondage. These guys know where the money is. Putting down Blacks, so hard to do. But, Gates takes after these 35- year-old grandmothers in the projects, but from what I've read, multigenerational welfare recipients are rare. It's like Reagan coming to power with the "Welfare Queen," but Lou Cannon, his biographer, says no one has ever been able to locate this woman. Reagan, of course, had Alzheimers I think in perhaps his first term or second term. So, he probably saw it in a movie or something, because he often mixed up movies with reality. Ok, so he takes after "dysfunctional" people instead of the predatory laws. Gates thing is the "underclass." All the social problems are derived from the behavior of the underclass. I'm sure Obama feels the same way: their personal behavior is a cause of their plight. Why don't they take on the medical profession that is still experimenting on African Americans? There is a book called Medical Apartheid, which was nominated for a National Book Award, that talks about these experiments. The Tuskegee experiments were the tip of the iceberg. Or, the so-called psychiatric profession testing dangerous anti-psychotic drugs on poor, Black patients, Hispanic patients, and indigents. Or, why doesn't he take on these predator lenders like Wells Fargo that have put Africans Americans out of $90 billion dollars due to these foreclosures and lending? But, they go after people who can't fight back and the kind of people their sponsors go after. ALI: Who are their sponsors? REED: Washington Post is the blog's sponsor. Gates is the leader. McWhorther-- John McWhorther is there too [African American linguist and intellectual.] He works for an outfit which sort of flirts with Nazi science--the Eugenics movement: The Manhattan Institute. They sponsored Charles Murray. ALI: Author of The Bell Curve? REED: Right, The Bell Curve. ALI: He's a Harvard guy. REED: If you read William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, one of Hitler's big advisors was a Harvard man. Richard J. Herrstein was the co-author of Bell Curve, worked with Charles Murray. Herrnstein was also at Harvard. Charles Murray is Scots-Irish. I was reading Ralph Ellison's biography and he was writing about White immigrants trying to "get over" at the expense of Blacks. For generations comedians have made jokes about Scots-Irish in the South inter-breeding. "I am my own grandpa" and all that stuff; you know, because they all were marrying their first cousins. I think Jerry Lee Lewis married his first cousin, too. I think there's a book by Kevin Phillips, American Cousins where he mentioned the Scots-Irish were apparently people who liked loose women and were, you know, "backward." These are stereotypes of course, but here we have a Scots--Irish intellectual perpetuating stereotypes. All of the founders of the Klan were Scots-Irish. Murray is a Klansman with charts and graphs. Manhattan Institute is the kind of organization that sponsors Eugenics. They thought John McWhorther was so good they brought him from California to Manhattan, and they brag about being able to give their fellows enormous publicity, you understand? McWhorter is on C-Span everyday it seems and has a show on NPR where he blasted me and a number of Black intellectuals without our receiving equal time. He said I was jealous of his being on "All Things Considered". I once had a commentary on "All Things Considered" during Bush 1's term. I was fired after I did a commentary predicting that the Willie Horton campaign would come back to haunt Lee Atwater and Bush. Maybe they find someone from the Manhattan Institute more to their liking. So, here I am on 53rd street. In the ghetto of Oakland with no foundation support and spending my own dime. I go up against John McWhorther, one of whose sponsors is Chase Manhattan Bank. They set up a debate between the two of us after I called him "the Black front man for the Eugenics movement." During the debate, he expressed ignorance of the Institute's history. He never heard of William Casey, the CIA Director, who founded the Manhattan Institute. Casey might have been indicted for Iran-Contra had he not died. Do you think he was interested in welfare for African Americans? No. So, these guys are interested in this quack Neo-Nazi, Eugenics science. When I debated McWhorther, he said the Institute severed their ties with Charles Murray. Not so. Recently, the Manhattan Institute sponsored Charles Murray in one of these IQ debates at the Harvard Club in Manhattan . So, I guess McWhorther doesn't know what's going in this organization that is pushing him out there to say African Americans are their own worst enemy. The Washington Post blog called The Root or something has Malcolm Gladwell, this guy who wrote "The Tipping Point." He's on there with Gates and McWhorter. This guy, now this guy, has a really great con game going in the "post race" hustle; one of the best con games going. He was telling White audiences on C-SPAN that the cops who beat up Rodney King and those who shot Diallo in New York didn't do it out of racism or racist motives. They did it due to an "autistic moment." ALI: What's an autistic moment? REED: I guess their senses were scrambled, or they were confused, whatever. So, I wrote him a letter saying, "You know the guys that beat up Rodney king, those cops? They made a lot of racist comments on their way to the beating. Referring to King as a "Gorilla In the Mist." He wrote me an email saying, "Yeah, I knew that. But, I didn't have time to go into it, because I was on television." So, these are mind doubles. These are intellectual entrepreneurs. So, if you're on the left wing and you gave them money, then they'd be your mouth piece. But, the right wing has more money, I mean, they've got billions. They've got William Scaife, a billionaire. The right wing has enormous resources and so they are able to control the so called National Dialogue on Race so that it reflects their ideas. ALI: Right, the Scaife Foundation. REED: Yeah, Scaife Foundation is the one that almost destroyed Clinton. Scaife is the guy who put money behind Proposition 209, the anti Affirmative Action bill. They do the same thing with you guys [Muslims], I mean what you're up against Irshad Manji [self proclaimed Muslim Refusenik and author of "Trouble with Islam Today] and others like that, right? The American Enterprise Institute brought this woman from the Netherlands to slime Islam, but I guess she didn't work out [Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the disgraced Dutch politician turned author who found monetary and academic shelter with the AEI.] She returned to the Netherlands where she has some link to far right politics. She received enormous publicity because of the American Enterprise Institute. ALI: Yeah, I called them "the Info-tainment Circus." REED: Exactly. ALI: We both have a lot of "European" friends, "White" friends, and many times when we talk about race, naturally, they get offended and say, "We're not racists. You're making assumptions about us, just like we make assumptions about you." So, let's discuss this concept of "Whiteness." Why is the "ticket" to mainstream "Whiteness" entail turning around and beating up other minority groups. For example the Scots-Irish you mentioned, Catholics, Jews, now even some mainstream gay and lesbians do this. Why is this part of the bargain? REED: That's to win over the mainstream. You know, Barbara Smith, one of my critics, she is a Black, professional lesbian, she went to Washington D.C. gay pride parade, and they told her to "Get lost" because they were trying to mainstream. They weren't interested in "Black" issues. These aren't the first ones to use the underdogs or unpopular groups to "get over" and "cross over." The American labor movement has done that, the feminist movement had done that, a whole bunch of movements who have to scapegoat African Americans and unpopular groups like immigrants, White immigrants in the 19th century, to "get over to mainstream." Gloria Steinem tried to win points for Hillary Clinton, a millionaire, wife of a former president whose feminist supporters say has run up against a glass ceiling. She said that being a woman is more of a barrier to success than being Black. I went into a health foods store GMC the other day and couldn't shop without this Asian American clerk hovering over me. I complained to the storeowner about being treated like a shop lifter. She didn't deny the racial profiling. She told the over eager clerk that I was a regular customer and that he didn't have to do it to me. I wonder does Ms. Steinem or Mrs. Clinton receive this kind of reception when they shop? This is a problem that Obama faces. Wall Street wants him, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, J.P.Morgan are his contributors, and these wealthy people are beyond countries. Some of them don't even live here anymore. I think that the Firestones live in Turkey.These multinationals, some of them, they've been around, they are more sophisticated than the average American, they've seen diversity in the world. So, they're saying, "We need this guy to represent our interests." Because, this whole 1950's Country Club, Bush type image is not going to work anymore. I mean, those types of guys can't go anywhere, I mean they can't even travel places anymore. Bush, I mean, he can't go to Spain or he might get arrested. (Laughs.) So, what they need is this really pretty, dark face. When Bush traveled through Africa he was confronted with questions about Barack. It must have got to him because he started attacking Barack when he returned. An Obama election would be an enormous boost to the capitalist system, which seems on the verge of collapse. I could see enormous crowds turning out to greet him as he fronts for the system. If he went to Baghdad he'd receive a ticker tape parade and even the Taliban would turn out to get a glimpse of him. He'd be mobbed in Africa and Asia. ALI: As long as he's not too dark though. REED: (Laughs.) Yes, that's right. Not too dark, not too this, not too that. But this sort of pastiche or assemblage, or like how the world looks now, right? It's a dark skinned world. European population is being decimated, and you see all these people going to Europe. I was in Vienna and I said, "Europe is becoming a dark continent." (Laughs.) Because in Europe, you see dark skinned people: Arabs, North Africans, Africans. I mean if you go to the Champs-Elycees, man, you think you're in Lagos or something. Wall Street has to get the white working class to go along with Obama.I'm trying to get an assignment to cover the democrat convention. Watch the Clintons steal the nomination from Obama. ALI: Are they, you think? REED: I saw some shifts going on in the last Primaries where some were coming around to Obama. It might happen. And, you know, about this "angry" thing they label me. The White critics I mean. I'm writing a piece about my friend the late Bob Callahan, who unlike so called "Whites," knew where he came from, you know. He didn't dismiss us as angry or "politically incorrect." He read our history, and he explored African American culture; he published Zora Neal Hurston after I brought the writer to his attention. He had a different point of view than some of these people who just dismiss us as being politically correct, or angry, or in a rage and all this kind of stuff. They've been saying for over 100 years that African American male writers are angry or have a chip on their shoulders. ALI: Let's talk about writing. You've said before, "Writing is Fighting." As you know, Miles Davis compared his musical exercise to the discipline of boxing. In fact, he said he respects good boxers so much, because they require and possess an intelligence; that, there's a "higher sense of theory" going on in their heads. He compared it to his solitary exercise of performing. REED: Miles was also a boxer. ALI: Right. So, we have this whole concept of boxing, writing, fighting. Why this philosophy of "boxing" as writing? REED: I think I have a pugnacious style. My style is not pretty. I don't use words like "amber" or "opaque." (Laughs.) ALI: Or Chrysanthemums? (Laughs.) REED: (Laughs.) Yeah, yeah. My stuff is direct. Critics have compared my writing style with boxing all the way back to 1978 when my first book of essays appeared: it was compared to Muhammad Ali's style. Others have compared my style to that of Roy Jones Jr. and Mike Tyson. As a writer, you explore all kinds of different emotions. My latest poem is about a tree in my backyard, which is from the Tropics. I'm trying to explain how it got there. I had a meditative poem about watching out over the Golden Gate Bridge from a mountain. It was published in The New Yorker. I think when I write essays I'm out to do on the page what we can't do in the media. We don't have billions of dollars that are available to these people who do what amounts to a propaganda attack on us. We're being out propagandized. When I look at the newspapers, I'm furious. Because I can see where the interpretation of whom we are and how people from the outside define us. My friend Cecil Brown is very upset because the SF Chronicle is doing a Black History Month series and it's all White male writers! I mean they assign Black History Month to all White writers with all these African American writers in the Bay Area and in California? I mean I'm here and I've written for them. And of course, they wrote about the kind of Black image that appeals to them: Athletes and Entertainers. Not a single scientist, or inventor. I was down at Lockheed Martin, addressing the Black employees: Engineers and Scientists last week. I told them that a lot of the space equipment used by NASA was invented by Black scientists, yet when Mailer wrote that ignorant book about the moonshot, Fire On The Moon, he said that Blacks were jealous of this White achievement.The formula for sending a shuttle into space and bringing it back was devised by a Black woman scientist. Cecil also said he was pleased that there was a Hollywood writer's strike so all these demeaning images of blacks would at least disappear for a while, for at least 3 weeks. Because, I mean the Writer's Guild is only like 2% African American. I think there's probably, what, no Pakistani American writers? ALI: I think there is 1. REED: Well, probably, he's the one saying, "We all ought to assimilate." ALI: Or, he might try to hide it. REED: Yeah, hides it. Right. So, that's all we have. All we have is writing. Sometimes it's very effective. I mean I'm organizing my neighborhood block with emails, because we have criminal activity on our block. Instead of the old days, where we had to confront these people, now we can do it through emails and cyberspace. I did a book called Another Day at the Front which was my first critical book about the media, and I got on Nightline. I was able to challenge some of these assumptions of African Americans and their culture. ALI: Is writing a solitary experience? Is it shadowboxing in a sense? REED: Not for me. I have T.V. on all the time when I'm writing. I have music on. I'm engaged with the world. If the phone rings, I answer it. I'm not the kind of writer who sits around 8 hours a day writing. I'll write in the morning, and sometimes I'll get up 4 in the morning sometimes and do this Anthology I'm working on. (PowWow releasing this Summer by De Capo Press). I'm learning a lot. I wasn't really a short story person, but now I'm reading about 140 short stories and there are a lot of good ones out there. I'm reading stories from different groups-- like from the 19th century immigrant perspective which is really overlooked. In this country, it's not good to be "ethnic." Although, T.S. Eliot said, "Not all ethnic writers are great, but all great writers are ethnic." I mean Eliot was the head of the modernist movement! I don't know about this solitary stuff. I mean I do plays and they are collaborative. My last play was called "angry" by the New York Times. Even though every line could be footnoted. I got a great review in the Backstage which is a theatre trade magazine, but the Times guy said I was "angry" about a lot of things. But, I mean, what was I angry about? I took on 2 issues. One was the pharmaceutical industry using African Americans as guinea pigs and colluding with psychiatrists, who get $40,000 kickbacks, and how they use these drugs in Africa for testing. They are fully aware of the bad side effects when they produce these drugs. The other issue is how think-thanks front these people like McWhorter to push this line that "all of African American's problems are self inflicted." Shelby Steele, for example. You see Shelby Steele? Nobody knows about Shelby Steele, African Americans don't know anything about Shelby Steele. They put him up there, the right wing did. He just got $200,000 last year in May from the Bradley Foundation, which funded Charles Murray too, and they had a ceremony at the Kennedy Center. I bet there were many mink coats and limousines pulling up there, because they've got a lot of money. This is what we're up against. See, our intellectuals don't know what we're up against. They think this is all about getting on the Bill Maher show. There is an orchestrated campaign that is tied to the Eugenics campaign. I just had a dialogue with John Rockwell from the New York Times, because we're in the same anthology together. I said, "Look, the Eugenics movement came out of the United States." "Where? Where? Where?" he said. So, I had to send him a book on this. Ward Connerly, I mean, all these people. Connerly got money from Pioneer Fund, whose founders praised Hitler. He refused to reject or denounce support of the Michigan Klan when campaigning against Affirmative Action in Michigan. So, there is something going on behind the scenes. It kind of explains [Hurricane] Katrina. Where people think, to put it bluntly, "These people are sub-human. So, let 'em drown." Or, as Hitler did-- he burned them up. Here, we let them drown. ALI: Let's talk about Mumbo Jumbo your most famous novel. Many say this novel was about the forces of "rationalism and militarism" versus the forces of "the magical and the spontaneous." Today, we find extremist groups rooting themselves in piety, religion, spirituality and faith. In the 1972 version of the novel, Abdul Hamid, a Black Muslim fundamentalist, burns the "Book" which contains the "key" to these ancient traditions of magic, dance, and creativity. If Mumbo Jumbo took place in the 21st century, who would burn the "Book"? REED: I think there are fundamentalists all over the world. I think all religions have fundamentalists who have different interpretations of scriptures that are very vague. These books are written in metaphor, they are written with symbolism. A lot of it is outdated and tied to the times in which the text was written. So, you can do anything you want to with religion. Unfortunately, in the world today, we have dogmatic people entering into politics. I don't think the two mix. But, we always believed in separation of church and state. But, I predicted there would be a theocracy in the 80's in my book The Terrible Twos, where I had a preacher running the White House in 1982. You see, I think when you're an independent intellectual you're going to get it from all sides. I get it from the Left, the Right, the Middle. When I proposed that people said it was silly, but now we have Huckabee and Bush, and others. I mean they're all still players. But, when I said it, they thought it was silly. (To be continued next week, where Reed discusses his volatile friendship with Amiri Baraka, his issues with HBO's The Wire, his ongoing feud with his feminist critics, and White academia's resistance to multicultural voices.) Wajahat Ali is Pakistani Muslim American who is neither a terrorist nor a saint. He is a playwright, essayist, humorist, and recent J.D. whose work, "The Domestic Crusaders," is the first major play about Muslim Pakistani Americans living in a post 9-11 America. His blog is at http://goatmilk.wordpress.com/. He can be reached at wajahatmali@gmail.com

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