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Barack Obama came into office preaching hope and promising change. Nine months later, hope is diminishing and change has yet to arrive. From the cratering economy to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from warrantless wiretaps to a fatally compromised health care plan, from banker bailouts to ongoing rendition flights, this new administration governs a lot like the old. In spite of this, many progressive outlets have gone soft on Obama. We haven't. That's why so many of you have found a refuge at CounterPunch and made us your homepage. You tell us that you love CounterPunch because the quality of writing you find here every day and because we never flinch under fire. We appreciate the support and are prepared for the fierce battles to come.
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Today's Stories October 28, 2009 Moshe Adler October 27, 2009 Mike Whitney Patrick Cockburn Stewart J. Lawrence Alan Farago Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Bouthaina Shaaban Brian M. Downing Elections in Afghanistan, the Second Time Around Iain Boal Carl Finamore Jayne Lyn Stahl Website of the Day October 26, 2009 Bill Quigley / Paul Craig Roberts Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Michael Snedeker Shamus Cooke David Michael Green Martha Rosenberg Patrick Bond Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day October 23-25, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Christopher Ketcham Jeff Gore Gareth Porter Jayne Lyn Stahl Saul Landau Mike Whitney Nikolas Kozloff Ron Jacobs Russell Mokhiber Missy Beattie Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Stephen Lendman David Ker Thomson Rannie Amiri Ronnie Cummins Norm Kent Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Ben Sonnenberg Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 22, 2009 Dan Pearson / Jonathan Cook Paul Craig Roberts The US as Failed State Mark Engler Johann Hari Brian M. Downing Eric Toussaint Tom Mountain Israel Shamir Charles Thomson Website of the Day October 21, 2009 Pam Martens Linn Washington, Jr. Liaquat Ali Khan D. K. Wilson Franklin Lamb Norman Solomon Stephen Fleischman Patrice Higonnet Binoy Kampmark Kevin Coval / Website of the Day October 20, 2009 Sharon Smith Tariq Ali Mark Brenner Bouthaina Shaaban Michael D. Yates Dean Baker Dave Lindorff John Ross Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Kevin Zeese Gilad Atzmon Website of the Day October 19, 2009 Mike Whitney Greg Moses John Ross Michael Donnelly Jayne Lyn Stahl Eric Walberg Russell Mokhiber Barbara Rose Johnston John V. Whitbeck Christopher Ketcham Website of the Day October 16-18, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Carl Ginsburg Ralph Nader Nikolas Kozloff Carlo Galli Dave Lindorff Catherine Rottenberg
/ Neve Gordon Marshall Auerback Nicola Nasser Windy Cooler James L. Secor Ron Jacobs Wes Jackson Jesse Lerner-Kinglake David Ker Thomson Against Leaders Missy Beattie Emily Ratner Stephen Martin Michael Snedeker Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Peter Stone Brown Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 15, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Brian M. Downing Ramzy Baroud Danny Weil M. Idrees Ahmad Margaret Kimberley Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Harvey Wasserman Nirmal Ghosh Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 14, 2009 Michael Neumann M. Reza Pirbhai Gareth Porter Paul Craig Roberts John Strausbaugh Fortress Moon Ralph Nader Dean Baker Charles Modiano Nadia Hijab Walter Brasch Website of the Day October 13, 2009 Peter Linebaugh Shamus Cooke John Ross Brendan Cooney Frida Berrigan Yves Engler David Macaray Dave Lindorff Mark Weisbrot Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day October 12, 2009 Pam Martens Mike Whitney Martha Rosenberg Jessica Arents Eamonn McCann Bill Hatch Sen. Russell Feingold Niranjan Ramakrishnan Gideon Levy Iyad Burnat Alan Cabal Dan Bacher Website of the Day October 9-11, 2009 Alexander Cockburn James Bovard Kathleen and Bill Christison Andy Worthington Marc Levy Tariq Ali Mike Whitney Paul Craig Roberts Alan Nasser Jack Z. Bratich Steve Breyman David Michael Green Dave Lindorff Paul Buchheit Jim Goodman Missy Beattie Michael Leonardi Nadia Hijab Mel Packer David Macaray James T. Phillips Charles R. Larson Michael Donnelly David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 8, 2009 Saul Landau Paul Fitzgerald / Linn Washington, Jr. Marshall Auerback Dave Lindorff David Rosen Chris Darimont / Misty MacDuffee John V. Walsh Stewart Lawrence Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 7, 2009 Brendan Cooney Paul Craig Roberts Dean Baker Jonathan Cook John Stanton Joanne Mariner Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Stephen Lendman Sen. Russell Feingold Mary Lynn Cramer Website of the Day October 6, 2009 Mike Whitney Gareth Porter Jonathan Cook Boris Kagarlitsky Iain Boal Ron Jacobs John Ross Michael Dickinson Stephen Fleischman Ira Glunts Missy Beattie Website of the Day October 5, 2009 Pam Martens Mike Whitney Paul Craig Roberts Harry Browne Sara Mann Omar Barghouti Shamus Cooke Brenda Norrell Fred Gardner Binoy Kampmark Copenhagen Blues: McChrystal and the Afghan Trap Website of the Day October 2-4, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Diana Johnstone Greg Moses William Blum Brian Cloughley Russell Mokhiber John Ross Ellen Brown David Ker Thomson David Macaray Gary Engler Robert Fantina Lisa Stolarski / Naomi Archer Anthony Papa Joe Allen Harry Browne Ron Jacobs Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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Elinor Ostrom's NobelThe Dismal ScienceBy GREGORY TRAVIS At first, I was horrified to learn that Sweden's Royal Academy of Sciences had gone ahead this year and awarded a prize in Economics. That horror abated some when I learned it had been awarded, for the first time ever, to a woman. And it abated more when I understood that she was a faculty member here at Indiana University, a fact that replaced much of the horror with pride. But what really turned things for me, what allowed that final sigh of total relief, was the revelation that the prize for Economics hadn't gone to an economist at all. IU's Elinor Ostrom is a political scientist. Why was that important? Because the state of the dismal science is dismal. It's more than dismal, it's dreadful. It's embarrassing. Half of the discipline's practitioners think one way. The other half think exactly the opposite. I'm referring, specifically, to the wisdom and guidance being meted out (and, yes, I do mean meted because it sure feels like punishment) with regard to our economic future. Should we cut government spending or should we increase it? Should we raise taxes or should we lower them? Should we enact trade protections or should we ratify more trade treaties? Bail out our largest and most important industries or let capitalism's sickle cut them down for a bonfire of creative destruction? Pick a hundred economists at random and ask them any of those questions. Half will answer one way, the other half the other way. *** This isn't funny. It's not just a manifestation of a healthy dialectic within the profession. It's not an exposition on the sovereignty of the individual opinion. It's chaos. We simply wouldn't put up with it from any other discipline. If you asked a hundred physicists if an object in motion would stay in motion unless acted upon by a force, half of them wouldn't say "yes" and the other half "no." If you asked a hundred astronomers if, tomorrow, the sun would rotate around the earth or the earth around the sun, half of them wouldn't give you one answer and the other half the other. And lest you think I'm demanding too much of a social science by comparing its lack of orthodoxy with that of the hard sciences, think again. Imagine if we asked a room full of, umm, political scientists if consent of the governed was an important characteristic of democracy -- and they split down the middle? We'd be horrified. What's more, there'd be a movement immediately to disband the political science department on a charge of irrelevancy. But, for some reason, we're willing to put up with that in Economics -- at least in the present. And I can't figure out why. *** I might not be quite so spun up about this if the circumstances weren't so deadly serious. The nation and the world are deep in what may turn out to be the biggest and worst economic downturn, ever. Forget green sprouts, forget a rally on Wall Street. The economy is still hemorrhaging employment, and it's doing so in a way that forebodes a patient who might get better, but never gets well. I've got a suggestion, however, to try and get us better out of this mess. It's a simple exercise in Einstein's definition of insanity: doing something over and over again in the hopes that it will eventually produce a different outcome. One set would have us turn right, back to the nostrums and shibboleths of the past 30 years. Rightward to Reaganism, deficit-financed tax cuts, trickle down prosperity, a financial sector unshackled from the controls imposed on it the last time it spectacularly melted down and capital free to emigrate away from a labor force that cannot. Laughing all the way to the Laffer Curve. But that is indeed insanity, as is evident to anyone capable of remembering even the most recent history, a history in which those very same nostrums and shibboleths exploded spectacularly, launching us into the trouble all around us. The other set would have us turn left, toward an economy jumpstarted by stimulus, enabled by a public sector that stepped into the ring when the private sector had to step out and take a breather. A turn not experimental, but proven by the lessons of World War II, a massive $5 trillion dollar stimulus in which half of the entire economy was dedicated to no more productive act than making things that blew up other things or making things that got blown up by other things. But the thing is, it worked. Spectacularly. Pulling the nation, and the world, out of the tentacles of the Great Depression and setting the foundation for 50 years of peace and prosperity. *** I'm not suggesting that we start another world war just to get the machinery of civilization running again. But I am suggesting that we use that example to inform us of what worked when and to give us the courage of our convictions to mount a similar campaign, at least in terms of scale, today. I'm suggesting that the economists are evenly split on what to do, and that's depressing. But the split is a real and informative one: half of them are exactly wrong and the other half is exactly right. We just need to understand which half to listen to. And now you do. Congratulations, again, Dr. Ostrom Gregory Travis writes a biweekly column called "CIVITAS" for The Bloomington Alternative, www.BloomingtonAlternative.com, where this article originally appeared. He can be reached at greg@littlebear.com.
Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Obama and Black America Ten months into Obama-time, the plight of black Americans is terrible. Yet overwhelmingly they rally behind the president. In a powerful report from the Deep South Kevin Alexander Gray asks the question: what should the black political agenda be? Mark Rudd counterposes “organizing” with “activism” and describes what it will take to build a movement. H. Bruce Franklin gives a chronology of the march into Afghanistan. Get your new edition 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 t-shirts make great presents.Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Yellowstone Drift:
"Powerful and shocking ..
Waiting for
Lightning
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