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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! IRAQ: WHAT HAPPENED? Is the bloodbath over? Is the Occupation settling in? Learn the real story from Patrick Cockburn, the war's most experienced reporter. Also in this exclusive bulletin for CounterPunch subscribers: Jeffrey St Clair on the destruction of America; Alexander Cockburn on how the Left loves to scare itself; Ignacio Ramonet on Africa's No to "free trade". Plus "Waterboarded"--Why the CIA destroyed its videos. 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 holiday presents. Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year ! David Vest's Pianorama Tours the Northwest!!

Today's Stories January 9, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair The Empire Strikes Back Alan Farago As Florida Sinks: the View from the Titanic 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                 Subscribe Online

January 9, 2008 As Florida Sinks The View from the Titanic By ALAN FARAGO Today's Miami Herald's "Foreclosures haunt condos" (January 9, 2008) outlines the macabre turn of the condo real estate market and ends with a good news spin, even if it does make the quoted sound like a madman. The Club at Brickell Bay condo owner says, "This is Manhattan, it's the future Manhattan, so we're all sitting real good." I recall, on "sitting real good", they said the same on the Titanic. That sinking feeling is growing widespread across the nation. The biggest mortgage lenders like Countrywide are on the verge of Bankrupcy. Citigroup is writing down a further $16 billion in mortgage-related losses. Production homebuilders are staggering under the weight of losses, too. The stock market indexes are falling faster than the temperature gauge in winter. But insolvency is more than a passing cold front. According to a blogger/real estate professional quoted by the Herald, "An 818 square foot unit, which sold in June of 2006 for $430,000, was listed Monday for $220,000." If these small examples of Miami condo market depression are the tip of the iceberg, what does the rest of it look like? To me, it looks a lot like faces of the people we elected to public office-- from lowly city and county commissioners straight up the totem pole. Miami may not be unique in this respect: instead of caring about its existing tax base-- taking care of the needs of the poor, of the taxpayers who already live here, of our quality of life and infrastructure-- most elected officials are busy chasing rainbows like the biggest speculative bubble in housing in history, or if they are not chasing rainbows and the pot of gold at the end of it, they're inventing multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects to paper over the billions of dollars in infrastructure deficits they have failed to fund. In other words, now the talk in government circles turns to "economic stimulus" packages, such as the $3 billion Miami plan that works only by deforming the purpose of Community Redevelopment Agencies, meant to serve the disadvantaged. Oh well. If I were the editor of the Herald, I'd pay more attention to the experience of the real estate professional who recently sent a letter to the Florida of Department of Community Affairs outlining her horror at what Miami Dade has turned into: "As a Realtor, I have 21 listings. Virtually all of the families they represent are leaving South Florida if not the state. The reason is not our lousy weather. It is the fact that the gridlock we have created from paradise precludes any measurable quality of life. Whether it is the hours long and increasingly expensive commute to work and jammed schools across hopelessly crowded highways, the lack of employment affording a livable wage or prospects of a middle class existence, the absence of healthcare for all but lucky corporate employees, the result is the same: regular hardworking families have been robbed of the American Dream. Worse, they are trapped in their concrete cells which are worth less than they paid just a year or two ago. These folks are competing with investors who bought in new developments which will never become communities. Instead, they are surrounded by vacant foreclosures and subsidized rental properties. I assure you, it is nearly impossible to find a buyer who will risk his or her family's assets in areas like this. Worse, the mounting foreclosures (one property in every thirty in Dade County), put the hapless seller in competition with institutions with far deeper pockets. You can drive the areas of South Dade's newer developments for miles and possibly see just a few occupancies per block. Of those, few are owner occupants. It would be criminal to offer up ANY precursor to additional development in Dade County unless and until ALL land within the UDB is totally built out with proper infrastructure in place (schools, police, fire department, roads, water and sewer, trash, etc.), essentially, not before 2015 or later. It is unfortunate that you of the DCA are put in the position of exercising the common sense that our local officials have chronically lacked. Nonetheless, please know that the buck stops with you and that thousands of citizens are counting on you to do what our elected officials have failed to do for years. Thanks in advance for stopping the idiocy." Back to today's Herald story, I would have closed on the note that appears toward the end of the article, on struggling community associations, "unkept grounds and disruptions in services." The weeds can't obscure all the damage done by so much poorly planned concrete. It is inescapable that the budget crisis affecting unsustainable development is going to spread to city and county budgets, in Florida and across the nation. Who could have guessed that the 2008 presidential election is going to turn on an economy that is spinning without a propeller. Pockets of prosperity will continue to float above the turmoil-- after all, that is what the fomenters of the housing bubble have been saving for. It is not as though they couldn't see it coming. Alan Farago of Coral Gables, who writes about the environment and the politics of South Florida, can be reached at alanfarago@yahoo.com.   Your Ad Here

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