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Calling All CounterPunchers!
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Today's Stories November 14 / 16, 2008 Sheldon Rampton
November 13, 2008 Pam Martens Vijay Prashad Patrick Cockburn Jonathan Cook Ralph Nader Bill Quigley Lee Sustar Omar Barghouti Steve Conn Howard Lisnoff Jeff Cohen Website of the Day November 12, 2008 Johanna Berrigan Steve Conn Patrick Bond Bokar Ture / Alan Farago Dave Lindorff Karl Grossman David Macaray George Wuerthner Susie Day Website of the Day November 11, 2008 James G. Abourezk Allan J. Lichtman Eric Toussaint Ron Jacobs Peter Montague Corporate Crime Reporter Laura Carlsen Col. Dan Smith Morton Skorodin David Michael Green Charles R. Larson Website of the Day November 10, 2008 David Roediger Paul Craig Roberts Peter Lee Corey D. B. Walker Jeff Halper Bill Hatch Andy Worthington Bill Quigley Peter Morici Anthony Olszewski Kim Nicolini Cpt. Paul Watson Website of the Day November 7 / 9, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Vijay Prashad Tariq Ali Jean Bricmont John V. Whitbeck Saul Landau Peter Morici Lawrence Velvel Karyn Strickler Nativo V. Lopez Christopher Fons Alan Farago David Yearsley Christopher Brauchli Samah Sabawi Dave Lindorff Deepak Tripathi Beth Sherouse Patrick Irelan Stephen Martin Richard Rhames J. Murray Lorenzo Wolff Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Day
November 6, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez John Chuckman P. Sainath Joshua Frank Edna Canetti John Ross Norman Solomon Fawzia Afzal-Khan Robert Weissman Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day
November 5, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Chuck Spinney Ishmael Reed Chris Floyd Binoy Kampmark Michael Donnelly David Macaray Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. William Willers Website of the Day November 4, 2008 Kathleen Christison James Ridgeway Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Conn Hallinan Holly M. Barker Ashley Smith Andy Worthington Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Doug Lummis Carlos Fierro Website of the Day November 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn John Kennedy O'Hara Peter Montague Steve Conn Andrew Gebhardt Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader Niranjan Ramakrishnan Uri Avnery Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner DC Larson David Michael Green Val Strange Tuli Kupferberg / Website of the Day
October 31 , 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Douglas Valentine Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Dr. Ignacy Nowopolski Alan Maass William P. O’Connor Patrick Irelan Brian Cloughley Mats Svensson Binoy Kampmark Steve Conn Alan Farago Morton Skorodin Robert Bryce Wajahat Ali David Yearsley Dennis Loo Pam Martens Stephen Martin Richard Rhames Ramzy Baroud Missy Beattie Howard Lisnoff Richard Neville Saul Landau / Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Stanley Heller William Loren Katz Joshua Frank James McEnteer Felice Pace Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
October 29, 2008 Arno J. Mayer Eric Toussaint Matt Gonzalez Steven Conn Jonathan Cook Patrick Bond Ramzi Kysia Douglas Valentine Stephen Martin Margaret Dooley-Sammuli Amee Chew Website of the Day
October 28, 2008 James G. Abourezk Andy Worthington Gary Leupp Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Gregory V. Button Ralph Nader P. Sainath Martha Rosenberg Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 27, 2008 Michael Hudson Barbara Rose Johnston John Dinges Mike Whitney Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power Alan Farago David Michael Green Andy Worthington George Wuerthner Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day October 24 / 26, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Don Santina Scott Boehm Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Linn Washington Jr. Nicole Colson Bernard Chazelle Brian Jones Christopher Brauchli Benjamin Dangl Val Strange Steve Early David Macaray Allison Kilkenny Richard Rhames Jim Bell Kris De Welde Barry Clemson Adam Engel Mark Scaramella Tuli Kupferberg Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 23, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Todd Chretien John Ross Peter Morici Mats Svensson Marlene Martin Robert Jensen / Margaret Kimberley Deepak Tripathi David Morris Website of the Day October 22, 2008 Brian Cloughley Heather Gray Jeff Birkenstein Ralph Nader DC Larson David Swanson Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth Larry Everest Robert Fantina Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Website of the Day October 21, 2008 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Corey D. B. Walker Steve Breyman Eric Toussaint Wajahat Ali Robert Weitzel Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing Patrick B. Barr Omar Barghouti Website of the Day October 20, 2008 Michael Hudson Anthony DiMaggio Tariq Ali Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Ben Rosenfeld David Michael Green William S. Lind Chris Genovali Stephen Martin Howard Lisnoff David Yearsley Website of the Day October 17 / 19, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whtney Michael D. Yates Suzanne Smith Carl Boggs Ralph Nader Fidel Castro Dave Marsh Saul Landau Jo Guldi Kevin Zeese Larry Everest Steve Early David Macaray Ben Terrall Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Helen Redmond Dan Bacher Wajahat Ali Farzana Versey Vladimir Frolov Kim Nicolini Poets Basement Website of the Day
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Weekend Edition No, We Can't?The Center-Right Nation ConBy LANCE SELFA No matter how much social change takes place in the U.S., there always seems to be a well-paid cohort of Washington blowhards ready to declare that things really haven't changed much. That's because, they say, the U.S. is a "center-right" country whose population isn't interested in those left-wing European (or even Canadian) ideas like national health care. Consider the following:
Of course, many of these were the same people who assured us after the 2004 election that the Republicans were on their way to building a permanent majority in Washington. But let's put aside their failures as prognosticators and ask if their premise that the U.S. is a "center-right" society is even true. * * * THERE ARE several ways to look at the question. First, there is the partisan split in the electorate. Given that most mainstream commentators equate support for the Democrats with support for the "center-left," it's worth noting that the Democrats represented 39 percent of the electorate on November 5, compared to 32 percent identifying themselves as Republicans. The Associated Press called this result "the biggest partisan shift in a generation." Beyond 2008, it's also worth noting that the Democrats have won the popular vote over the Republicans in four of the last five presidential elections. In his review of the 2008 turnout, Curtis Gans of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate pointed out: "Democratic turnout increased by 2.6 percentage points from 28.7 percent of eligible [voting age Americans] to 31.3 percent. It was the seventh straight increase in the Democratic share of the eligible vote since the party's share dropped to 22.7 percent of eligibles in 1980." If anything, this is evidence of a nation moving away from the "center-right." Second, there are the policy preferences of Americans, as expressed in opinion polls. Here again, there isn't much support for the idea that the U.S. is comfortably "center-right." As a March 2007 Pew Research Center for the People and the Press report on social attitudes over the last twenty years explained: Increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies have improved the political landscape for the Democrats as the 2008 presidential campaign gets under way. At the same time, many of the key trends that nurtured the Republican resurgence in the mid-1990s have moderated, according to Pew's longitudinal measures of the public's basic political, social and economic values. The proportion of Americans who support traditional social values has edged downward since 1994, while the proportion of Americans expressing strong personal religious commitment also has declined modestly. A Democracy Corps poll conducted after the 2008 election found that voters most consistently chose the more progressive of the two choices when they were given a "liberal" and a "conservative" description of a problem and solution on issues like trade, health care and Social Security. When asked to list in order of priority a list of policies, voters put ones like "repealing the Bush tax cuts" for the rich, providing affordable health care and ending the war in Iraq at the top of their lists. Third, there is the evidence from the 2008 election campaign. Despite the fact that the two parties of American business can be ideologically flexible, the contest between McCain and Obama took on some ideological tones. Obama was fond of saying that his election would be the "final verdict" on a failed conservative philosophy. In his convention acceptance speech, he mocked the Republicans' "ownership society" idea as a cover for telling working people that "you're on your own." On the other side, McCain tried to rally his base by warning against Obama's "redistributionist" ideas--even calling Obama's proposals "socialist." Even though McCain's attacks on Obama were based on grotesque exaggerations and fabrications, they still didn't do him any good. When the votes were tallied--even in supposed "red" states like Indiana and North Carolina--it appeared that the public chose the "socialist" Obama over the tax-cutting, anti-redistributionist McCain. The exit polls showed that 51 percent of the voters said they wanted government "to do more" rather than less, and 76 of that group voted for Obama. In contrast, 43 percent said it thought that government was doing "too much," and 71 percent of them voted for McCain. While these facts shouldn't lead us to conclude that the U.S. is unambiguously left-leaning, we can say for sure that they contradict the claim that the U.S. population leans to the "center right." * * * FOR THOSE who continue to insist that the U.S. is a "center-right" nation, at least one of these two things must be true: either they didn't observe the same election that the rest of us did; or they did observe it, and have decided to ignore it. Of these two choices, the latter is the most likely explanation. The entire elite punditocracy that has grown up over the last two to three decades was schooled in an era of conservative dominance that has come to a close. But old habits die hard. By the same token, many of these pundits are mouthpieces for an American ruling class that has done quite well for itself in the last political era. It has no desire to see the kind of social change and redress of inequality that millions of Americans want to see. But because advocating openly for the rich is somewhat frowned upon, they appeal to the democratic notion that social change isn't possible or desirable because the majority of Americans is predisposed against it. Many of these voices for do-nothingism come from within the Democratic Party itself--and they are vying to define what's "possible" under an Obama administration. Those of us who want to see fundamental social change are going to have to organize to demand it. And we would do well to ignore those who tell us "no we can't" because the U.S. is a center-right nation. Lance Selfa writes for the Socialist Worker.
New in the Print Edition of CounterPunch For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederic Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! 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. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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New in the CP Print Edition! For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederic Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; and Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Waiting for Lightning
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