Today's Stories

February 6-8, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's First Bad Week

James Abourezk
Obama, Mitchell and the Palestinians

Patrick Cockburn
Maliki's Triumph

Henry A. Giroux
Educating Obama

Jules Rabin
Israel's Disproportionate Responses

February 5, 2009

Michael Mandel
Self-Defense Against Peace

Saul Landau /
Philip Brenner
Killing the Monroe Doctrine

Ralph Nader
Tax the Speculators!

Robert Bryce
The Unraveling of the Ethanol Scam

Russell Mokhiber
Occupied Territory

Sameh Habeeb /
Janet Zimmerman
Innocents Lost

Dave Lindorff
Small Change

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
Beyond Green Capitalism

George Ochenski
A Blow to Big Coal in Montana

Website of the Day
Putting CEO Pay in Context

February 4, 2009

Arno J. Mayer
On Corruption

Paul Craig Roberts
The War on Terror is a Hoax

Patrick Cockburn
The Iraqi Elections

Jonathan Cook
An IDF Jihad?

Fred Gardner
Obama's Mixed Messages on Marijuana

Stan Cox
Slumwrecking Millionaires: India's Fragile New Temples

Margaret Kimberley
The Deepening Economic Crisis

Lawrence Velvel
Agony & Desperation: Madoff's Victims

Dave Lindorff
A Generals' Revolt?

Doug Giebel
A Helping of Bitter Beltway Baloney

Serge Quadruppani
Student Protests Sweep Italy

Website of the Day
The San Francisco 8

February 3, 2009

David Price
Counterinsurgency & Anthropology: Roberto Gonzalez on Human Terrain Systems

Bill Moyers
Obama's Wars: an Interview with Pierre Sprey and Marilyn Young

Kirkpatrick Sale
Obama's Lincoln Thing

Conn Hallinan
When Mind Wounds Don't Count

Peter Morici
The Slippery Slope of Stimulus

George Ciccariello-Maher
From Oakland to Santa Rita: "Fired Up, Can't Take It No More"

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
The BBC's Nadir

Allan Nairn
What Does It Take to Get a Meal Here, an Earthquake?

Norman Solomon
Why are We Still at War?

David Macaray
The Late, Great UAW

Website of the Day
The Bloody Cove

February 2, 2009

Uri Avnery
Under the Black Flag: Israeli War Crimes

Ralph Nader
What to Do About Wall Street

Gareth Porter
Generals Move to Obstruct Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Orders

Paul Craig Roberts
The Death of American Leadership

Harvey Wasserman
The Nuclear Industry's Latest Money Grab

Rannie Amiri
Gaza and the Crimes of Mubarak

Cal Winslow
Stern's Gang Seizes UHW Union Hall

Steve Early
Checking Out of Stern's Hotel California

Alan Farago
Superbowl as Panopticon

Diane Farsetta
Banning Domestic Propaganda

January 30 / February 1, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama and the Oddsmakers

Michael Hudson
Obama's New Bank Giveaway

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
"Too Big to Fail:" a Bailout Hoax

Dave Lindorff
The Ugly Truth: the American Economy is Not Coming Back

Saul Landau
Freedom Fighters, Terrorists or Schlemiels?

Andy Worthington
Blame the Chef: How Cooking for the Taliban Can Get You Life in Gitmo

Subcomandante Marcos
Gaza Will Survive

Robert Jensen
Future Farming: an Interview with Wes Jackson

Ron Jacobs
Return of the Democrats

Gareth Porter
Is Gates Undermining Another Opening to Iran?

Allan Nairn
Hope for the Dump Cities?

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA's Dangerous Security Agenda

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Feelings of a Stranger

Christopher Brauchli
From Gitmo to Supermax?

Jules Rabin
Israel and the Bomb

Col. Dan Smith
Thoughts From an Inauguration Refugee

Missy Beattie
The US Garden of Evil

Tom Barry
Obama's Immigration Challenge

J. Michael Cole
The Downfall of an Academic

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Burning the First Amendment

Dan Bacher
How Dam Removal Can Save the Klamath River

David Rosen
Last Gasp of the Culture Wars?

Don Monkerud
Religion in the American Bedroom

Binoy Kampmark
Updike: Apostle of the Middlebrows

Lorenzo Wolff
Playing Down a Bad Reputation: the Lovin' Spooful's Near Perfect Record

David Yearsley
When Orfeo and Euridice Lived Happily Ever After in Upstate New York

Poets' Basement
Valentine and Rihn

January 29, 2009

Peter Linebaugh
Tom Paine's Birthday

Paul Craig Roberts
Is It Time to Bail Out of America?

Riz Khan
The Future of Gaza: an Interview with Jimmy Carter

M. Reza Pirbhai
Pakistan: a New Cambodia?

Wajahat Ali
Obama's Al-Arabiya Interview

Gregory Vickrey
What About the Environment? Cap and Trade and Selling Out

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
Whither the Two State Solution?

Alison Weir
Killing Palestinians Doesn't Count: Fact-Checking Ceasefire Breaches

Alan Farago
Economy Without Escape Routes

Walter Brasch
Taxing a House of Cards

Website of the Day
Madoff Inc.

January 28, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
Behind the Bloodbath in Gaza

Noam Chomsky
Obama's Emerging Policies on Israel, Iraq and the Economic Crisis

Patrick Cockburn
Is Mitchell's Mission Already Doomed?

Rob Larson
The Clinton Foundation Donors

George Wuerthner
Who Will Speak for the Forests?

Allan Nairn
South-East Asian Groups Threaten Retaliation Over Gaza Invasion

M. Junaid
Levesque-Alam
A Muslim's Memo to Obama

Stefan Simanowitz
The Silent Trade

Charles R. Larson
The Autumn of the Patriot

Website of the Day
Veggie Love: PETA's Banned Superbowl Ad

January 27, 2009

Winslow T. Wheeler
Save the Economy by Cutting the Defense Budget

Yigal Bronner /
Neve Gordon
Fueling the Cycle of Hate

Joshua Frank
Obama's Neocon: the Curious Case of Richard Holbrooke

Jordan Flaherty
Torture at a Louisiana Prison

Ralph Nader
Access to Economic Justice

Rev. José M. Tirado
How Iceland Fell: a Hundred Days of (Muted) Rage

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Looking Forward

Russell Mokhiber
What If Israel Were in Your Neighborhood?

Martha Rosenberg
Who Says Technology Transfer Doesn't Pay?

C. G. Estabrook
The Inaugural Address: the Digested Read

Website of the Day
Who Profits From the Occupation?

January 26, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event

Deepak Tripathi
The BBC's Day of Shame

Vijay Prashad
The India Lobby: Drunk with the Sight of Power

Peter Lee
Geithner's Pop Gun Volley at China

Allan Nairn
The Torture Ban That Doesn't Ban Torture

Uri Avnery
On the Wrong Side of History

John Sayen
The Next Shoe to Drop

Dave Lindorff
Afghanistan is No Threat to America

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff

David Macaray
Obama vs. Labor

Roger Burbach
Winds of Change in Cuba

Norman Solomon
The Ghost of LBJ

Website of the Day
Landscapes of Occupation

January 23 / 25, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Ghosts at Obama's Side

P. Sainath
The Freefalling Economy

Patrick Cockburn
In Israel, Detachment From Reality is the Norm

Saul Landau
Reasons for War?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Our Current Economic Crisis: the Monks' Cure

Alan Farago
The Problem with the Stimulus

Christopher Brauchli
When Due Diligence is a One-Way Street

Andy Worthington
Return to Law?

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pentagon: Bowing to the Masters of War?

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Four)

Henry A. Giroux
The Audacity of Educated Hope

David Yearsley
The Music That Wasn't There: Chamber Music for Obama's Masses

Raymond F. Gustavson
Here We Go Again: General Shinseki and Veterans

Dave Lindorff
The Way Forward

Roberto Rodriguez
Fighting for Migrant Justice in the Desert

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
The Struggle of an Un-People

Fidel Castro
Meeting Cristina

J. Michael Cole
Can Obama's Shift on Terror Succeed?

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
It's Time to Free Leonard Peltier

Ramzy Baroud
Breaking Gaza's Will

Mohammad Ali Shabani
The Aftermath of the War on Gaza

Richard Rhames
Panning for Pyrite on a Cold Day at the Mall

Stephen Martin
Voices in the Mirror

Lorenzo Wolff
Jurassic Radio

Kim Nicolini
Katrina's Endless Loop

Poets' Basement
Fleming, Henson, First, Jaramillo and Glendinning

Website of the Weekend
Cartoon Love

January 22, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Another Real Estate Crisis is About to Hit

Kathy Kelly
Worse Than an Earthquake

Allan Nairn
US Intel Nominee Lied About Church Murders

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Three)

Andy Worthington
Halting the Gitmo Trials

Peter Morici
How to Fix the Banks

Joseph G. Davis
The First MBA Presidency and the Business Academy: a Damage Assessment

Adriana Kojeve
The Democrats on Israel: a Brief Oral History

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Poised for Historic Vote

Website of the Day
Support the Gaza Community Mental Health Program

January 21, 2009

Gabriel Kolko
Understanding Gaza

Harry Browne
Obama's Work Ethic

Michael Colby
Ready. Aim. Organize.

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience

Audrey Stewart
Starting Over in Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Obama and the Muslims

Binoy Kampmark
The Marketing of Hope

David Kεr Thomson
Abolition

John Ross
In My Own Bones

Allan Nairn
Killer in Chief: Will This President Murder Civilians?

Sheldon Richman
The Peaceful Transfer of Violent Power

Website of the Day
Globistan

January 20, 2009

Chuck Spinney
Hosing Obama Israeli Style

Kathy Kelly
The Strongest Weapon of All

Raymond Deane
The EU, Gaza and the Lisbon Treaty

Ralph Nader
State Terrorism Against Gaza

Audrey Stewart
Why I am in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Doctrine of Destruction

Harvey Wasserman
A Ten-Point Solar Agenda for Obama

Christopher Ketcham
Inauguration Ad Nauseam

Robert Jensen
A Citizen's Oath of Office

Dave Lindorff
Commie Chorus on the Mall: This Land Really is Made for You and Me

David Macaray
SAG Watches It All Slip Away

Weekend Edition
February 6-8, 2009

Notes From Kuala Lumpur

Inaugural Questions Nobody Asks

By JAMES SECOR

I returned from an evening with Ali and my daughter in Kuala Lumpur just before Obama's inauguration. I was too tired to bother: it'll be rebroadcast and all over the Internet and his inaugural will be everywhere to read. I don't expect anything from man but pabulum to make people feel better, make people believe that something new and wonderful is happening when, in fact, it'll be just more of the same. Look at his cabinet! Old guard but for FCC chairman--and that should be a clue to something nefarious in the future. But. . .

I spent the night, after my stomach settled, worrying over the massive military presence at the inauguration: CNN proudly announced 11,500 soldiers, some of whom would be in the parade. 100? The remaining "most" were obviously going to be engaged in peace-keeping activities, supplementing various civilian police forces, the FBI and the Secret Service with their crack team of snipers on the surrounding rooftops. Olympic level sharpshooters who can hit a target from afar. But. . .what good are they against an assassin in a crowd? They cannot stop the killer before he strikes and, after, they cannot trace him and target him in the crowd. But they can nail a few spectators. . .or someone on the Presidential platform.  

Nothing happened. There was no outcry from the amassed students, activists, newspeople, etc. No shoes were thrown at George Bush. No potshots at the uppity nigger. No fireworks. But people did go a little nuts afterwards. How disappointed they're going to be later on. Wall Street PR men had Obama sign two pieces of legislature that sent people swooning: signing is one thing, implementing is another. All for show. All to assuage the churning masses. For the social good? Perhaps but where's the help with aid and health care? Oh! The economy comes first, yes, the good of the businesses and businessmen--not if people are dead or dying for want of social programs. . .because no people equals no market, no money, no business. Duh! "Duh" for Obama and his handlers, "Duh" for my disingenuous countrymen.

But what were snipers there for? Snipers don't target crowds. Snipers target lone gunmen. To target a particular shooter in a mass of people, these snipers--working in pairs--would have to know, in advance, who he was and where he would be. Paranoid over-reaction? Certainly a useless gesture. Feel safer? Feel safer they could do nothing to protect the President. . .and could start a bloodbath (to prove they were needed)? And. . .where is it I've heard of snipers working in pairs. . .it didn't have anything to do with assassination and then a dead assassin, did it?

The inordinate amount of time CNN spent on these elite para-military killers, seemingly just shy of supermen, was, in reality, a magician's misdirection: focus on Secret Service protection and never again mention the 11,500 crack military troops illegally engaged in peace-keeping. Don't think of this, America. Don't think of military-backed regimes. Police states. Martial law. Dictatorships. 11,500 military personnel to supplement thousands of other police just looking for trouble. Think crowd control, not protection. Crowd control. You can bet those 3,000 Fallujah-

flattening Iraqi war heroes were there, the ones first stationed on American soil to combat--err. . .uphold the law. (Don't heroes save people from hell and destruction?) You can be sure, too, that these 11,500 Army troops were not packing non-lethal weaponry.  

You can just imagine how effective they would be in targeting and taking out one lone individual amidst hundreds of thousands (Al Jazeera says millions) of people. . . how about as successful as they were in Iraq? They flattened an entire town twice in search of a few freedom fighters, killing women, children, oldsters, wounded, doctors, emergency personnel--you name it: if it moved it was dead. Other towns, hospitals, weddings, media journalists were then targeted, yet. . .they've not won after seven years! So. . .  

Hmm. . .very effective measures in frightening people at the least. Very effective in show-casing their barbarity, their total lack of respect for humanity. How utterly heroic! A massive Kent State with, of course, massive human error.

Do not pay attention, America, to the illegality of this military presence of 11,500 fighting-ready, tested and true men. Forget, too, that democratic governments don't have or need a military presence to maintain its viability, its validity, its electoral processes. It's of no consequence that elections are also held in dictatorships (same guy/party wins, hands down), tyrannies, mono-maniacal police states.

No, no.  

The military guns are aimed at the people, not some unknown, invisible threat.  

The military are trained killers: that's their job. The military are trained fright- nighters: that's their job. The military are trained to insure obedience: that's their job. To do or you die.

 CNN made sure you would not question; it spoke of other legal shootists. Hmm. . .if we have Olympic level marksmen, why don't we win the gold time and time again?

Why is the power structure, the military-industrial complex afraid of you?

Next, you will be told that everything went off without a hitch because the military was there. That surveillance cameras, undercover agents, specially trained snipers and 11,500 crack Army troops fresh from the killing fieldes made sure that your government was protected, your liberty assured, your country free. Free from what?

Guns and bombs. . .what if an assassin used a curare-tipped dart blown silently out of a tube looking like a cigarette held to his lips? High-tech becomes more and more intricate and sophisticated. . .and utterly forgetful of low-tech.  

Assassins, terrorists, don't care about survival once the target's been hit. They do not care how many others go down with them, how many innocents. A hit man in a crowd of thousands. Yeah. With the Army and the Secret Service ready and waiting to open fire on anything that moves. I'd bet on the assassin's escape and a massacre of the gathered populace that will then be blamed on the bad guy-terrorist. That'll show you!

But. . .nothing happened.

But. . .there's always the possibility (or a first time).

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep (Crosby, Stills, Nash)

Or. . .there will be no mention post inaugural of the good-will and support of the people. After all, they're just a personality-less mindless mass. What do they know? They can be led around by their noses.

By the time the people of the US wake up to their martial law, it will be too late; they will be acclimatized to it, accept it as right and just. The few who don't will be underground frightened to death for their safety, expatriates or dead. Any outré press that still operates will be a sell-out, present only for looks.

Toni Morrison sees a world government. I'm not so sure. I just see a martial law type of fascist America, fitting in with the rest of the world--especially Mgabe's world. I see that, on the other side of the world, as if suffering from quantum mechanics' Non-Locale Principle, China slowly, slowly opening up. Slowly, very slowly, as is their wont. Via the massive winter of natural disasters (I covered the snows at www.counterpunch.org, though the direction is wrong: I'm east, not west), the government is beginning to pay attention to its people. New programs have been initiated to help the farmers and the migrant workers, medical insurance extras for the elderly (over 60, though retirement is 50 for women, 55 for men). I wrote about this kind of support in order to weather the upcoming massive world depression--but in Chinese (www.bokee.com, shikejian's blog).

I don't think the constriction and downfall of America and liberty is the end of the world. America and all it stood for is not the entire world or the answer to the world's problems. . .evidently. But Amero-Eurocentrism discounts anything in the East in its racism.

I think there must be something horribly wrong with me: I bitch and complain bitterly about society and government and yet here I am being optimistic.

And all of my satires for theatre are now passé. Aiyeee!--I'm a loss at being an artist!

James L. Secor is a retired professor, a writer-playwright living out on the edge of the Gobi Desert where the skies are clear, the air fresh and the water possibly the only non-polluted water in the country: mountain run-off from the year-round snow-capped Qilian Range, which he can see from his front patio. He can be reached at znzfqlxskj@gmail.com any time night or day.

–

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