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Today's Stories

January 10, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Now Nader Claims He Didn't Endorse Edwards

January 9, 2008

Cockburn / St. Clair
The Empire Strikes Back

Dave Lindorff
The Bad News from New Hampshire: Death By Triangulation

John Chuckman
Pardon My Laughter: Watching the US Primaries from Canada

James Bovard
Stomping Freedom: Inside the Martial Law Act of 2006

Alan Farago
As Florida Sinks: the View from the Titanic

Russell Mokhiber
Why Picket the New York Times in DC on Friday?

William S. Lind
Kicking the Can Down the Road in Iraq

Peter Morici
Beyond the Sophistry: Why the Trade Deficit Matters

Josh Reubner
Sudan vs. Israel: Double Standard on Divestment

Mike Roselle
The Pursuit of Happiness

Website of the Day
Bottles of Tears on the Wall: Steve Perry on NH

 

January 8, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
No Jobs for the New Economy (or the Old)

Russell Mokhiber
The Black Hillary: Obama is Just Another Political Sedative

Robert Fantina
The Gulf of Tonkin and the Strait of Hormuz

Dave Zirin
Butts on Parade

Shamako Nobel
I Am an Emcee: the Politics of Hip Hop

John Ross
Zapatista Women Encounter Themselves

Brenda Norrell
Apaches Defend Homeland from Homeland Security

Laura Carlsen
Why Bolivia Matters

Patrick Irelan
Remember the Maine!

Evelyn J. Pringle
The Holes in Bush's FDA

Jonathan M. Feldman
After Iowa and New Hampshire: a Strategy for Rebuilding the Peace Movement

Michael Dickinson
Playing Soldier

Website of the Day
Sean Hannity on the Run!

 

January 7, 2008

Chris Floyd
There Will Be Blood: But No Justice for Iraq Atrocities

John Blair
Remove That Man! Creeping Fascism in Indiana

Uri Avnery
The Case of the White Bird

Andy Worthington
Who Are the Gitmo Saudis?

Binoy Kampmark
Needling the Convict: Lethal Injection and the Supreme Court

David Macaray
Women on Strike

Ralph Nader
Obamarama: the Politics of the Smooth Mood

Michael Donnelly
It's the War Vote(s), Stupid!

Ron Jacobs
Ron Paul's Run: Is Being Against the War Enough?

Gideon Levy
The Hostile President

Dave Lindorff
A Real 9/11 Cover-Up? Sibel Edmonds, Turkey and the Bomb

Website of the Day
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea

 

January 5 / 6, 2008

Douglas Valentine
Good Guys in Black Hoods

Kevin Young
The US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq

Richard Rhames
Saddam Who?

Saul Landau
Bush Snatches Defeat from Victory

Marc Lynch
Why Bush's Iran Strategy is Failing

Robert Fantina
Iowa, Democrats and the Iraq War

Donna Volatile
Antiwar Soldier: an Interview with Jonathan Hutto, Sr.

Jelle Bruinsma
Norman Finkelstein in The Netherlands

Bob Sutcliffe
Remembering Andrew Glyn, Rebel Economist

Harvey Wasserman
Anti-Nuclear Renaissance

Missy Beattie
Why Obama Can't Save Us

David Swanson
Remembering the Separation of Powers

Jacob Hornberger
The Importance of the Padilla Case

Shepherd Bliss
Survival Tools from Kokopelli Farms

Ron Jacobs
Bleeding Kansas

Poets' Basement
Patti Smith, B.R. Gowani and Peter Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Jimmy Dean Sausage Call Complaint

 

January 4, 2008

Cockburn / St. Clair
A Good Night in Iowa

Jonathan Cook
War Crimes Airbrushed from History

Paul Craig Roberts
Thinking for Yourself is Now a Crime

Stan Goff
Ron Paul's Monkeywrench

Dave Lindorff
Clinton's Iowa Flop Exposes DLC Myths as Frauds

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
To Pindi Station

Allan Nairn
U.S. Elections Over Before They Began

Joshua Frank
The Failures of Sectarianism

Peter Morici
Economy on the Skids

Mary McInnis
Iowa Cocky-Us: How to be a Caucus Tease

Website of the Day
The Return of Obama Girl

 

January 3, 2008

Fatima Bhutto
Farewell to Wadi Bua

Pam Martens
The Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos

Joanne Mariner
The Presidential Candidates and Torture

Zoltan Grossman
Remember the '80s: Social Movements Between Woodstock and the Web

David Domke
The Echoing Press and Huckabee

Norman Solomon
Edwards Reconsidered

Nikolas Kozloff
Return of the Faux Liberal

Jacob G. Hornberger
The Padilla Case and the Future of Habeas Corpus

Martha Rosenberg
Quit Picking on Huckabee's Son, Michael Vick

Russell Means
This Property is Condemned: a Notice to Those Occupying Lakotah Lands

Website of the Day
WolfQuest

 

January 2, 2008

Jeff Taylor
The Left and Ron Paul

M. Shahid Alam
The Life and Death of Benazir Bhutto: a Pakistani Tragedy

Gary Leupp
Madness Compounding Madness: Calls for Intervention in Pakistan

Paul Craig Roberts
Criminals with Badges

Heather Gray
Georgia's Racist Death Penalty

Fred Gardner
and Shobhit Arora
Dr. Strangelove's Nemesis

David Macaray
Labor Unions and Taft-Hartley

Benjamin Dangl
Fear and Loathing in Bolivia

 

 

January 1, 2008

Iain A. Boal
City of Disappearances

B. R. Gowani
Benazir's Death in Crisistan

Shahid Mahmood
Bhutto and the Press

Linn Washington, Jr.
Old Injustices Endure: From Crack Sentences to Racial Profiling

Harvey Wasserman
Taking Leonard Peltier to Iowa: the Moral Low Point of the Clinton Era

John Ross
2008, Already a Year to Forget

Website of the Day
The Thrill is Gone: BB and Gladys

 

December 31, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Goodbye 2007 and Good Riddance!

Tariq Ali
Pakistan, the Aftermath

Liaquat Ali Khan
The Perfidy of Pakistan's Rulers

Wajahat Ali
After Bhutto, a Nuclear Pakistan?

Robert Fisk
Who Killed Bhutto?

Ajai Sahni
Myths and Realities About Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan's Dark Future

Marwan Bishara
You Say Talk, I Say Attack: The Middle East and the US Presidential Election Campaigns

Uri Avnery
The Beilin Syndrome

Mark T. Harris
Does This Happen in Canada?

Brenda Norrell
Resistance and Censorship

Website of the Day
A People United Will Never Be Defeated

 

December 29 / 30, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Options in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby

Tariq Ali
Indignation and Fear Stalk Pakistan

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
My Encounter with Benazir Bhutto

Gary Leupp
The U.S. and Pakistan After 9/11: Blowback from an Unholy Alliance

China Hand
Pakistan Stares Into the Abyss

Jacob Hornberger
Stop Medddling in Pakistan

John Chuckman
Pakistan and the Failure of Quick-Fix Politics

Missy Beattie
Evaluating Bush with the Bhutto Corruption Standard

Ralph Nader
Who Will Take the Next Step?

Fidel Castro
There Hasn't Been a Day in My Life When I Haven't Learned Something

Robert Fantina
The Sham of Homeland Security

Greg Moses
Beauty from the Heart of Texas

Catherine Lutz
What We Can Not See: Art and Bombing

Kristin Van Tassel
Seeing in the Dark

Kim Nicolini
Redacted: Brian DePalma's Scream of Outrage

Phyllis Pollack
Keith Richards Runs With Rudolph Once More

Poets' Basement
Landau, Gibbons and Davies

Website of the Weekend
Driving Karachi in Search of the Perfect Naan

 

December 28, 2007

Farzana Versey
The Complex Electra

Wajahat Ali
A Pakistani Requiem

Binoy Kampmark
Death in Rawalpindi: Bhutto and Her Legacy

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Not Dead Yet: The Pakistan People's Party Still Survives

Anthony DiMaggio
Turkey's Bombing of Iraq

Ray McGovern
Creeping Fascism

Jim Goodman
Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going

Ron Jacobs
Transcending the Colonizer's History: Iran, a People Interrupted

Russell Hoffman
Mini-Nukes by Toshiba

John Murphy
Greens Gone Wild

Website of the Day
Guiliani Campaign Official: "Only Rudy Can Defeat the Muslims"

 

December 27, 2007

Dilip Hiro
A Tragedy Foretold: Will Bhutto's Death be a Boost for Her Party?

Murtaza Shibli
Who Killed Bhutto?

Stephen Soldz
Fallujah, the Information War and U.S. Propaganda

Bill Quigley
Locked Outside the Gates

Paul Craig Roberts
The Great American Lock-Up

Omer Subhani
Killing Bhutto: What Happens Next in Pakistan?

Marjorie Cohn
The Torture Tape Cover-Up: How High Does It Go?

Allan Nairn
Cataclysm By Money Whim

Jacob G. Hornberger
Smearing Ron Paul: Shame on the NYT

Norman Solomon
Channeling Suze Orman

Patrick Irelan
Rumsfeld Spills the Ink

Ben Tripp
Pass the Razor Blades

Website of the Day
Quagmire, For What It's Worth

 


December 26, 2007

Charles Tripp
From One Saddam to Fifty

Paul Armentano
No-Knock, You're Dead

Rannie Amiri
Lebanon in Search of a Government

Stanley Heller
Brzezinski and Charlie Wilson's War

John Walsh
Two Unreasonable Men

Martha Rosenberg
The Strange Career of Scott Gottlieb

Norman Madarasz
Bolivia Amends New Constitution and Faces Mutiny from Within

Website of the Day
Cockburn at the Battle of Ideas

 

December 25, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
Conscience and Empire

December 24, 2007

Andrea Peacock
A Dark Ride on the Border

Tariq Ali
Thinking of Edward Said

Uri Avnery
Help! A Ceasefire!

Jill Jameson
Burma is Not Back to Normal: A Trip from Rangoon to Mae Sot

Steve Melendez
Russell Means Goes to Washington

Mike Whitney
The Big Fix

Chuck Munson
Not Getting It About New Orleans

John Walsh
Clueless Crusaders

Farzana Versey
Tony Blair and the Hawking of Religion

Richard Neville
Dreaming of a White House Christmas

Website of the Day
Back in the USSR


December 22 / 23, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Mike Huckabee's Ascending Chariot

Ralph Nader
Politics and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way

Andy Worthington
Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons in Afghanistan

Ahmad Faruqui
The Comedian of Pakistan

Bill Moyers
Society on Steroids

Rev. William E. Alberts
Blessed are the Peacemakers

Timothy J. Freeman
From Kant to Lennon: Can War Really be Over?

Anthony DiMaggio
Democrats Continue to Capitulate on Iraq

Fred Gardner
Molecule of the Year, Cannabiodiol

Paul Krassner
Enhanced Hazing Techniques

Seth Sandronsky
17 Years of Meanness: Repealing California's Three Strikes Law

William Loren Katz
Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters: Recalling the Battle of Lake Okeechobee

Michael Dickinson
In the Dungeon of the Zabita

Ron Jacobs
Why Leon Russell Still Matters

David Vest
Doyle Bramhall's "Is It News?"

Poets' Basement
Orloski, Davies and Ford

Website of the Weekend
George W. Hates Santa

 

December 21, 2007

John Ross
New Massacres Loom in Mexico

Jacob Hornberger
Nothing Can Morally Justify the Invasion of Iraq

Dick J. Reavis
A Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss

Jeff Cohen
and Norman Solomon

The 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes

Peter Morici
Business as Usual as Recession Looms

Jack McCarthy
Let Us Now Praise Judith Regan (Even If She Did Sleep with Bernie Kerik)

Raúl Zibechi
Sex and Revolution

Steve Early
How the Presidential Candidates Made Me an Atheist

David Macaray
Union Aftermath

Patrick Bond
Zuma, the Center-Left and the Left-Left in S. Africa

Lakota Freedom Delegation
A Declaration of Independence from the USA

Website of the Day
Solomon v. Beck: Tale of the Tape

 

December 20, 2007

David Rosen
Mitt Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer

Alan Farago
The Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Laura Carlsen
Standing Up to NAFTA

Ashley Dawson
The Return of the Bread Riot

Wayne Smith
and Jennifer Schuett
Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates

Website of the Day
How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter

 

December 19, 2007

Saul Landau
Is the NIE Bush's Watergate?

Paul W. Lovinger
Hillary the Hawk

Norman Solomon
The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck

Dave Zirin
George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice

Marjorie Cohn
Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes

Sen. Russell Feingold
The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation

Sonja Karkar
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine

Anthony Papa
Open the Drug Gulags

Christopher Ketcham
Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions

Davey D
Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop?

Website of the Day
When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV

 

December 18, 2007

R. F. Blader
The Politics of Teen Pregnancy

George Wuerthner
Gunning for Wolves in Idaho

Steven Higgs
Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped?

Vijay Prashad
Encounters with Ghadar

David Macaray
The Free Rider Problem

Ralph Nader
Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays

Eva Liddell
Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home

Martha Rosenberg
While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters

Dave Lindorff
When Impeachment is Out of Print

Peter Morici
The Consequences the Trade Deficit

Website of the Day
Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America

 

December 17, 2007

Mike Whitney
Staring Into the Abyss

Tom Barry
Planning the War on Immigrants

Uri Avnery
A Gaza Masada?

Greg Moses
Crossing the Line in Texas

Allan Nairn
Terrorism; Counter-
Terrorism: Excuses for Murder

Patrick Bond
South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers

Stephen Lendman
Police State America

Charles Jonkel
Grizzly Right of Way

Laray Polk
An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza

Stephen Fleischman
Pawns in Their Game

December 15 / 16, 2007

Peter Linebaugh
A People's Penny for the Magna Carta

Howard Zinn
Bomb After Bomb

Standard Schaefer
The Greening of Big Tobacco

Raymond J. Lawrence
Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas

Alan Farago
Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine

Saul Landau
Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists

Jenna Orkin
Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up

Ahmad Samih Khalidi
Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct

Robert Fantina
Politics By Photo-Op

Missy Comley Beattie
Resistance Amid the Ruins

Ramzy Baroud
Of Mormons and Muslims

James L. Secor
A Vision for China's Future

Elijah Wald
Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten

Website of the Weekend
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support

 

December 14, 2007

JoAnn Wypijewski
The Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him

John Ross
Iraqi Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax

Jacob Hornberger
Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened?

Allan Nairn
"Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes

Dave Zirin
The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners

Dave Lindorff
The First Cut is the Deepest

Misty MacDuffee
Toxic Grizzlies

Ben Terrall
What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine?

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi
Prerequisites for Peace

Website of the Day
Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"

 

December 13, 2007

Paul Craig Roberts
Shrinking the Dollar from the Inside-Out

Mike Whitney
Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding

Ron Jacobs
Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy

Norman Solomon
The USA's Human Rights Daze

Peter Morici
The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch

Sandy Mayes
Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia

Franklin Lamb
The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling?

Jacob Hornberger
Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It

Nadim Rouhana
An Interloper in My Own Land

Dave Zirin
On Pigskin and Petrol

Website of the Day
Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support!


December 12, 2007

Allan Nairn
US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian Phones

Alan Farago
How Sprawl Eats Its Young

Ray McGovern
Torture, Lies and Videotape

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts

Evan Jones
The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell Doom for the US Farm Belt

James Petras
An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers

Joel Hirschorn
The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine

Joshua Frank
Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention

Sherry Wolf
Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul

Dan Bacher
Survey of a Fish Graveyard

Website of the Day
Men Eating Bugs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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January 10, 2008

Obama, the New Hampshire Vote and the Specter of Tom Bradley

Race Within the Race

By BOB WING
and MARQUEECE HARRIS-DAWSON

The jubilation of Barack Obama's stunning win in Iowa was muted by the dismay of his defeat in New Hampshire.

Commentators have conjured up every conceivable explanation for New Hampshire's sudden change of heart as Obama's nine point lead evaporated within 24 hours. But, as they often do, most media pundits have ignored one of the most obvious factors: race.

Truly they are color blind.

The specter of Tom Bradley's California gubernatorial run in 1984 now haunts the 2008 election.

Like Obama, Bradley, a moderate black Democrat and former Los Angeles mayor, breached racial barriers and inspired massive support among white voters. But once he was perceived to be a serious potential winner, a backlash set in that prevented Bradley's victory.

In 1984 preelection polls and even the election day exit polls gave Tom Bradley such an overwhelming lead that news organizations hailed him the victor virtually the moment the polls closed. Instead he suffered an upset loss to Republican George Deukmejian.

Much the same dynamic sunk Andrew Young's gubernatorial bid in Georgia in 1990.

Behind the white curtain that protects the privacy of the voter, a large number of voters in California in 1984, Georgia in 1990 and New Hampshire in 2008 could not bring themselves to vote for the black man that they claimed to be so excited about just 24 hours earlier.

This so-called "Tom Bradley Effect" had not yet come into play in Iowa because Obama was not yet taken as a serious threat to win the nomination and because the caucus process was so intimate and open. His dramatic victory in that state means that no one can any longer doubt that he has a real chance to win.

Race is now openly central to the race. Are white Americans ready for a black president?

Most white Republicans and many white Democrats may not seriously consider voting for Obama, even if their politics coincide with his. Others may be on the fence. And still others, at this point a definite minority but clearly growing, say they will vote for him.

A lesson of New Hampshire and a testimony to the power of race -- the Tom Bradley Effect -- is such that even significant numbers of that growing and relatively racially enlightened group that says they will vote for Obama, won't.

Surely race was not the only factor behind which candidate that any person may support. But to ignore it altogether, as most commentators have in the wake of the New Hampshire primary, is a grand act of racial denial that is a disservice to all of us.

For once, let's deal with race straight ahead.

Obama supporters should be thrilled that Obama climbed from a 20 point deficit to a nine point lead in New Hampshire's preelection polls. But now it is clear that even that spectacular climb, a climb whose significance should not be lost, was not enough to win.

Of course Hillary Clinton also faces a version of the Tom Bradley Effect: Is the U.S. ready for a woman president? The vicious invective aimed her way can hardly be explained without factoring sexism into the equation.

But, in truth, Hillary's biggest task, and indeed for any Democratic candidate, may be to reverse the voting trends of white women. In 2004 white women went for Bush by a 55-44 margin and were the critical swing vote in his election. Women of color went for Kerry by 75 to 24.

The woman vote is clearly color coded.

The good news is that Obama is a bona fide contender who is breaking racial barriers daily and Clinton is similarly bursting gender blocks. The bad news is that means racism and sexism have become even greater factors in the voting.

The grand opportunity is that it will give all of us a chance to appeal to our better selves and overcome our so often denied racial and gender biases.

In this country, racial progress like that Obama is making always brings racial resistance. Further progress is contingent on seriously addressing the resistance.

Whatever the outcome of the nomination and general election, we all have the chance to ensure that the 2008 election serves to advance racial and gender progress by openly and frankly addressing these fundamental issues.

Bob Wing is a writer who works with racial justice groups in Los Angeles.

Marqueece Harris-Dawson is executive director of the Community Coalition in Los Angeles.

They can be reached at bobwing68@gmail.com



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