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Today's
Stories
September 8, 2008
Tariq Ali
The Godfather as President
September 6 / 7, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Sarah Palin and the Good Book
Jeffrey St. Clair
That Dam Senator: A River Ran Through Him
Linn Washington, Jr.
The GOP Excluded Black-Owned Businesses from Contracts at St. Paul Convention
Patrick Cockburn
Did Bush Spies Monitor Iraqi Allies?
Gary Leupp
The September 3 Attack on Pakistan: a Precursor to More War Crimes?
Nancy Kurshan
CHI-town Lowdown: Memories of 1968
William Blum
Has Obama Already Lost?
Michael Winship
The St. Paul Police vs. the Independent Media
Fred Gardner
Joe Biden, Drug Warrior
Nikolas Kozloff
Sarah Palin and the Wal-Mart Moms: the Cultural Packaging of VP Candidates
Wajahat Ali
The Cryptkeeper and His Pitbull: the Past and Future of the GOP
Robert Fantina
Change Agents?
Karyn Strickler
Palin by Comparison: Sarah and the Hillary Voters
David Yearsley
What Their Fanfares Told Us About the Candidates
Richard Rhames
Bad Campaign Moon Rising
James L. Secor
Bandwagon Politics
Missy Beattie
Missy for Vice POTUS
Eric Patton
Baseless in Obamaland
Ben Terrall
Haiti and the Washington Consensus
Thom Rutledge
Mr. Magoo and the Kind Stranger: a Serious Political Problem
Dan Bacher
Arnold and the Manufactured Drought
David Macaray
Is Union Democracy at Risk?
Jane Stillwater
The Admiral's Child: a Psychological Reason for McCain's Flip Flops
Grady Harper
Should Hunting Really be High on Our Priority List?
Poets' Basement
Wolff, Payne and Holt
Website of the Weekend
We'll See Your Sarah Palin and Raise You With Maria McKee
September 5, 2008
Elizabeth Walters
Old Fears, New Worries in Louisiana
Bill Quigley
Gustav's Path of Destruction
Alan Farago
Nothing Means Anything: The Fantasy of John and Sarah
Dave Lindorff
The Things They Left Behind (Including McCain's First Wife)
Ira Glunts
A Lesson Before Lying: How Republicans Solved Sarah Palin's Jewish Problem
Peter Morici
The Big Slump
Deepak Tripathi
Politics, Morality and the GOP: John McCain as John Major?
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Energy of a Hurricane
Michael Donnelly
Change. God. POW.: a Summary of McCain's Big Speech
Martha Rosenberg
Free to Good Home, SUVs
Website of the Day
Sarah Palin's Air War: On Wolves and Bears
September 4, 2008
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Real McCain
Paul Craig Roberts
Who is Wrecking America?
Ron Jacobs
The Perishing Republicans, the RNC 9 and the Twin Cities Cops
M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
The Soft Surge
Andy Worthington
Rendered to Egypt for Torture
Osama Dawoud
How I Lost My Fulbright Scholarship
Stephen Lendman
Katrina Redux: the Militarization of New Orleans
Fidel Castro
Hurricane as Nuclear Strike
Website of the Day
Is McCain Palin's Bitch?
September 3, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
The Fake U.S. Victory in Iraq
Sen. Mike Gravel
Good Luck, Sarah!
Vijay Prashad
The Indian Left and the Indo-US Nuclear Deal
Nikolas Kozloff
Palin, Hunting and the American Psyche
Ralph Nader
Repeal Taft-Hartley
Howard Lisnoff
Forty Years in the Streets (And They're Still Beating Up Journalists)
Steve Early / Cal Winslow
Can SEIU Members Exorcize the Purple Shades of Jackie Presser?
Shepherd Bliss
A Field Report From Slow Food Nation
Bill Quigley
Living in the Car After Gustav
Website of the Day
Growing Up Okie: an Interview with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
September 2, 2008
Marjorie Cohn
Raiding Democracy in St. Paul
Jonathan Cook
Palestinian Village Faces Army Reign of Terror
Robert Weitzel
Biden and Israel
Corey D. B. Walker
Where Do We Go From Here?
John Ross
The Kidnapping Boom in Mexico
Eric Walberg
Wag the Dog in Georgia
Judith Scherr
No Day in Court for Ronald Dauphin
Richard Morse
Haiti, 2008
B. R. Gowani
What If the Israel Lobby was the African-American Lobby?
Michael Greenberg
Loofah Day in Cleveland
Website of the Day
Thanks for the Memories!
September 1, 2008
Nikolas Kozloff
Making a Killing in Iraq: McCain and the Telecoms
C. G. Estabrook
The War Will Go On
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Will a Russo-American Nuclear War Happen (Soon)?
David Macaray
An Elegy for Labor Day
B. R. Gowani
The Lobby as Juggernaut
Saul Landau
Real Gold Winners
Charles Orloski
Going Down to Hell's Cul-de-Sac
Gloria La Riva
Profit and Disaster in New Orleans
Website of the Day
Springsteen: Factory
August 30 / 31, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Speech; McCain's Palinomy
Bill Quigley
Gustav is Coming
Jeffrey St. Clair
Valley Boy:
The Rise and Fall of Richard Pombo
Andy Worthington
Shining a Light on the Dark Prison
Deepak Tripathi
The Race for the White House: Notes From a European Observer
Stanley Howard
A Prisoner's Tale of Abuse
Dave Lindorff
Troopergate in Alaska
Wajahat Ali
Palin on the Prowl:
a Cougar for the PUMAs?
Robert Fantina
McCain and Palin
Josh Schlossberg
A Bias for Life: the Role of the Environmentalist
Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Voting
Missy Beattie
Stars, Stripes, War and Shame
Howard Lisnoff
Better Cuba Than Florida?
Suzan Mazur
Rethinking Evolution with Stuart Newman
Rev. Jim Rigby
What Would Jesus Ride to the Conventions?
David Yearsely
Katy Perry Meets Mozart
Serge Quadruppani
Italy's Years of Lead
B.R. Gowani
What If the Israeli Lobby Was the Islamic Lobby?
Richard Rhames
Empty Political Calories
Poets' Basement
Holt, Davies, Corsale and Landau
Website of the Day
Return of the Druids
August 29, 2008
Mike Whitney
How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy
Brian Cloughley
Resurgent Russia
David Ker Thomson
Jacko and Me: Dispatches From Fifty
Joanne Mariner
A UK Window on CIA Abuses
Neve Gordon
The Ordeal of Sahar Vardi, Refusenik
Chris Genovali
Of Whales and Off-Shore Drilling
Ron Jacobs
What's a Godfearing Country to Do?
Michael Donnelly
Honest Abe in Denver?
August 28, 2008
Judy Gumbo Albert
The Battle of Chicago
Paul Cantor
Who Killed Victor Jara?
Saul Landau /
Farrah Hassen
Axis of Evil Defeats Neocons
Andy Worthington
Clearing Out Guantánamo
Ben Terrall
Return to Port-au-Prince
Leonard Peltier
Message to Obama: Symbolism Alone Will Not Bring Change
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Miasma of Bi-Partisanship
Donna J. Volatile
The Obama Construct
Website of the Day
Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker and Maya Angelou on the Meaning of Obama
August 27, 2008
Anthony DiMaggio
The Myths of Joe Biden
Jordan Flaherty
Three Years After Katrina
Ralph Nader
The Politics of Avoidance
Melissa Checker
Carbon Offsets, More Harm Than Good?
Bob Sommer
Blaming the Sixties
Cynthia McKinney
How the Democrats Helped Bush Hijack the Country
Ali Khan
Pakistan's Flawed Presidency
M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
The Only Good Muslim is the Anti-Muslim
Dave Lindorff
Strip-Search Nation
David Macaray
Labor's Hard Lessons
Website of the Day
Stagnant Income in an Eroding Economy
August 26, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
The Big Questions About Iraq
Michael D. Yates
Obama and the Working Class
Paul Craig Roberts
Is War With Russia on the Agenda?
Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Suicide Report
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson
Obama's Promised Land?
Huwaida Arraf
Sailing into Gaza
Joseph Grosso
Back to the Future: New York's Housing Crisis
Sheldon Richman
What About the Ossetians?
Binoy Kampmark
Impasse at Singur
Website of the Day
Taser Bait in Denver
August 25, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
US Out of Iraq by "2011"
Bill Quigley
Katrina, the Pain Index
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Outposts Seal Death of Palestinian State
James McEnteer
Death by Paranoia
Uri Avnery
The Devil's Hoof
Will Potter
The State Deparment's Green Scare Wing
Robert Jensen
Technological Fundamentalism
Stephen Lendman
Reinventing the Evil Empire
Wajahat Ali
Biden His Time
Carl Finamore
The Future of Trade Unions in China
Website of the Day
Don't Blow Up the Mountain, Boys
August 23 / 4, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
"Change," "Hope"...Why They Must be Talking About Joe Biden!
Jeffrey St. Clair
Killing Salmon with Paul O'Neill: Power, Profits and the Future of the Columbia River
Patty O'Grady
John McCain in a New Context: Why the Senator is No War Hero
Nicole Colson
Obama and Big Corn
Steve Conn
Obama and the Mining Cartel
Deepak Trapathi
Pakistan in Uncertain Times
Robert Fantina
Once Upon a Time in America: a McCain Administration
Jonathan M. Feldman
Obamanomics: Does the Left Have Anything to Say?
Joshua Frank
Targeting Pelosi (and the War Machine): an Interview with Cindy Sheehan
Osama Qashoo
Sailing to Gaza
Howard Lisnoff
The Long Silence: American Jews and the Palestinians
David Michael Green
Sen. McShame and the Wreckage:
John McCain Discovers America
Dave Lindorff
Why Not Let the Republicans Deal With This Mess?
Christopher Brauchli
A Banner Month for Passports
Alan Farago
Who Crippled the Government?
Michael Winship
Cash Register Conventions
Richard Rhames
Vlad the Derailer: Can Putin Save America From Itself?
David Rosen
The Culture Wars Are Over: But Culture Warriors Are Still Terrorizing America
Patrick B. Barr
Don't Try to Tame the Lightning Bolt
Jamie Newlin
Western Turf Wars: the Politics of Public Lands Ranching
Poets' Basement
Glendinning, McEnteer and Bonner
Website of the Weekend
Cafe Reconcile, New Orleans
August 22, 2008
Boris Kagarlitsky
Fallout from the Georgian War
Laura Carlsen
Obama and Latin America: Change or Continuity?
Bob Barr
No War for Georgia
Marwan Bishara
From Russia with Love: Putin Hits Georgia, Bloodies Bush
Peter Morici
Is the Fed Still a Central Bank?
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Big Heat
Charles Mostoller
The Battle for the Amazon
Sumbul Ali-Karamali
Obama is Not a Muslim: But Would It Be So Terrible If He Were?
Keith Rosenthal
Standing Up to Union-Bashing
John F. Miglio
The Devolution of the Baby Boom Generation
Website of the Day
Fire Sale in the Markets!
August 21, 2008
Allan J. Lichtman
Is Georgia 2008 a Repeat of Hungary 1956?
Dave Lindorff Loserville: How Obama Blew It
Ralph Nader
The Problem with Problem Banks
Joanne Mariner
The Military Commissions, So Far
Wajahat Ali
Descent Into Chaos: an Interview with Ahmed Rashid on Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Taliban
Ron Jacobs
Georgia and Historical Farce
Rostam Purzal
The Left and Iran
Anthony Papa
Unlocking the Power of Art to Counter Injustice
Website of the Day
Rocky Mountain Way
August 20, 2008
Michael Neumann
Russia and Georgia: Proportion and Distortion
Ray McGovern
Musharraf Out Like Nixon
Eric Walberg
Georgia's Ossetian Debacle
Fidaa Abed
Blocking a Gazan's Path to San Diego
Daniel Haack
The Pentagon's Most Prolific Pundit
Mike Whitney
Greenback Surges, Euro Shrivels
Website of the Day
Hands Off South Africa's Centre for Civil Society
August 19, 2008
Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for Nuclear War?
Deepak Tripathi
A New Age of Torture
Marwan Bishara
The Politics of Evil in the US Elections
Saul Landau
Baseball Diplomacy or Just Baseball?
William S. Lind
Leave Georgia Alone, George
Martha Rosenberg
Whole Foods and Other Food Offenders
James Brittain
The Road to Tyranny in Colombia
Pratyush Chandra
Krugman's Great Illusion
David Macaray
AFSCME's Strike Against the University of California
Website of the Day
McCain Plagiarizing Solzhenitsyn
August 18, 2008
Tariq Ali
Pakistan After Musharraf
Gary Leupp
Russia's Georgia Campaign and the Expansion of NATO
Uri Avnery
The Anger, the Longing, the Hope
John Ross
Inside America's Death Chamber
Farooq Sulehria
An Afghan Woman Who Stands Up to the Warlords
Luis Rodriguez
The Power of Art and Youth
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
A Laser Weapon of Plausible Deniablity?
Noah Baker Merrill
We Can Do Better
Charles Thomson
Betrayal of Trustees at the Tate
Website of the Day
Gonzo Environmentalism
August 16 / 17, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Don't Know Much About History...
Jeffrey St. Clair
Last Stand in the Big Woods: Resistance and Ignominy at Cove/Mallard
Deepak Tripathi
A Pawn in Their Game: From Georgia to the Brink of a New Cold War
Conn Hallinan
Georgia on My Mind
Mike Whitney
Revisiting the "Battle of Tskhinvali"
Robert Fantina
Russia, Georgia and Bush
Ray McGovern
Out Damn Blot: a Letter to Colin Powell
Nicole Colson
Bled Dry by the Oil Giants
Fatima Bhutto
The Impeachment of Musharraf
Jean-Luis Rocca
The Middle Kingdom's Middle Way
David Michael Green
My Army Went to Iraq and All I Got was This Lousy Air Lift
Ramzi Kysia
Standing Up for Justice in the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Forging the Case for War
Lisa Martinovic
What's So Funny 'Bout Bush, Lies and Torture Memos?
Richard Rhames
Single-Payer, a Dream Denied
Don Santina
Taps for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Rannie Amiri
Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim vs. the Ugly Dictator
Ramzy Baroud
Family Politics and the New Gaza Crisis
John Stanton
The Army's Human Terrain Systems: From Super Concept to Super Farce
Howard Lisnoff
The Deportation of Jeremy Hinzman
Ron Jacobs
Sweat and Sacrifice Make History
Seth Sandronsky
Arianna Huffington's Blind Spot
Poets' Basement
Landau, Darwish and Orloski
Website of the Weekend
Summer Screening: CounterPunch's Favorite Films
August 15, 2008
Steve Niva
The Surge in Iraqi Female Suicide Bombers
David Remington
Sharpening Occam's Razor on the Forged Intelligence Documents
Michael Winship
The Imperial Presidency
Paul Craig Roberts
The Neocons Do Georgia
Farzana Versey
Taming the Islamic Shrew
Harvey Wasserman
McCain Goes Nuclear
Felice Pace
The Politics of Smoke
Julian Critchley
All Experts Agree: Legalize Drugs
Website of the Day
The Farting Preacher
August 14, 2008
Saul Landau /
Nelson Valdés
The Shape of Cuba's Reforms
Conn Hallinan
The Coming Surge in Afghanistan
Mike Whitney
Georgia and U.S. Strategy
Reza Fiyouzat
U.S. and Iranian Relations: What Does Normalization Entail?
Ralph Nader
Single-Payer Health Care in an Age of Two-Party Politics
Christopher Brauchli The Cheerleader in China
Jack Bradigan Spula
Plowing Through the Farm Bill
Patrick Irelan
After the Flood
John Walsh
Buyers Remorse Over Obama
Dan Bacher
Schwarznegger Pimps the Water Bond
Website of the Day
Zevon: Renegade
August 13, 2008
Paul Craig Roberts
"President Bush, Will You Please Shut Up?"
David Remington
Forgery, Fakery and Fatigue (Scandal, That Is)
Brian Cloughley
Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Press
Glen Ford
Are Black Politics Headed Toward the Graveyard?
Brendan Cooney
A Shattered Myth in Georgia
Dave Lindorff
This War Has Been Approved By Your Government
Tom Lewis
Morales After the Bolivian Referendum
Stan Cox
Let's Handcuff the Property Cops
Alan Farago
Crimes Against the State: Bushism and the Florida Mortgage Crisis
Martha Rosenberg
Fear and Loathing Behind the Plexiglass Curtain
Website of the Day
Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Young Workers and Social Security
August 12, 2008
Uri Avnery
Obama and the Middle East
Anthony DiMaggio
Master of Ambiguity:
Obama's Non-Plan for Ending the War in Iraq
Bill Christison
No NATO Membership for Georgia
Eric Walberg
War a la Carte: How the US Invited a War in S. Ossetia
Kate Connolly
Old Cold Warriors Never Die: Brzezinski Compares Putin to Hitler
Diane Farsetta
Cracking the Pentagon Pundit Code
Peter Morici
The Trade Deficit and Job Losses
Thom Rutledge
Equal Opportunity Judgment: Reason, Morality and the Edwards Scandal
Lee Patton
How to Swiftboat McCain
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Technological Titans, Moral Midgets
Website of the Day
Mr. Hot Buttered Soul
August 11, 2008
Ishmael Reed
Politics of the Race Card: McCain Gurgles in the Slime
Paul Craig Roberts
The Moronic Party: From Off-Shore Drilling to the Georgian War
Gary Leupp
The Neo-Cons' Dream Forgery: the Habbush Letter Revisited
Douglas Kammen
Rice and Circus in East Timor
William Willers
New Paths Toward the Loss of Our Public Lands: Subsidies, Volunteerism and Outsourcing
Greg Moses
The Smell of Propaganda in the Morning: Press Calls for War in the Caucasus
Jeff Leys
Showdown at Fort McCoy
Cynthia McKinney
We Are Not Hopeless
Alan Farago
The Olympic Spectacle and the New China
Website of the Day
Mahmoud Darwish, RIP
August 9 / 10, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
You Want More Still Proofs the Crony, Old-Line Press is Dead?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pools of Fire: the Looming Nuclear Nightmare in the Backwoods of N. Carolina
Bruce Jackson
Hamdan's Secret
Kevin Young
Targeting Civilians: the Path to Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Chris Floyd
The Serpent's Egg: Solzhenitsyn and the Origins of the American Gulag
Joshua Frank
Inside Obama's Fundraising Operation
Robert Fantina
Of Campaigns and Timelines
Brendan Cooney
The Eagle is Wounded
Mark Almond
Plucky Little Georgia?
Lois Gibbs
The Lost Lessons of Love Canal
Rev. William Alberts
Blind Patriotism? McCain's Counting On It
Kathy Kelly
The Big Voice
John Ross
The Cutthroat Games: the Decline of the Olympics from Mexico City to Beijing
David Michael Green
The Fire This Time: the GOP and the Economy
Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
A Novel Approach to Politics
Ron Jacobs
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy (Or Why John McCain Wants Cindy to Show Her Tits)
Richard Rhames
The Greatest Degeneration
David Yearsley
Once More Unto the Albert Hall, Dear Friends
Lee Sustar
Justice for the Freightliner Five: a Struggle for the Soul of the UAW
Brenda Norrell
Turning Sewage into Snow on the Sacred San Francisco Peaks
Ben Terrall
Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid
Poets' Basement
Dominguez, Jenkins, Ibn Salma and Willson
Website of the Weekend
Tuli Kupferberg's Fig Leaf Olympics
August 8, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq's Nationalist Surge
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Voting: a Ritual of Justifying Biases
M. Shahid Alam
The Zionist Stratagem
Andy Worthington
Salim Hamdan's Sentence
Lawrence J. Korb
Bad Advice from Generals
David Model
Instant Genocide
Alan Farago
When Miami Goes Bust: the Politics of the Housing Crisis
Diop Olugbala
What About the Black Community, Obama?
Firmin DeBrabander
When the Olympics Went Green--with Algae
Website of the Day
Summer Reading: CounterPunch's Favorite Novels
August 7, 2008
Dr. Trudy Bond
Fixing Hell and Curing Obesity
William Blum
Breaking Young Hearts:
Obama and the Empire
Paul Craig Roberts
Do You Feel Safe Now?
Ralph Nader
Gouged in the Skies: Gotcha Capitalism in the Airline Industry
Robert Weitzel
Obama and the Two Walls
Jacob G. Hornberger
Why Wasn't Ivins Declared an Enemy Combatant?
Binoy Kampmark
Driving Bin Laden
David Macaray
What Does a Radical Labor Union Look Like?
Howard Lisnoff
Echoes of the Sixties: Refusing to Recite the Pledge
Website of the Day
Bono's Retirement Fund
August 6, 2008
Marc Herold
Obama and Afghanistan
Greg Moses
The Unnecessary Execution of Jose Ernesto Medellin
Sheldon Rampton
The Anthrax Cover-Up
Kevin Young
The Atomic Bombing of Japan: Tsuyoshi Hasegawa Re-Examines the Japanese Surrender
Michael Estrada
What I Re-Discovered in Mexico
Robert Weissman
The Commercial Games
Dr. Susan Block
The Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church Killings: Did Rightwing Talk Shows Drive Him to Kill?
Cindy Sheehan
This is Horseshit
Ace Hoffman
The Unholy Trinity
Website of the Day
Over to You, Paris
August 5, 2008
Paul Craig Roberts
The Anthrax Attacks and the Assault on Civil Liberties
Jeff Halper
An Israeli Jew in Gaza
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Better? With Three Wars Going On?
Nancy Welch
"What Did My Father Do to Deserve Such Treatment?"
An Interview with Laila al-Arian
Peter Morici
Rear View Mirror Economics
Sousan Hammad
The Antisemitism Incitement Craze
Eamon Martin
The Audacity of Despair
Shepherd Bliss
Slow Food Nation Gains Momentum
Tim Matson
Keeping Cool and Saving BTUs
Website of the Day
Top Heavy Greens?
August 4, 2008
Uri Avnery
Olmert's Exit
Saul Landau
Reflections on the Cuban Revolution
David W. Remington
The Face of the Modern War Criminal
Rev. Jesse Jackson
The Question Conscience Asks
Dave Lindorff
The Cheney Doctrine: Shoot Your Friends First
Peter Morici
The Lingering Economic Malaise
Joanne Mariner
Debating Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism in Britain
Ramzy Baroud
Through the Israeli Looking Glass: Obama Joins the Club
Christian Wright
Why We're Protesting at the Democratic Convention
Website of the Day
The US and Karadzic
August 2 / 3, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The Ongoing Persecution of Sami al-Arian
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Worst Day of Ted Stevens' Life?
Patrick Cockburn
Who's Really Running Iraq?
Winslow T. Wheeler
Is the King of Pork Dead?
James Abourezk
Lies the Oil Companies Peddle
Andy Worthington
The CIA's Secret Prison on Diego Garcia
Brian Cloughley
Baleful Imperial Power
Robert Fantina
Redefining Progress in Iraq
Benjamin Dangl
Total Recall in Bolivia
Marlene Martin
Living in Hell for Life
David Yearsley
The Sound and Fury of Wet Balloons Rubbed with a Big Sponge: Yes, Bill O'Reilly, This Your Kind of Music!
Fatemeh Keshavarz
What Qualifies "Them" for the Death Sentence?
David Michael Green Obama as Dukakis
Harvey Wasserman
Meet the Real Terrorists of the 1960s
Jason Hribal
Moja Has Mojo:
How a Few Elephants Turned the Zoo Industry Upside Down
Phyllis Pollack
The Rolling Stones' Exile on Geary Street: an Interview with Rock Photographer Dominque Tarle
Laray Polk
Tongues of Fire, Plains of Grace: Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Ron Jacobs
Jerry Garcia Meets Barack Obama
David Macaray
Labor, Management and the Adversarial Relationship
David Rosen
Teen Prostitution in America
Dan Bacher
Schwarzengger's Water Empire
Joe Allen
Batman's War of Terror
Poets' Basement
Graham, Stevens, Cory and Fleming
Website of the Weekend
Get Your War On: the Watch List
August 1, 2008
Jonathan Cook
Palestinians Face Home Demolitions Spree by Israel
Nikolas Kozloff
McCain's Mad Dog Advisor Max Boot
Rannie Amiri
Islamobamaphobia: a New Word Enters the Lexicon
Peter Morici
U.S. Economy Loses Another 51,000 Jobs
Christopher Brauchli
South Dakota's Abortion Fairy Tale
M. K. Bhadrakumar
Coup in the Great Caspian Play
Patrick Cockburn
Turkish Court Says Ruling Islamic Party Can't be Shut Down
James J. Brittain
The Continuity of FARC-EP Resistance in Colombia
Dan Bacher
Warren Buffett, Salmon Killer
Website of the Day
Shark Genocide: 100 Million Deaths a Year
July 31, 2008
Michael Hudson
The Next Big Bail Out: State, Local and Private Pensions
Carl Finamore
Protest Politics and the Democrats: A Street Protester Looks Back at 1968
Mike Whitney
What's Going on in Afghanistan
Joshua Frank
Obama's Green Coal: Another Myth from the Change Agent
Andy Worthington
The Peculiar Case of Jarallah al-Marri
Ralph Nader
The Living Legacy of Rosa Parks
Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
The Wave of Capitol Crimes
Robert Weissman
The Collapse of the WTO Talks
Dave Lindorff
Bush Judge Does the Right Thing on Executive Immunity
Website of the Day
Perils of the New Pesticides
July 30, 2008
Brian M. Downing
Assessing the Surge
Chuck Spinney
Should Obama Escalate the War in Afghanistan? A Thought Experiment
William S. Lind
Why McCain is Wrong on Iraq
David Ker Thomson
Against Bike Lanes
Karl Grossman
Nuclear-Powered Amphibious Assault Ships?
Mike Whitney
Apocalypse Down Under
Martha Rosenberg
Heifer Palooza
James Murren
Where Your Life is Worth One Bullet
Dave Lindorff
The Impeachment Hearing
Ron Jacobs
A Conspiracy to Kill Iraqis?
Website of the Day
Mapping Job Loss to China
July 29, 2008
Jeffrey St. Clair
King of the Hill Indicted! Ted Stevens' Empire of Corruption
John Ross
Return of the Gunboat
Peter Morici
When Will Henry Paulson Learn?
Alison Weir
Israeli Strip Searches
Gary Leupp
"Bewilderment and Confusion on the Left?"
David Macaray
The Calculus of Union Strikes
Brenda Norrell
Censored in Indian Country
Marjorie Cohn
End the Occupations: Of Iraq and Afghanistan
Eric Ruder
A New Consensus on Iraq?
Website of the Day
"If You Could See Me Now ... "
July 28, 2008
Dr. Bryant Welch
Torture, Political Manipulation and the American Psychological Association
Kathy Kelly
Pictures from Summer Camp on the West Bank
Mike Whitney
Bad News and Bank Runs
Peter Morici
Spreading Layoffs, Sagging GDP
Christopher Brauchli
Death by (Power) Surge in Baghdad
Clifton Ross
The Spectacle and the Movement in Colombia
Stephen Lendman
The Bush Administration's Secret Biowarfare Agenda
Website of the Day
Stone's Dubya: the Trailer
|
September 8, 2008
Obamamania, the Racial Porn-Fest and Palinama
Not About Me
By MALINI JOHAR SCHUELLER
and ED WHITE
Long before the end of the Democratic National Convention, commentators and African-American civil rights activists were situating Obama's nomination in the long trajectory of Black political struggles. Surely Obama's addresss would address claim this history--after all, he was to give his speech on the very anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.s "I Have a Dream" speech.
Obama had barely spoken when some commentators like Cornel West on Tavist Smiley's talk show expressed astonishment at the veiling of blackness. Indeed, the convention was virtually shorn of any possible contamination by blackness.
Watching the official video about Obama, one might think black was simply a variety of white, an odd variant, perhaps, resulting from the mixing of Hawaiians and Kansans. No doubt deadbeat dads don't deserve accolades or prominence, but the sheer absence of any reference to Kenya, the land of his father's birth or even a photograph of his father was strategic. And every fleeting scene showed the Illinois Senator shaking hands with white constituencies that, according to conventional wisdom, might not be trusted to vote for a black man: the blue-collar workers, old white men, old white women, white farmers. Were it not for the occasional black person, one would think Obama was running for President of Idaho.
Obama's book about his father, as many have noted, sets out to discover a father only to arrive at a mother. Put another way, go searching for blackness, and what you actually find is whiteness.
After all, the absurd question of a year ago "is he black enough" has proven the wrong question. Obama made this point himself when he noted that the election was " not about me, it's about you."
That's right. Obama's race is not about Obama. In his video, he was either putting white people at ease, or alone, gazing pensively, sitting studiously, almost unable or unwilling to look at the political world around him. The real focus, instead, was on you, the non-black viewers and voters, who were granted the freedom to revel in their own transcendence of race without painful and annoying reminders of unresolved racial problems. MLK became "the preacher" of long ago, his color and cause unmentioned. Obama"s race became an "unlikely characteristic," a statistical improbability. Chicago's South Side became a marker of public service, not a disastrous failure of US racism.
It's not surprising then that the cameras repeatedly gave us earnest white faces gazing at Obama. " This isn't about me, it's about you" It's not about where Obama came from, but about the satisfaction that whites might take in voting for a black man. If the final speech, a tour de force of rhetorical blending, to be sure, has been praised to the rafters, it is because it was liberal race-porn. It was the spectacle of tens of thousands watching themselves overcome their own discomforts about race. White voters' love for Obama is really a love for themselves. A love for their own liberalism which has transcended race and evident in their voting for an African-American. A reassurance to them that America isn't racist any more, while voting for Obama means that they don't have to think about racial injustice. They don't have to think abou the one million African-Americans incarcerated because of laws that favor the privileged or the crime of driving while black. To a generation of young white voters who can rebel against their overtly racist parents, it is an embodiment of living in a post-racist society.
Geraldine Ferraro and others tried to make this argument, but the resentment with which they fumbled toward this insight left them rightly condemned as creepy speakers of America's racial code.
The McCain campaign understands this dynamic, too, and has been
struggling for a way to answer. The day after Obama's speech, they rolled out their own strategy in the form of Sarah Palin's elevation.
Liberal commentators have been quick to condemn McCain's pick as a cynical ploy to draw disaffected Clinton supporters to the Republican camp. Such criticism naively misunderstands the new racial code of this election. McCain is not assuming, in devious Rovian fashion, that he can trick unthinking voters into voting for a woman. Rather, he is offering an escape for cynical non-blacks resentful of their historical situation. They were about to face an election in which they had to finally admit they would not vote for a black man. But now McCain has offered them a palatable way out: now voters do not have to say they prefer McCain to Obama, they can say that they are actively supporting a woman.
So Palin is the logical answer to Obama's performance. Once again, it's not about the candidate, it's about the drama of the voter's conscience. If you watched the DNC, and envied all those delegates displaying their big progressive hearts, if you wished that you too could feel so good, but if you still can't imagine voting for a black man, the RNC provided the alternative you've been waiting for. Never mind that the gun-loving, community organizer-hating, hockey mom with lipstick has never advocated women's causes. This one's for you!
Let's hope that voters take seriously Obama's insight that the election is as much about them as the candidates.
Malini Johar Schueller is a professor at the department of
English at the University of Florida where she teaches courses
on American literature culture. She is the author of U.S.
Orientalisms and most recently, "Exceptional
State: Contemporary US Culture and the New Imperialism,"
published by Duke University Press in June 2007.
and of the forthcoming book, Locating Race: Global Sites of Post-Colonial Citizenship.
Ed White is Associate Professor of English at the University of FLorida and author most recently of The Backcountry and the City
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