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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! From Nixon to Sarah Palin
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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
From Nixon to Sarah Palin
What’s happened to the Republican Party? What’s happened to populism? Read Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair on the life and death of Nixonland, and the class politics of the war over Sarah Palin. ALSO in our new subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter, read Serge Halimi on how Russia gave Georgia and the U.S.a well-deserved black eye. PLUS Carrie Dann’s wonderful first-hand account of the fight of the Western Shoshone to reclaim their land. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories September 13 / 14, 2008 Robert Fantina September 12, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Michael Hudson Lloyd Miller Steve Breyman Maria Rivera Jonathan Cook Ayesha Ijaz Khan M. Shahid Alam Robert Weissman Tanya Golash-Boza / David Brunsma Website of the Day
September 11, 2008 Noam Chomsky Sharon Smith Ron Jacobs Marjorie Cohn Mike Whitney Jeffery R. Webber Paul Cantor Peter Morici Ray McGovern Linn Washington, Jr. Website of the Day September 10, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Conn Hallinan Ralph Nader Peter Morici Joanne Mariner Laura Tate Kagel / Chuck Spinney Dave Lindorff Scott Campbell Paul Farmer Anne Kilkenny Website of the Day September 9, 2008 Michael Colby Chellis Glendinning Vijay Prashad Jeffery R. Webber/ David Michael Green Brian J. Foley John Ross Pierre M. Sprey / Nicole Colson Marc Gardner William S. Lind Website of the Day
September 8, 2008 Mike Whitney Tariq Ali Pam Martens Bill Quigley Malini Johar Schueller / Robert Jensen Uri Avnery Win McCormack Howard Lisnoff Maria C. Khoury Website of the Day September 6 / 7, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Linn Washington, Jr. Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Nancy Kurshan William Blum Michael Winship Fred Gardner Nikolas Kozloff Wajahat Ali Robert Fantina Karyn Strickler David Yearsley Richard Rhames James L. Secor Missy Beattie Eric Patton Ben Terrall Thom Rutledge Dan Bacher David Macaray Jane Stillwater Grady Harper Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend September 5, 2008 Elizabeth Walters Bill Quigley Alan Farago Dave Lindorff Ira Glunts Peter Morici Deepak Tripathi Manuel Garcia, Jr. Michael Donnelly Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day September 4, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig Roberts Ron Jacobs M. Junaid Levesque-Alam Andy Worthington Osama Dawoud Stephen Lendman Fidel Castro Website of the Day September 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Sen. Mike Gravel Vijay Prashad Nikolas Kozloff Ralph Nader Howard Lisnoff Steve Early / Cal Winslow Shepherd Bliss Bill Quigley Website of the Day
September 2, 2008 Marjorie Cohn Jonathan Cook Robert Weitzel Corey D. B. Walker John Ross Eric Walberg Judith Scherr Richard Morse B. R. Gowani Michael Greenberg Website of the Day September 1, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff C. G. Estabrook Manuel Garcia, Jr. David Macaray B. R. Gowani Saul Landau Charles Orloski Gloria La Riva Website of the Day August 30 / 31, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Bill Quigley Jeffrey St. Clair Andy Worthington Deepak Tripathi Stanley Howard Dave Lindorff Wajahat Ali Robert Fantina Josh Schlossberg Benjamin Dangl Missy Beattie Howard Lisnoff Suzan Mazur Rev. Jim Rigby David Yearsely Serge Quadruppani B.R. Gowani Richard Rhames Poets' Basement Website of the Day
August 29, 2008 Mike Whitney Brian Cloughley David Ker Thomson Joanne Mariner Neve Gordon Chris Genovali Ron Jacobs Michael Donnelly August 28, 2008 Judy Gumbo Albert Paul Cantor Saul Landau / Andy Worthington Ben Terrall Leonard Peltier Niranjan Ramakrishnan Donna J. Volatile Website of the Day
August 27, 2008 Anthony DiMaggio Jordan Flaherty Ralph Nader Melissa Checker Bob Sommer Cynthia McKinney Ali Khan M. Junaid Levesque-Alam Dave Lindorff David Macaray Website of the Day
August 26, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Michael D. Yates Paul Craig Roberts Andy Worthington Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Huwaida Arraf Joseph Grosso Sheldon Richman Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day August 25, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Bill Quigley Jonathan Cook James McEnteer Uri Avnery Will Potter Robert Jensen Stephen Lendman Wajahat Ali Carl Finamore Website of the Day August 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patty O'Grady Nicole Colson Steve Conn Deepak Trapathi Robert Fantina Jonathan M. Feldman Joshua Frank Osama Qashoo Howard Lisnoff David Michael Green Dave Lindorff Christopher Brauchli Alan Farago Michael Winship Richard Rhames David Rosen Patrick B. Barr Jamie Newlin Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 22, 2008 Boris Kagarlitsky Laura Carlsen Bob Barr Marwan Bishara Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. Charles Mostoller Sumbul Ali-Karamali Keith Rosenthal John F. Miglio Website of the Day August 21, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Dave Lindorff Loserville: How Obama Blew It Ralph Nader Joanne Mariner Wajahat Ali Ron Jacobs Rostam Purzal Anthony Papa Website of the Day August 20, 2008 Michael Neumann Ray McGovern Eric Walberg Fidaa Abed Daniel Haack Mike Whitney Website of the Day August 19, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Deepak Tripathi Marwan Bishara Saul Landau William S. Lind Martha Rosenberg James Brittain Pratyush Chandra David Macaray Website of the Day |
Weekend Edition The Reconfiguring of the American MindWhat, Me Reason? By RICHARD RHAMES
The students were “prompted” to compose on the idea/ topic, “Television may have a negative impact on learning.” A series of factoids and their sources were provided under the headings: “Reasons in support....” and “Reasons against...” Gendron attempted to explain the decision to embargo the assessment's outcome by saying, “Kids got ticked off at the [question]... In many cases it was an emotional response rather than an intellectual exercise we were seeking, so it was not an accurate reflection of their writing skills.” One outraged middle schooled “education” consumer wrote, “These facts are lies (sic). I do my homework and get good grades even though I watch TV.” The teen hysteria provoked by the “prompt” --- that TV’s flickering and fast-changing images MAY negatively impact learning --- was evidently just too close to the bone. Something snapped deep inside Generation Z. Rational discussion of such heresy was clearly impossible. The affront was met with a subversive roar of indignation. The Gendronians blinked. Portland (Maine) education official Tom Lafavore seemed to agree that the suggested topic may have been too dangerous and inflammatory to even discuss: “If I were a kid, knowing what I know about the influence of technology on their lives, my first reaction would be to completely disagree with the prompt.” Yes, we have abandoned ourselves and our children to the hypnotic and diverting charms of corporate gizmos and their attention-span destroying barbarous vapidities. So it should come as no surprise when, after life-long immersion in the irrational and toxic crock-pot of digital “culture,” the young (or older) might well moronically proclaim doing “homework” and getting “good grades” to be “learning;” hence unaffected by TV programming. As the late Neil Postman argued in his Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), “...the clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation.” Postman held that there was something called the “typographic mind” --- a rather recent and already vanishing development in human society. Called into being by the printed word, shared by a literate population, the typographic mind tended to erode the image-based, premodern tribal cultures. When people clung to trees, huddled in caves or medieval mud huts, their habits of mind were informed by the shaman, by legends carried forward in oral tradition, by pictures on the walls of caves and cathedrals. The world was often seen as controlled by jealous sky gods, or other remote “spirits” who required sacrifice and devotion. The Word was a spoken one and pictures embellished it. But the written word demanded more of a society. Anyone can gape at images and listen to the law-giver and the fool. But, Postman notes, “A written sentence calls upon its author to say something, upon its reader to know the import of what is said. And when an author and reader are struggling with semantic meaning, they are engaged in the most serious challenge to the intellect...To engage the written word means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making, and reasoning. It means to uncover lies, confusions, and overgeneralizations, to detect abuses of logic and common sense...” It requires then, a critical and very different “habit of mind” than the semi-dream state induced by our shimmering telescreens. The TV, as a cultural “tool for conversation,” encourages / demands far less engagement as it washes over the “viewer.” It’s a “Now ... This” world in which, Postman writes, “There is no murder so brutal, no earthquake so devastating, no political blunder so costly --- for that matter, no ball score so tantalizing or weather report so threatening that it cannot be erased from our minds by the newscaster saying, ‘Now...this.’ The newscaster means that you have thought long enough on the previous matter (approximately forty-five seconds), that you must not be morbidly preoccupied with it (let us say, for ninety seconds), and that you must now give your attention to another fragment of news or a commercial.” Decades of mind reconfiguring by TV addiction and the cheapening of even print media --- rendered into garish color-ized tabloids, war-mongering agit-prop vehicles, and barely concealed business promo sheets --- has left the US population in a perilous state. The ice caps melt. Financialist flim-flammers demand “public assistance” on a scale undreamed of by poor women/children. People shuffle past or step over the homeless as they rush to purchase some sweatshop-produced trinket. The nation’s best topsoil is swept out to sea by now-frequent deluges. Our vacant/desperate youth aspire to slay goat-herders or sleeping Afghan children as means to a collegiate end, while tens of thousands die annually here from the inability to buy medical care. While American journalists and citizens are repeatedly beaten and shackled by government goon-squads, “our” political / media system enthuses over skin tone, designer eyeglass frames, affairs of the womb, hairstyles, mooseburgers, and digital-flag worship. If it weren’t so perverse, it would be merely depressingly sad. It’s official. We have officially voted rationality off the island. In an incoherent, cartoon culture we wait for neo-shamans “Loofah Bill” O’Reilly, and “Greatest G.” Brokaw to tell us what to feel. And now ... What? Richard Rhames is a dirt-farmer in Biddeford, Maine (just north of the Kennebunkport town line).
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