Today's Stories

April 20, 2009

Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever

Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalism in Missoula

Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens

Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes

Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers

Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos: Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes

Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East

P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word

Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?

April 17-19, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Thin Ice From Here to the Horizon

Saul Landau
Infiltrating Alpha 66: a Conversation with Gerardo Hernandez, Leader of the Cuba Five

Franklin Lamb
Persia Rising

Ralph Nader
The Greedsters Are Back!

Fred Gardner
Obama's Chimerical Marijuana Policy: a Guide for the Perplexed

Dean Baker
A Win-Win Solution: Tax the Rich!

Rannie Amiri
The Curious Case of Benjamin Netanyahu

George Wuerthner
The War on Predators

Dave Lindorff
No Amnesty for Torturers

David Swanson
Personal Torture Laws

Jim Goodman
The Control of Food

Kathy Sanborn
Economic Fallout Hits Families Hard

Don Monkerud
Economic Recovery for Whom?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The People's Money

David Michael Green
Home of the Barricaded, Land of the 'Fraid

Nelson P Valdés
The OAS Charter, Cuba and the United States

Manuel Gomez
From the Bay of Pigs to Trinadad and Tobago

Dr. Susan Block
On Sex Addiction: the Deadliest Sin?

Ramzy Baroud
Non-Violence in Palestine?

Christopher Brauchli
Banning Barbie

Stephen Martin
Statelessness: the Final Frontier

Ron Jacobs
Tearing the Whole Building Down: the Dead in Greensboro

David Yearsley
Monkey Music

Lorenzo Wolff
A Song for the End of the World

Poets' Basement
Moser, McTeer and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
New England Journal of Medicine Report on Civilian Deaths in Iraq

April 16, 2009

Mike Whitney
A Bulletin From the Captain of the Titantic

Russell Mokhiber
The Top 10 Enemies of Single-Payer

Ronald Teska
From Iraq to Appalachia

Gareth Porter
Predator Blowback

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Thinking Like an Afghan

Benjamin Dangl
Latin America Changes

Kevin Pina
Haiti: Obama's First Foreign Policy Disaster?

Robert Bryce
Another Ethanol Producer Goes Bust

George Wuerthner
See the Forest: the Value of Dead Trees

Paul Garon, David Roediger and Kate Khatib The Surreal Life of Franklin Rosemont

Website of the Day
Socialism and the Facebook Generation

April 15, 2009

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Solving Palestine While Israel Destroys It

Ray McGovern
W, the Torture Decider

Robert Sandels
Is There a Latin American Policy?

Heather Williams /
Paul Baker
Carbon Cap and Trade: How Wall Street will Game the Regs and Trash the Planet

Jack Willoughby
The Lessons of the S & L Crisis

David Swanson
Habeas at Bagram?

Paul Craig Roberts
94 Years of Serfdom

Sara Mann
Norman Rockwell and the Perils of Nostalgia

Kenneth Couesbouc
John Maynard's Martingale: How Keynes Got Rich

Binoy Kampmark
Tax Haven Hypocrisies

Kekuni Blaisdell, Lynette Hi'llani Cruz, George Kahumoku Flores, et al.: An Urgent Letter to Obama on the Rights of Native Hawaiians

Website of the Day
Taxa: the Paintings of Isabella Kirkland

April 14, 2009

Conn Hallinan
The Afghan Rubik's Cube

Mike Whitney
Why is Goldman Sachs So Scared of Mike Morgan?

Peter Morici
Taxing Grandma to Subsidize Goldman Sachs

Greg Moses
Economic Curveballs: the Laffer Posse

Fidel Castro
Obama's Cuba Policy: Not a Word About the Blockade

Robert Weissman
No Blank Check for the IMF

Rebecca Macaux /
Philip Primeau
Somali Piracy and American Foreign Policy

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
The Dubious Revoution: Biofuels, the Next Generation

Dave Lindorff
Snatch-and-Jail Justice: the Ugly War on Immigrants

Walter Brasch
The Resurrection of Intolerance

Benjamin Day
Why Has the Press Failed Us in Reporting on Health Care Reform?

Website of the Day
The Appraisal Bubble

April 13, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Militia Fear Reprisals After US Exit

Uri Avnery
Our Dissonance

Jeremy Scahill
A Test Case for Habeas Corpus: Will Obama Prosecute the Somali Pirate in a US Court?

Martha Rosenberg
Suicide Syndrome: Are VA Protocols Behind Iraq Vet Suicides?

Karl Grossman
A Radioactive Extension for Aging Nuclear Plants

Nadia Hijab
Still Waiting: Obama and American Muslims

Sam Smith
America's Cultural Bear Market

James McEnteer
Peru's Shining Example

Sean McMahon
Globalizing Politicide: Israel's Strikes on Sudan

Namihei Odaira
Makota's "Campaign Against Poverty"

John V. Walsh
Bossnapping

Website of the Day
Declining IRS Audits for Big Financial Houses

April 10 / 12, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Resurrection and Revenge

Chris Floyd
Hope Abandoned: Obama Protects CIA Torture Memos

Mike Whitney
"Liquidate the Banks; Fire the Executives!" Warren's Devastating Report to Congress

Saul Landau
How the Media Bought the Surge

M. Reza Pirbhai
Obama's Afghanistan Plan and India-Pakistan Relations

Franklin Spinney
The Art of the Scam: Wall Street and the Pentagon

Rannie Amiri
Iran's Elections: Why Arab Leaders Want Ahmadinejad to Win

William Blum
The Ideology of Barack Obama

Matt Vidal
Why Card Check Would Help the Economy

Jeff Howison
Death of the Square Deal

Jeff Leys
Resisting the Af-Pak War: the Creech Air Base Arrests

Dave Lindorff
America's Imperial Wars: Why We Need to See the Horrors

Ramzy Baroud
Israel Investigated: But Will It Repent?

Missy Beattie
The Grateful Dead, Wounded and Displaced

Fred Gardner
Fakes Left, Goes Right: Obama's Crossover Dribble on Marijuana Policy

Harvey Wasserman Another $50 Billion for Rust Bucket Nukes?

Suzan Mazur
A Revolution in Biology: an Interview with Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse

Bernard Umbrecht
German Capitalists Take Fire

David Macaray
A Word Clooney, Hanks and Baldwin Should Learn: Solidarity

Janet Kauffman
How to Starve (or Feed) a River

Ron Jacobs
Daring to Struggle, Failing to Win

Norman Solomon
Getting a Death Grip on Memory

Michael Winship
Let the Railsplitter Awake!

Richard Rhames
Empire, Ennui and Extra Cheese

Wanda Fucha
Brother, Can You Spare a Million Bucks?

David Yearsley
My Journey to the Heart of Rahman

Lorenzo Wolff
Getting Beyond the Black-and-White: Jason Isbell's Challenging New Album

Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini's Louis XIV: "Neither the Sun Nor Death Can be Gazed Upon Fixedly"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Poets' Basement
Corseri and Corzett

Website of the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help!

April 9, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Decade of Darkness

Patrick Cockburn
What It Would Take to Mend Fences with Islam

Stephen Soldz
Caught on Tape: Diagnostic Abuse of Veterans

P. Sainath
The Rise of the Shoe-cide Bomber

Ellen Cantarow
Israel's Master Plan for Transfer

Gareth Porter /
Jim Lobe
Obama and Israel's Threat to Strike Iran

Jeremy Scahill
How Many Democrats Will Stand Up Against Obama's Bloated Military Budget?

Jerry Kroth
Saving GM From Bankruptcy--With the Stroke of a Pen

Binoy Kampmark
Fujimori Convicted: A Measure of Justice in Latin America

Fidel Castro
My Meeting with the Black Caucus

Website of the Day
Bird Song Radio

April 8, 2009

John Prados
The Af-Pak Paradox

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Changing the Rules of the Blame Game

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Tooth Fairy and the Defense Budget

Russell Mokhiber
PBS Lashes Back

Kathy Sanborn
Depression Fury

Rev. William E. Alberts
If the Shoe Fits: Bush and Al-Zaidi

James McEnteer Rashomon and the Binghamton Shooter: the Rush to Interpret Jiverly Wong's "Statement"

Nadia Hijab
Olmert's Nightmare

Adam Turl
Card Check on the Ropes

Kevin Zeese
Escaping the Drug War Quagmire

Website of the Day
Walk Score Your Neighborhood

April 7, 2009

David Price
Counterinsurgency's Free Ride

Uri Avnery
Who's the Boss?

Chris Floyd
Talking Peace in Prague, Dropping Bombs in Pakistan

Winslow T. Wheeler Defense Cuts: Gates and the System

Marjorie Cohn
Prosecuting the Bush Torture Team: Spain Leads the Way

Dean Baker
Hands Off Social Security

Diana Johnstone
NATO, Strasbourg and the Black Block

Dave Lindorff
Politicizing Accounting

Martha Rosenberg
Life on HBO's Factory Hog Farm

Evelyn Pringle
Motherhood and the Psycho-Pharmaceutical Complex

Website of the Day
Gaza: Closed Zone

April 6, 2009

Michael Hudson
The IMF Rules the World

Andy Worthington Bagram: Guantánamo's Dark Mirror

Ray McGovern
Profiles in Cowardice: Eric Holder and Colin Powell

Deepak Tripathi
The Pakistan Enigma

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Financial Rescue Plan: a Glide-Path to Destitution

Norman Solomon
Meet the New Escalators: the Democrats and the Afghan War

Jonathan Cook
Israel Railways Accused of Racism in Firing of Arab Workers

Judith Bello
Justice for the Developmentally Disabled

Deena Metzger Blackwater in Liberia

Dr. M. Kamiar
"There's No 'Eye' in Iran:" Obama's Pronunciation Problem

Website of the Day
Prison Talk

April 3-5, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
From Twin Towers to Twin Camelots

Kathy Kelly /
Brian Terrall
Getting a Closer Look at the Killer Drones

Sue Sturgis
Fooling with Disaster? Startling Revelations About Three Mile Island Raise New Doubts Over Nuclear Plant Safety

Peter Morici
Girding for a Depression

Kathy Sanborn
Homeless in Tent City, USA

Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo: Fact or Fiction?

Rob Larson
Subprime Supreme Court: The Roberts Court Has Become a Powerful New Tool for Business

Saul Landau
Biden and Nixon: a Tale of Two Latin American Experiences

Steve Early
An Evening with Andy Stern

John Goekler
Was Gaza Israel's Waterloo?

Rannie Amiri
Arab League Reconciliation Summit a Bust

Dave Lindorff
Hooray for Juries! A Courtroom Victory for Ward Churchill and Academic Free Speech

Lee Ballinger
Sound Garden: Tom Morello at the Grammy Museum

Ron Jacobs
Artifacts for Survival

David Macaray
AIG Plays the Sympathy Card

John Wight
G20: Capital's New World Symphony

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Race in the Obama Era

Mychal Bell
Surviving Jena Six

Missy Beattie
Hoop Hopes, War and Peace

Reza Fiyouzat
The Iran/US Rapproachment Dance

Michael Boldin
The War on Drugs is a War on You

Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Batting 50-50

Charles R. Larson
Too Much Stuff

Susie Day
Bernie Breakout Shocker!!

Stephen Martin
Gordon Brown's Chicken Run at the G20

Kim Nicolini
"Last House on the Left:" Vigilantes of the Bourgeoisie

David Yearsley
Homage to Moog and Mallards

Phyllis Pollack
An Interview with Legendary Rock Producer Chris Kimsey on Working with the Stones, Ronnie Wood, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh and Saint Jude

Poets' Basement
Foley, Valentine and Kozak

Website of the Day
The Corner Store

April 2, 2009

Robert Weissman
What If Obama Had Treated Detroit Like Wall Street?

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
A G20 Meeting for Naught

George Bisharat
Israel's Impunity Must End

Russell Mokhiber
Something is Rotten at PBS

Franklin Lamb
Has Washington Lost Lebanon?

Gareth Porter
Settling Scores in Iraq: Maliki Draws US Troops into Crackdown on Sunni Rivals

David Macaray
Obama and the Ruling Class: "Only the Little People Pay Taxes"

Chris Genovali
B.C.'s Bloody Grizzly Hunt

Sam Smith
The Politics of Adulation

Suzan Mazur
Is Neo-Darwinism Dead?

Website of the Day
Fighting for Change in St. Louis

April 1, 2009

Chris Floyd
Surging Further Into the Afghan Abyss

Stanley Heller
Israeli War Crimes: Thank God, It Was Only Rumors

Mark Brenner, Mischa Gaus and Jane Slaughter Obama's Perilous Plan for Detroit: Restructure the Big 3, But Not With Bankruptcy

Jonathan Cook
The Slow Demise of Ehud Olmert

Eric Walberg
EU in Tatters: Only the Protesters Have Any Vision

Richard Morse
Why Haiti Can't Forget Its Past

Don Fitz
Guess Who Came to Dinner with a Match? Green Mayoral Candidate's Van Firebombed in St. Louis

Laray Polk
Texas and Evolution

Belén Fernández
12 Años de Soledad?

Harvey Wasserman
Cracking the Media Silence on Three Mile Island

Website of the Day
Pentagon Fraud Investigations Fell, While Contracts Soared

March 31, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Deception Tango

Peter Lee
Ghosts in the Machine: the World's Hottest Cyberwar Battlefield

Nicholas Dearden
A New Global Debt Crisis

Dave Lindorff
The Obama Betrayal

Joanne Mariner
"We'll Make You See Death"

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pakistan Gambit

Wiliam S. Lind
Another Lost War

David Michael Green
Who Says the GOP Doesn't Have a Plan?

Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Elections in the Americas

Johnny Barber
Meditation in Orange

Dedrick Muhammad
Economic Inequality: the Foundation of the Racial Divide

Website of the Day
How the Obama Dems Took Over the Peace Movement

March 30, 2009

Michael Hudson
Financing the Empire: Do US Face G20 Mutiny?

Patrick Cockburn
What Next in Afghanistan?

Henry A. Giroux
Hard Lessons

Mike Whitney
Where's Eliot Spitzer Now That We Need Him?

Ralph Nader
Where's All the Money Coming From?

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's War on the (Upper) Middle Class

Jeremy Scahill
The Logistical Nightmare in Iraq

Robert Bryce
The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion

Jonathan Cook
Remembering Land Day in Palestine

Ray McGovern
Obama Bombs

Website of the Day
Hersh: Syria Calling

April 20, 2009

From a Really Acceptable Cuban

A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama

By NELSON P. VALDÉS

"... The despotic power of the master, the husband, and the father is no engine of tyranny, but usually and naturally a tie of affection, and a means of support and protection."

- George Fitzhugh [1]

"... ¿Qué derecho tiene ningún gobierno a arrogarse la tutela de ninguna parte del mundo?"

- Fidel Castro, March 5, 1960 [2]

"... and at times we sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations; there is simply engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values... I've already changed a Cuba policy that I believe has failed to advance liberty or opportunity for the  Cuban people. "

- President Barack Obama, April 17, 2009 [3]

As a result of the Trinidad/Tobago Summit, in recent days the United States government and mass media have called  on the Cuban government to react to the good hearted  initiatives of the government in Washington, DC. Cuba is certainly thankful that such a powerful country is so interested in advancing liberty and opportunity within our island. The fact that you do not do the same with China - a huge country by comparison - only demonstrates that we Cubans are more important to you than all those millions of people in Asia.

Out of magnanimous politeness the United States government did not want to be very precise as to what it expects of us Cubans so that we can be granted the blessings of  a democratic system in our island. We do appreciate that the interests of Cubans is what guides American policy toward us, something that - obviously - we forget to do ourselves. Your selflessness is commendable, while our own self-interested behavior is certainly demeaning.

We have decided, consequently, to respond to your expectations of reciprocity. We want to be good and be like you.  Hereby we are lifting our economic embargo of the United States. Moreover, we will go the extra mile. We have come up with a number of initiatives of our own, hoping that you will be pleased and recognize us as your faithful students. The proposals should be considered our response to your substantial and magnificent first steps [i.e. letting Cuban Americans freely travel to our humble nation and do as they wish with their own money].

Please note that what follows is a request to you; it is not a  demand. If there is something in this statement that your American Congress does not like, we will be delighted to delete it and offer our apology - beforehand. As Tomas Estrada Palma, the first president you put in charge in 1901, we know that you understand our interests better than we do. We are so lucky to be so close to your shores, so you can continue acting like our father or big brother. The laws of political gravitation and geography have certainly turned us into diplomatic realists. [We are so happy to be learning the terminology!]

We know that there are many things that the American government wants for our people in Cuba but your dogged respect of our sovereignty limits your freedom to tell us what to do. Of course, these are just the first  steps in what you properly have called our necessary political transition.

The list below is part of a political roadmap as you like to say. We will be preparing a similar economic shopping list in the future in order to properly have a free economic system wide open to your highly responsible banks and financial institutions. We now realize that economic and social inequality has important political benefits. We have been wrong assuming that the poor should be involved in politics and we are certain that you will help us with that problem too. The poor should spend their time working on other things.

But let us begin with the political side of the equation: In order to have a "democratic opening" and a "multi-party elections" system in Cuba, the government of Cuba hereby requests of the Obama administration the following:

1. That Newt Gringrich and Sarah Palin be permitted to become Cuban citizens so that they may offer Cuba the proper guidance on how to set up political parties in the island. They will be put in charge of a two-party system. We realize that we do not need more than two parties, as you have shown the world through your example.

2. That the United States National Security Agency help the Cuban police modernize their surveillance technology so that we can better keep track of the congressmen we elect, as you do so well.

3. That the United States Congress lends a hand to the Cuban authorities in order to set up in Cuba a similar legal system to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, thus we can democratize listening to everyone's conversations.  Cuba intends to ask the United States for appropriate funding in order to train personnel in the use of the equipment necessary.

4. That the United States Congress assist Cuba in setting up the legal system to allow the establishment of business lobbies within the Cuban political system. We are aware that members of Congress every day hear from the business interests and want to establish that influence in the island as well.

5. That the United States send a corps of privately financed lobby legislative coordinators to rewrite Cuban law, thereby bringing it into agreement with the lobbyist-written laws of the United States and  freeing up our future elected officials to spend time fundraising for their media-intensive campaigns.

6. That Democratic and Republican parties from the United States set up training sessions on how to raise money from private commercial,  financial interests to fund electoral campaigns. We do want the best politicians that money can buy.

7. That a team of the best Secretaries of States from around the United States be sent to Cuba to help mimic the process of stealing elections  as done in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere. We are particularly interested in learning the unique methods by which poor and non-white people can be caged.

8. That the best private election counting companies from the United States who successfully have stolen elections be sent to Cuba in order to learn the best procedures to accomplish the same transparent methods that American democracy proclaims.

9. Since we are so new at this game of political democracy we expect to have a US Assistant to Democratization within our government in Havana. Since the United States government knows so much about such matters, we will pay the salary of the US government assigned person. We will provide that person with the rank of Minister within the Council of State. Moreover, the position will have the power to veto any decision that we Cubans make. After all, we do not want to make mistakes on such serious matters as building a properly functioning democracy - something that you Americans do so well.

10. Considering that we will start from no experience on these matters of free elections, we will appreciate it if you continue the funding of dissidents and through them help us choose the best candidates for our elections and in the process you can exercise your right to give media  and financial support to the candidates you prefer for us.

11. Our mass media has not been free or balanced, like yours.  Moreover, we like the idea of making the irrelevant important and vice versa.. Send us a team of Fox News to show our media how to build party mouthpieces and we will call the effort "justo y balanceado."

12.    It is also urgent that you send a team of Harvard professors, as you did in 1902, to rewrite our history textbooks. We truly understand the need to forget the past in order to forge ahead. We know you want us to do that, and we are willing.

Two additional comments:

We think it is wonderful to have in the United States a black  President. It is certainly much easier for us to have a black father figure up north, rather than a white one, telling us what we ought to do with all of our political institutions and economy. We are just ripe for the tutelage, a sort of "lowest-hanging fruit".[4] We are earnestly looking forward to the plucking.

We know we can not be manifested by destiny to become a great empire.  God clearly chose only the United States for such an important role. But perhaps you could at least give us a few tips about expanding our reach. You took by war or intimidation all the land to the west of the original 13 British colonies -- and then some. Maybe we could pick up just a few Caribbean islands -- with your help, of course.

Nelson P Valdés is the Director of the Cuba-L Project. Ma Chetera, Saul Landau and Ned Sublette have contributed with suggestions and editorial comments to this piece.

This commentary was written for Cuba-L Analysis and CounterPunch.

Notes.

[1] Louis A Pérez, Cuba in the American Imagination: Metaphor and the Imperial Ethos, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008, p. 108

[2] PALABRAS PRONUNCIADAS POR EL COMANDANTE FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRIMER MINISTRO DEL GOBIERNO REVOLUCIONARIO, EN LAS HONRAS FUNEBRES DE LAS VICTIMAS DE LA EXPLOSION DEL BARCO "LA COUBRE", EN EL CEMENTERIO DE COLON, EL 5  DE MARZO DE 1960. http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1960/esp/f050360e.html

[3] 04/18/09 - US Department of State - "At Times We Sought to Dictate our Terms. But I Pledge to You that We Seek an Equal Partnership" http://cuba-l.unm.edu/?nid=67926

[4] 04/14/09 - The Washington Note - US Military Leaders Issue  Statement on America's Cuba Policy http://cuba-l.unm.edu/?nid=67751&q=fruit&h=

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