Today's Stories

December 26-28, 2008

Ellen Cantarow
Richard Falk, Israel and the NYT

December 25, 2008

Judy Gumbo Albert
What Were Those 1960s Terrorists Thinking, Anyway?

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Sole of Christmas

Hannah Mermelstein
Caution: Settlers Ahead

Worthy Group of the Day
Citizens' Coal Council

December 24, 2008

Bill Quigley
Five Bailout Lessons From Katrina

Saul Landau
Then and Now: Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

Sam Smith
Evangelism and Politics

Brian Cloughley
Torture, Slaughter and Lies

John Ross
Where's al-Zaidi's Pulitzer?

Eric Walberg
Cold War Shivers

Norm Kent
What Will Obama Do About Marijuana?

Stephen Martin
Reasons for Cheerfulness

Worthy Group of the Day
Collateral Repair Project

December 23, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Ponzi Paradigm

Michael Yates
The Tombstone Economy

Chuck Spinney
The New York Times Flames Out in Defense Dogfight

Vijay Prashad
India's Reckless Road to Washington, Through Tel Aviv

Brian Horejsi
Interior Decorating: Obama, Salazar and the Future of America's Public Lands

David Macaray
Obama's Best Pick?

Neil Watkins /
Sarah Anderson
Ecuador's Conscientious Default

David Michael Green
Hey, Reagan Democrats! Now Do You Get It?

Worthy Group of the Day
Focus on the Corporation

December 22, 2008

Pam Martens
Madoff's Money Trail Leads to Washington

Gary Leupp
Base Alienation: Obama's Team of Rivals

Mike Whitney
Bail Out the Economy? More Pay is the Only Way

Karl Grossman
Lost in Space: NASA at 50

Niall Meehan
Conor Cruise O'Brien: Historian, Politician, Censor

Steve Conn
Where Would Larry Summers Dump the Guantanamo Mess?

Uri Avnery
Israeli Elections: Spot the Difference

Corey D. B. Walker
The Politics of Freedom

David Swanson
The Purloined Constitution

Worthy Group of the Day
Socialist Worker

December 19 - 21, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
An Ethnic Cleansing in America

Jeffrey St. Clair
Salazar and the Tragedy of the Common Ground

Paul Craig Roberts
Country Without Mercy

Patrick Cockburn
The Baathist "Coup Plot"

Felice Pace
Green Myopia: Obama's Appointments Reveal What's Wrong with the Environmental Movement

Diane Farsetta
The Pentagon's PR Slush Fund

George Ciccariello-Maher
By the Time I Get to Arizona: ICE Raids and Resistance in Flagstaff

Eric Bergoust
Extinct Lifestyles: Redefining Prosperity

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Without Regrets: Cheney's Unrepentent Confession

Stan Cox
Clothes and Commentaries That Don't Fit

Michael Donnelly
Clinton III: Continuity We Can Believe In

Robert Weissman
The Auto Bailout

Ralph Nader
Excluded Democracy: Scholastic and the Two Party System

Alan Farago
Shock and Awe Economics

Sam Smith
Not All Public Work is the Same

Timothy G. Hermach
What Happened on the Way to the Inauguration?

Seth Sandronsky
Who's Not Getting By and Why

Rannie Amiri
All Quiet on the Gazan Shore

David Yearsley
Bach as Jihadi

Martha Rosenberg
Wyeth's Pay-to-Play

Dave Lindorff
White House Lied About Iraqi Yellowcake Buy (But That's Not the Biggest Scandal)

Christopher Brauchli
Weekend at Bernie's: the Confinement of Mr. Madoff

Missy Beattie
President Meathead

Richard Rhames
Corporatizing the Kids

Stephen Martin
Full-Spectrum Dominance of the Big Lie

Paul Krassner
Milk and Twinkies

Lorenzo Wolff
Does Coldplay Give a Shit Anymore?

Poets' Basement
Kathwari, Halling and Payne

Worthy Group of the Weekend
Heartwood

December 18, 2008

Phillip Doe
The Man in the Hat: Salazar and the Status Quo

Ronnie Cummins
Vilsack: Another Shill for Monsanto

Jesse Sharkey
No School Left Unsold: Arne Duncan's Privatization Agenda

Saul Landau
Postcard from Venezuela

Peter Morici
What's Next for the Fed?

Dave Lindorff
Prosecuting Bush and Cheney for Torture

Panos Petrou
Days of Rage in Greece

Jeff Cohen /
Norman Solomon
The 2008 P.U.-litzer Prizes: the Stinkiest Media Performances of the Year

Worthy Group of the Day
Organic Consumer Alliance

December 17, 2008

Peter Lee
Pushing Pakistan Over the Edge

Conn Hallinan
Angels and Demons in Mumbai

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Fatal Flaw

Jeff Halper
Obama and the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Alan Farago
The Audacity of Parkland

Peter Morici
The Big Hole

Norm Kent
Obama Lights Up

Col. Douglas MacGregor
The Price of Expediency

Margaret Kimberley
Blacks and Gay Rights

Ron Jacobs
The Myth of the Good Guy: Waiting on a President to Do the Right Thing

Worthy Group of the Day
Campaign to End the Death Penalty

December 16, 2008

Vicente Navarro
A Forgotten Genocide: the Case of Spain

Patrick Cockburn
Each Shoe was Worth a Thousand Words

Thomas Michael Power
Back to the Pump: an Economic and Environmental Dead End

Jason Hribal
Orangutans, Resistance and the Zoo: the Story of Ken Allen and Kumang

Farzana Versey
Straw Warriors and the Pantomime of Patriotism

Wajahat Ali /
Ahmed Rashid
Indian Muslims: Defining Their Loyalty

Mats Svensson
The Order to Destroy has been Given

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Mumbai Terror's Afghan Roots

David Macaray
Workplace Violence and Termination Etiquette

Howard Lisnoff
Left Control of Academia? The Case of William Felkner

Worthy Group of the Day
AWR: the Last, Best Hope for Saving the Big Wild

December 15, 2008

Andy Worthington
Hit Me Baby One More Time: a History of Music Torture in War on Terror

Franklin Lamb
Why Hezbollah Stiffed Carter

Karl Grossman
Dr. Chu's Nuclear Prescription

Brian Cloughley
Land of the Free (To Torture and Imprison Without Trial)

Mary Lynn Cramer
Stiglitz's Foolishly Flawed Morality

Steve Early
From Nicky Pockets to Blago: Why Pay-to-Play is Bad for Labor

Thomas Christie
Pentagon Train Wreck Awaits Obama

Ken Paff
Remembering Ron Carey: a Great Labor Leader

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
What is India to Do?

Dave Lindorff
A Hero of Our Time: Muntadar al-Zaidi

Alan Farago
The Artless Dodger

Worthy Group of the Day
Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund

December 12 / 14, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to Chicago, Beacon of American Values

Michael Hudson /
Jeffrey Sommers
The End of the Washington Consensus

David Price
The Leaky Ship of Human Terrain Systems

Jeffrey St. Clair
Nukes Up the Hudson

Frank Barat
An Israeli in Gaza: an Interview with Jeff Halper

John Ross
Writing a Thesis in Blood

Binoy Kampmark
Humanitarian Imperialism: Obama and the Genocide Task Force

David Macaray
Killing the Auto Bailout: a Dagger to the Heart of Organized Labor

Ralph Nader
Antidotes to Plunder: a Holiday Reading List

Eamonn Fingleton
Whatever Happened to Iris Chang?

Lawrence Velvel
Why Blagojevich Might Be Acquitted

Behzad Yaghmaian
The Housing Crisis: a Timebomb China Can't Defuse

Sam Husseini
Putting the Pro in Protest

Tom Barry
Incentives to Detain: How Immigrants Drive Prison Profits

Howard Lisnoff
Why I Went to Jail

Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Immigration Problem

Raj Patel
The WTO and Other Fairy Tales

Ron Jacobs
The Manufacturing of History

Paul Watson
Risky Business Down Under

David Yearsley
They Also Serve Who Only Pull or Tread

Lorenzo Wolff
So You Want Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star...

Kim Nicolini
Finally, a Vampire Movie You Can Sink Your Teeth Into

Susie Day
Proposition 1984: the Problem with Heterosexuals

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Lerch and Crete

Worthy Group of the Weekend
Energy Justice

December 11, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Total Defeat for U.S. in Iraq

P. Sainath
After Mumbai

Vicken Cheterian
The Zarqawi Generation

Ray McGovern
Will Obama Buy Torture-Lite?

Dedrick Muhammad
Post-Racial Racism at the Post: the Undying Obsession with Black Family Values

Lee Sustar
Victory at Republic

Peter Morici
The Big Drag

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Must They Hate Us So?

George Wuerthner
Another Subsidy to Big Timber?

Christopher Brauchli
Mr. Berg's Strange Obsession

Worthy Group of the Day
Animal Balance

December 10, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Whose Interests Will Shape Obama's Change?

Mary Lynn Cramer
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Question

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Nuclear Weapons Obsolescence

Joshua Frank
Breaking the Stranglehold on Middle East News Coverage

Jack Ely
Stop Sobbing About Free Music Downloads: a Message to the Music Industry from the Lead Singer of the Kingsmen

Steve Conn
An Obama Public Works Program?

Lee Sustar
Republic Workers Target Bank of America

Glen Ford
The Die is Cast

Stephen Lendman
The Persecution of Syed Fahad Hashmi

Nadia Hijab
The Face of America

Dave Lindorff
We All Need a Union

Website of the Day
This One's For You, Senator Dodd

December 9, 2008

Mike Whitney
Card Check

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Us vs. Them

Ghada Karmi
The UN Resolution That Time Forgot

Dave Lindorff
A Car Dealer Explains Why the Bailout is a Raw Deal

Steve Breyman
Notes on a Green Economy: Managing Stuff in the 21st Century

Lee Sustar /
Nicole Colson
Raising the Stakes at Republic

Rev. William E. Alberts
God of Our Fathers

Martha Rosenberg
Bill Richardson: Secretary of Bloodsports

Sam Husseini
How Holbrooke Lied His Way Into a War

David Macaray
The UAW in Peril

Website of the Day
This Toxic Life

December 8, 2008

Steve Early
Is Obama Backing Off a Crucial Pledge to Labor?

Michael Hudson
Obama's Favoritism: Wall Street, Not the Auto Industry

Patrick Cockburn
Talking to a Lashkar Militant

Diane Farsetta
An Officer and a Conflicted Man: McCaffery, the Pentagon and Fleishman-Hillard

Paul Craig Roberts
Chapters in Imperial Hypocrisy

Daniel Gross
The Chicago Sit-Down Strike

Saul Landau
To Bail or Not to Bail?

Harvey Wasserman
Why John Bryson is Unfit for Energy Secretary

Mike Ferner
The New Generation of "Non-Lethal" Weapons

Norman Solomon
The Silent Winter of Escalation

David Michael Green
The Other Foot

Website of the Day
The Remains of Detroit

December 5 / 7, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Honeymoans From the Left

Brian Cloughley
Shambles in Afghanistan

Paul Craig Roberts
Muslim Revolution: How Washington Arrogance Helped Drive the Mumbai Attacks

Liaquat Ali Khan
Mumbai and the Kashmir Tinderbox

Farzana Versey
Mumbai's Charge of the Lightweight Brigade

Peter Lee
Pakistan Nears the Breaking Point

Peter Morici
Slouching Toward a Depression?

Ralph Nader /
Toby Heaps
Junk Cap-and-Trade

Yinon Cohen /
Neve Gordon
Obama Could End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Will He Meet the Challenge?

Wajahat Ali
Perverse Justice: the Holy Land Foundation Convictions

Johnny Barber
Aswad's Story: Illegal Detention and the Declaration of Human Rights

Alan Farago
Fallout from the Pass-Through Economy

Jeremy Scahill
Obama Doesn't Plan to End Occupation of Iraq

Mike Whitney
Powergrab in Ottawa

Ranjit Hoskote
Jahiliyya Versus Jihad

Carl Finamore
Thank God I'm an Atheist! (Or Boy is Bill O'Reilly in for a Big Surprise)

Marjorie Cohn
Obama and Women's Rights

Norm Kent
Tommy Chong, the Unanticipated Warrior

Missy Beattie
What Lies Ahead

Binoy Kampmark
Committing Suicide On-Line: the Briggs Case

David Macaray
The Best and the Brightest Redux: Too Many Brains, Not Enough Humility

Nancy Stohlman
Relational Activism

Ron Jacobs
Irreverent Politics Then and Now

David Yearsley
Thematics From the Golden Past

Lorenzo Wolff
Troubled Songs of Home and War

Poets' Basement
Orloski: The Door Opener

Website of the Weekend
In Prison My Whole Life

December 4, 2008

Ece Temelkuran
Inside the Ergenekon Case

Ralph Nader
Turning Crisis into Opportunity: Who Will Seize the Moment?

Harry Browne
The Bush-Obama National Security Strategy

Eamonn Fingleton
The American Car Industry: a Riposte to the Knockers

Conn Hallinan
The Syria Attack

Mike Whitney
Fiasco in Somalia: Another CIA Cock-Up

Stewart J. Lawrence
Obama and Latinos: Richardson, Alone, is Not Enough

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Message to Obama: Stop Killing Afghanis

Karyn Strickler
Show Us the Green, Before We Show You the Money

Jennifer Matsui
Obama-Cola: the Great National Temperance Beverage

Website of the Day
"He Ain't Got Laid in a Month of Sundays..."

December 3, 2008

Andrew Cockburn
What's Wrong with the U.S. Military

Sheldon Rampton
Mormon Homophobia: Up Close and Personal

Robert Weissman
Nationalize GM

Yifat Susskind
From Mumbai to Washington

William Blum
The Obama Bummer: Vote First, Ask Questions Later

Alan Singer
The Ghost of the Defunct Economist

David Macaray
Trampled Under Foot at Wal-Mart

Martha Rosenberg
Born With a Statin Deficiency? Line Forms to the Left!

Mats Svensson
The Crimes Have No Period of Limitations

Website of the Day
Why Bill Richardson's Nomination Should be Opposed

December 2, 2008

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Kettle of Hawks

Paul Craig Roberts
The New Arms Race

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
The Mumbai Terror Attacks: Is Pakistan to Blame?

Sarah Anderson /
John Cavanagh
Skewed Priorities: How the Bailout Dwarfs Spending on Other Global Crises

William Blum
The Mythology of the War on Terrorism

John Ross
Mexico's Drug War Goes Down in Flames

Dave Lindorff
A Tale of Two Terror Attacks

Nicola Nasser
A Peace Process That Makes Peace Impossible

Steve Conn
Operation Redskin Removal

Robert Bryce
Coal Hard Facts

Website of the Day
Country, Funk, Soul

December 1, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
From Baghdad to Mumbai, by Way of Pakistan

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
Obama's Economic Team: Records of Failure

Vijay Prashad
The Fires in South Asia

Deepak Tripathi
Obama's Foreign Crises

Joshua Frank
Madam Secretary Clinton and the Middle East

P. Sainath
The Unlikely Martyrdom of Free Market Jihad

Alan Farago
The Right's War on Regulators

Binoy Kampmark
Sydney's Ball and Chain

Chris Genovali
Silent Fall

David Michael Green
Hope You Die Before You Get Old

Stephen Martin
The Chinese are Coming, the Chinese are Coming!

Website of the Day
Robert Rubin: Coward, Liar or Both?

November 28-30, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
In Time of Trouble

Mike Whitney
The Obama "Dream Team": Rubin Clones and Other Fakers

Ted Honderich
What is the Meaning of Obama's Election?

Tom Kerr
Preserving Filthy Lucre (Or Becoming My Dad)

Mike Ely
The Conquest of New England

David Yearsley
Hymns of the Conquest

Deepak Tripathi
Uproar in Police-State Britain

Sonja Karkar
Gaza's Death Throes

Ramzy Baroud
Salvation in a News Broadcast

Robert Weitzel
Israel's Settlement on Capitol Hill

Robert Roth
Can We Create a Movement for Change?

Carlos Fierro
Obama and the End of Racism?

David Macaray
How to Kill a Union

David Rosen
A New Sexual Agenda

James Cockcroft
Indigenous People Rising

Stan Cox
The Most Disappointing Gift

Steve Conn
Talking Turkey About College Basketball

Stephen Martin
The Electromagnetic Pulse and Economic Warfare

Richard Rhames
Busty Bimbettes, Bombs and Brand Obama

Kim Nicolini
Women as Products and Cannibalistic Achievers

Lorenzo Wolff
A Battle Cry for the Confused and Vulnerable

Poets' Basement
Woods, Harrison and Corseri

Weekend Edtion
December 26-28, 2008

It's All About Control

Unheralded Coup

By JAMES L. SECOR

Around the world, military regimes are arising as if it were the latest fad and every State is vying for Faddist of the Year. In all of these countries, when the military takes over, the populace rebels--and suffers horribly. No one knows exactly what these military dictatorships are seeking: it can't be pure, naked power for power's sake, for this is not a stable or satisfying end but is fraught with anxiety and justifiable paranoia: someone will always want to take it away. And a neverending cycle of a debauchery of violence is the result, the people paying the price, one way or another. Is there something else, something so great and wonderful to have that makes the cavalier subjugation and life-taking a necessity? What, in truth, was New Orleans' Katrina debacle all about? To resort to coarse barbarism, there must be something these people are frightened of losing. And losers fight like hell to not be made the losers.

Unfortunately, in one country in the world, the populace has not rebelled. Indeed, there has been little reaction at all, even to the raising of the ante from 4,000 crack troops to 20,000. These Army personnel are to help the various local, State, Federal and mercenary police forces with crowd control using, of all things, non-lethal weapons of destruction that include biological and chemical weaponry going far beyond pepper spray. Internationally, these are WMD and are illegal in the game of war; using them internally, on a State's own population is apparently acceptable. Where is the humanity? As with all hypocrisy, it lies in the rhetoric, the carefully crafted word. And the press keeps passing off this coup in rosy tones, as if it's just what's right and good for your own safety and well-being. Please believe, it's for your own good to have rifles and tasers and mortars and clubs pointing at you.

When the military is called in to control the population in order for the State to maintain its power hegemony, it is called a coup. And, again, this is usually accompanied by widespread violence. Except in the United States of America where the coup has happened right out in public, in the press. As if it's just a natural occurrence, like flowers, sap and peccant humor. Despite its violation of homeland law (Posse Comitatus), the military presence is hailed as if it is a step forward--in the name of humanity. Be so afraid, America, of the outside world that you will overlook the danger--the terror--within. Be so afraid, America, that you let your government do to you what it does to others in the name of freedom. Be so afraid, America, of the conspiracy even though conspiracy theories are hogwash. It's easy to count coup on people if they've been prepared, like a farmer tilling his field before planting the seeds that grow the crop. Pesticides like Roundup® do the chore of weeding and vermin control. And there is a plethora of vermin out to ruin your life. They're everywhere!

When an entire population is paranoid, paranoia is no longer a mental illness because it is normal; the non-paranoid becomes the illness. That is, normalcy becomes abnormalcy. Paranoia is an irrational fear, an unfounded fear: a pervasive, long-standing suspiciousness and generalized mistrust of others. These kinds of people are obsessed with vigilante looking out at the world around them for clues and signs to prove they're right. If you look hard enough, you'll find what you're looking for. Ask the police, they find trouble wherever they go. Some say they make it, for job security. The DSM-IV-TR:

this disorder [paranoia] is characterized by a pervasive distrust and suspicion of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent. . .as indicated by four (or more) of the following:

• Suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her 
• Is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates
• Is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against him or her
• Reads benign remarks or events as threatening or demeaning.
• Persistently bears grudges, i.e., is unforgiving of insults, injuries, or slights 
• Perceives attacks on his or her character or reputation that are not apparent to others and is quick to react angrily or to counterattack.

This is paranoid personality disorder, not paranoid schizophrenia. A personality disorder involves a severe disturbance in behavior nearly always associated with considerable personal and social disruption. Society has been disrupted for the past eight years, right? So, you have a right to be paranoid, America, because the irrationality, the imaginary, is materialized, not simply a state of mind. It is in your backyard. It's not a secret fantasy any more.

When this first became manifest, this rise to military overlordship, there was an outcry from the left, which is really no more than impotent disenfranchised and disgruntled middle classniks who have, for the most part, never been on the streets, active in their activism, putting their safety on the line. They write. They blog. They puke cliché and old hat sentiment, leftist jingoism. After a two week spate of outrage at the military presence in the country, this left became silent. In mid-December, Atlantic Free Press produced an article on the increase in the military presence and their array of death defying (but non-lethal) weaponry, noting the glee of the generals (With Shot and Shell, or "Modular Crowd Control Munitions").

The coup in the United States of America is still silent, a bloodless revolution. With the economic downturn--to be polite for this situation--and the almost total lack of a social network of support for the population, can you say, "North Korea II"? The crowd that's in need of controlling, the crowd that is threatening the ruling hegemony is a jobless, hungry lot and when they are pushed to the limit, they will become irrational, like those people who fight eviction from their foreclosed homes--and them commit suicide. This crowd needs to be controlled in order to corral such rational outbreaks of the deluded who can't see this is the best of all possible worlds. They will be abused, dehumanized for daring to question their lot: who do they think they are!

But the rise to a military state began before the assignment of the Army to help enforce the law--an action that evinces a foreknowledge of general unrest and the need for force. This surety of the need for control saw practice runs via great sweeps and round ups of people, from a few thousand to 10,000 in one go. Just recently, gloriously reported in the press, the Army and police forces went on manoeuvres, practicing for the upcoming spectacle of trouble. In general, the US population has not responded, not with awe, not with outrage--because the media, but for one town's plight, glossed over the stings as with a comedian's throw-away line. And, of course, these people arrested and jailed and then forgotten were characterized as undesirables. For such massive stings to be successful and so very well-coordinated, the various police forces not only had to have known where all these people would be at a specific time but the sting had to have been planned well in advance: the military already knows. As frightening as this kind of knowledge from surveillance is, more frightening is the fact that the US populace took these mass raids stride, saw them as nothing untoward, nothing out of the ordinary. A sign of victory for the military machine: apathy in the face of a purge.

The government, the rulers discovered that they could get away with murder, disappearance already being irreproachable and, therefore, acceptable, as if to say: shit happens. If there are so many pests, vermin and bad sorts around, it is not out of order that a military force would be required to help an over-extended civilian police force control them; i.e. save us. Any detractors--already labeled lefties--are so marginalized that, even if their outrage made it into the newspapers, their voices are co-opted. So. . .the authorities know nobody will complain and they are free to do whatever they want at any time they want. This is a coup. A take-over. And America has let it happen.

Wilhelm Reich noted that when "the state apparatus sets itself up to be the master. . .of society, if it claims autonomous power for itself, then it becomes the arch enemy of society. . ." (The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Pocket Books edition of 1976, p. 262). The US government is of such unfettered autonomy that it violates its own and international laws with impunity. Nobody does anything outside of the disenfranchised left singing to the chorus about the impropriety. . .the chorus does nothing but sing back. Grandmas do more in the US than anyone on the so-called left, a catch-all term that really means anybody who doesn't agree with the ruling authority.

As Karl Jaspers maintained in his The Question of German Guilt, we're all guilty. He included himself and I include myself, my expat status being the result of "on the street" activism. And state corruption. I ran to stay alive. Dead, or at least made socially impotent, my voice is stilled. So that now I am shrieking at the chorus in frustration because this fact of a military take-over really needs to be thrust in the faces of the couch potatoes, the rednecks and people like my family who subscribe to right wing "news" outlets and The Drudge Report (The Dredge Report?) and I am not there to take it to the streets: I am only a gadfly. They, my family, think I'm nuts and that I need to be on drugs to straighten my thinking out. . .like most Americans, it seems, I should be drugged into apathy. One drug or another is fine, one obsession or another--it's of no concern what it is as long as it works.

It's all about control. Controlled people find nothing wrong with the unfettered surveillance that presages military action. . .because they have nothing to hide, not realizing that having nothing to hide is neither important nor the issue. When everyone knows your business, you have no private life. Indeed, you have no life at all, no freedom to act because everyone is watching you. And you know it. Small town life: everybody knows everyone else's business. It doesn't matter whether you're actually being watched or not, the possibility is there because the fear, the news report of somebody being caught, is ever a ready rationalization. Where's the humanity?

Reich also writes that the "use of police clubs and pistols to create a semblance of peace can hardly be called 'a solution to social problems' " (p. 265). Who's the problem? Unification via force is an illusory unification. But the illusion has the look of reality. It is, nevertheless, a delusion. Insanity rules! As indeed seems to be the case when anything from the enjoyment of sex to the collecting (hoarding) of things is labeled psychotic. Ernst Cassirer, in his The Myth of the State, concurs: it ain't real, folks. But what can you expect of a cowed populace so inundated with propaganda in the form of news or regular TV programming or commercials or scandal sheets or urban myths and conspiracy theories (that don't exist)? Media communication is no more than a series of clichés "that numb our powers of attention by sheer pervasiveness" (Marshal McLuhan, From Cliché to Archetype, p. 57). Clichés help us to not think and ultimately lead to dogmatic proclamations, dogma being intellectual laziness (Cf. Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations). In the 1960's, Jacques Ellul foresaw the rise of the propaganda era (Cf. Propaganda), so that, as thoroughly as Skinner's rats, the US population has been prepared so that it will respond as wanted (needed). Where's the humanity?

Whenever anyone tries to control another (others), that person is lying. In order to control others, you must lie, for no one wants to be controlled. There is no need for truth, as long as the lies are truth-like, because only "one thing is sufficient for them--that they should yield calculations which agree with observations" (Andreas Osiander as quoted in Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p.131). And so the lying grows and grows and its irrationality and obviousness are lied away, like a manic Pinocchio reveling in his proboscid elongation. If the lie is exposed, so what? Confession is good for the soul. The lied-to are satisfied that their belief that they were lied to is real: see? I toldja. And somehow that satisfaction of having been right all along is enough; there's never more than a token of action to right the wrong or put a stop to the lie and the liars. Self- satisfaction is a powerful drug. It makes you feel good. . .and when times are bad, feeling good is euphoria. Kind of like lying to yourself. So, the controllers, the liars, are hiding right out in the open. Everyone sees them. Everyone knows who they are. Everyone asks them to reform themselves. Eventually, the lies cannot continue to be rationalized, fail to satisfy and pacify, and then the military is let loose like a sounder of slavering mad dogs out rabbit hunting. Once the fear of god-like authority is put into the crowd of upstarts, it's business as usual.

What is the business?

Ernst Cassirer believed it was the thwarting of change, that these dictators with their lie of democracy and freedom know they are about to be upset because the world is changing--but in a kind of ennui fashion--and are fighting to preserve their status quo (The Myth of the State). These are the rich and powerful, the authorities, the authors of society and culture and right and wrong. With the world run at authoritarianism via the manacled fist of the military, perhaps Cassirer is correct. The power elite are about ready to lose their status, their world is collapsing, and they are fighting for their lives. At any cost. The cost is other people's lives, which is of little concern as long as it's not their lives. This is humanitarianism: they are human, everyone else is not. "The fascist dictator declares that the masses of people are biologically inferior and crave authority, that, basically, they are slaves by nature. Hence, a totalitarian authoritarian regime is the only possible form of government for such people" (The Mass Psychology of Fascism, p. 308; italics in the original). Have the ruling elite been telling you they know what you want, what's good for you? My fellow Americans, for how long have you been told you don't know what you want? How long have you been told that they know better? Which means you are inferior. Folks, you've been enslaved. In the name of security.

Nobody wonders whose security.

I remember attending a weekend seminar on Entrepreneurship for the Independent Living Organization (ILO). I am disabled (sub-human) and I fought for disabled (sub-human) autonomy. I remember sitting at a large round table, like all the other tables, listening to some enlightened businessman (i.e., someone who understood that the sub-human can be useful) expound the fact that in a few years, in the US, whites would no longer be in the majority and they (the power elite) had to think of how to handle this situation. Meaning that it was an intolerable situation, to these white people. (I am white.) Meaning that non-whites are not as good, that is, inferior. I looked at the black man sitting next to me: no reaction. I looked about the huge Marriott ballroom: no reaction. Not from the blacks. Not from the Latinos. Not from nobody. And yet it was such a racist remark. Well, folks, welcome to the solution. The white hegemony, of which Obama is a part, is afraid of losing control and is using any means possible to maintain their position at the top of the pyramid. Look to New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. Look to Seattle and Miami (and The Miami Model). Look to the new immigration solution. Do you think the people's army will not fire on its own? No? Look to Tiananmen Square. Look to Kent State. Look to the world of Abraham Maslow (Obedience to Authority).

The world, the US, is looking at the end of inhumanity, dehumanization, at the end of class and racial exceptionalism--the weltanschauung of the power elite; but the dying beast must flail about a bit before it actually dies. But die it will. And what will replace the old ways? If the petty left have any say in the matter--they've been yelling for over 100 years--more of the same under a different name. Marxists are as blind as religious fanatics and as difficult to argue with: have you no faith? Well, actually, no. No Marxian revolution has gotten anything other than dictatorship, authoritarianism. No Marxian revolution has succeeded. The argument that they weren't done right is akin to the argument that you didn't get god's grace because you didn't pray right. So do it some more. Somebody's gonna win the lottery!

(Once, in the US, the workers' revolution was being done right; it was coming from the grassroots. This was the Union movement. Big business with government collusion squelched it.)

State control of all resources: isn't that like a monarchy? an oligarchy? an aristocracy? a monopoly?

Working for the State--and you must work: isn't that like slavery? Forced labor.

The workers' battle never being over means it's a losing battle or, at best, a no-win situation. So you always need a leader, right? To keep you on track, telling you what to do, what is right and what is wrong. Isn't that authoritarianism?

The argument that you must have government by authority is what dictated the perversion of the Iroquois constitution by the Fathers of our Country, the Sons of Liberty. Because white Europeans could not conceive of such a thing while staring it in the face. But, then, Indians are barbarians and therefore inferior; white men are civilized. Indians, nigs, spics, chinks, gooks, camel jockies. . .all inferior sorts.

So tell me. . .what's so different in the Marxian government from what the US has got now? State control of resources because big business controls the State, which means people are working for the State. And the military is on call to maintain order, to keep people on track; that is, making sure you know your place. Doesn't America already have the Marxian State? Like Russia and China and North Korea and Vietnam? It's certainly got the military to make sure you behave!

The coup was silent, bloodless. People don't want to think about it, either. Don't ask, don't tell. Slogans. Obedience. Hear no evil, see no evil (Cf. The Question of German Guilt).

The weak link in controlling behavior, in lying, is that people are not predictable. There are ever a few disaffected. And that disease kind of spreads.

Still. . .the question remains: what's the replacement? If you don't have an end clearly in sight, you'll just get chaos--or more of the same. Popper urges us to "work for the elimination of concrete evils rather than for the realization of abstract goods. Do not aim at establishing happiness by political means. Rather aim at the elimination of concrete miseries. . . .fight for the elimination of poverty by direct means. . . .the evils are with us here and now" (Conjectures and Refutations, p. 484). A military presence and combat fatigue from constantly being on guard due to constant surveillance, always waiting for the boom to drop, are evils.

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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