Today's Stories

March 6-8 , 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Harlots High and Low

Chris Floyd
Tangled Up in Karl

Uri Avnery
Remember Ophira?

Dave Lindorff
Kiss the Banks Goodbye

Mark Weisbrot
The Crisis vs. the Dogma

David Ker Thomson
Against Work

Phil Aliff
Soldier Suicides

Rebekah Ward
Georgia Injustice: Another Young Life Wrecked

Tracey Briggs
How Capitalism Feels in the Head

Dean Baker
Depression Nostalgia?

Wajahat Ali
The Pakistani Monster

David Michael Green
Smart is the New Stupid

David Macaray
The Minimum Wage Revisited

Michael Dickinson
On Financial Fools Day

Susie Day
Line in the Sand

Bob Sommer
Echoes of the Townhouse Explosion

Website of the Weekend
Chimp Torture in Louisiana

March 5 , 2009

James G. Abourezk
This Time It's Mrs. Clinton's Turn

Kathleen and Bill Christison
U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Robert Weissman
Wall Street's Best Investment: Paying for Public Policy

Patrick Cockburn
My Day at the Terror "Charity"

William Blum
Being Serious About Torture...Or Not

Robert Fantina
From Iraq to Afghanistan: Augmentation All Over Again

Saul Landau
The Unseen Crisis

Benjamin Dangl
Striking a Blow Against the Beer Cartel: a Grassroots Victory in Utah

Christopher Brauchli
The New Leaders of the GOP

Website of the Day
The Angola 3: 36 Years of Solitude

March 4, 2009

Marjorie Cohn
Blueprints for a Police State

Mike Whitney
Blowing Up the Economy: How Securitization Lit the Fuse

Ron Jacobs
The Banality of Occupation: the Rand Papers

Ashley Smith
War by Another Name

Joanne Mariner
Obama's War on Terror

Dan Bacher
The California Water Wars: Why It's Not a Conflict Between Fish and People

Mark Engler
Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?

Franklin Lamb
"What's Hezbollah Done for Us Lately?"

Cal Winslow
Slugging It Out in California

David Mandelzys
Apartheid Week

Website of the Day
Guantánamo: the Definitive Prisoner List

March 3, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Ethnic Cleansing and Israel

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Long, Dark Night of Pakistan

Brian M. Downing
The Changing Game in Afghanistan

Robert Larson
External Damnation: Companies are Designed for Destruction

Daniel P. Wirt, MD
Single-Payer Health Reform

Russell Mokhiber
Burn Your Health Insurance Bill!

William Loren Katz
Obama, One Ape and Two Newspapers

Kathy Sanborn
The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

Pauline Imbach
A New Start for the World Social Forum?

Christopher Ketcham
The Best Journalism You'll Write is Priceless

Website of the Day
The Surveillance Self-Defense Project

March 2, 2009

Andrea Peacock
A Poisoned Town's Shot at Justice

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's Budget

Peter Lee
Pakistan Lurches Toward the Abyss

John Blair
Locking Down Big Coal

Peter Morici
Treasury's Flawed Plan for Citigroup

Uri Avnery
10 Ways to Kill Fatah

Michael Donnelly
Resistance to the War on the Wild

Fred Gardner
The Judge Who Ruled Marijuana is Medicine

Sonia Nettnin
Middle East Medical Mission Heroes

Andrew Lehman
A New Deal for the Web

Website of the Day
Pentagon Papers II?

Feb. 27 - March 1, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Is Nancy Pelosi Really Against War Crimes?

Harry Browne
Where the Cheats Have No Shame

Anthony DiMaggio
From Bush to Obama: Seven Years of Wartime Propaganda

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Dennis Ross and Iran: the Fox and the Chicken Coop

Mischa Gaus
The Banks' War on Workers

Felice Pace
The Economy and the Big Picture

Mike Whitney
Is Free Market Capitalism Possible Without Accountability?

Lee Sustar
Blaming the Autoworkers

Peter Lee
The Other Side of the Coin in Afghanistan

Nicole Colson
Ruining Young Lives for Profit

Roger Burbach
Et Tu, Daniel? The Betrayal of the Sandinista Revolution

Rannie Amiri
King Abdullah Has No Robes

Missy Beattie
Owning Disaster

Dave Lindorff
America's Stupid Health Care Debate

Robert David Steele Vivas
Intelligence for the President--and Everyone Else

John Ross
Teotihuacan Gets Mickey-Moused

Ralph Nader
Civic Heroism Awards

Yves Engler
Haiti's Harsh Realities

Alan Farago
The Story of Leonard Abess, Banker

Zulfikar Majid
Understanding Kashmir

David Yearsley
Don't Stay Up Too Late, Johan!

Charles R. Larson
Sleeping with Dogs

Kim Nicolini
Spitting at Dark Times: Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky"

Lorenzo Wolff
So You Wanna Be a Garage Rock Star

Poets' Basement
Puthoff, Payne, Gaffney and Gray

Website of the Weekend
Sleep Now in the Fire

February 26, 2009

Dave Lindorff
Obama's Address to Congress

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Military Mephistopheles

Patrick Cockburn
Did the US Learn Anything in Iraq?

Mike Whitney
The Geithner Put

Eamonn McCann
"Make Bono Pay Tax"

Tim Wise
Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism

Tom Barry
Napolitano's Hard Line

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Excellent Atomic Omission

Adam Turl
The Enemies of Unions and the Lies They Tell

David Macaray
When People are Fired Illegally

James McEnteer
Rush to the Rescue: Limbaugh's Secret Plan to Save the Economy

Website of the Day
The Carbon Casino

February 25, 2009

Chris Sands
Afghanistan: Chaos Central

M. Shahid Alam
Israel in 1948: Poised for Expansion

Chris Floyd
Obama's Non-Withdrawal Withdrawal Plan

Dave Lindorff
Wall Street and Bernanke: the Blind Leading the Blind

Norman Solomon
The Slow Pullout Method

Rachel Godfrey Wood
Neoliberals Do The Amazon

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Teacher and Student: the New Class Struggle

Ron Jacobs
It Ain't Over Till It's Over

Nadia Hijab
The First Waltz

Dennis Loo
The Water Line

Website of the Day
Hitchens Gets Stomped by Syrian Nerd

February 24, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
How the Economy was Lost

Uri Avnery
Coalition Theory

Peter Morici
Is Nationalization Inevitable?

Jonathan Cook
Arab Parties Face Most Hostile Knesset in History

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
The Man Who Shouldn't be King (of Afghanistan)

Andy Worthington
Who is Binyam Mohamed?

Brian Horejsi
Crisis Creates Hope for Reality

Julia Stein
I was a Writer for the Government

Norm Kent
How Judges Disgrace the Bench

Rachel Smolker /
Brian Tokar
Biofuels, Promise or Threat?

Dennis Loo
The Water Line: Doing What Must be Done

James McEnteer
The Oscar for Denial

Website of the Day
How to Destroy a Fox News Anchor

February 23, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Language of Looting

Mike Roselle
On Cherry Pond: Going Up Against Big Coal in W. Virginia

Patrick Cockburn
The New War in Iraq

Franklin Spinney
Obama Steps on the Pentagon Escalator

Einar Már Guðmundsson
A War Cry From the North

Ralph Nader
How Credit Unions Survived the Crash

Jordan Flaherty
A New Orleans Intifada?

Helen Redmond
Ted's Table: Kennedy and the Corporate Lobbyists Craft a Health Plan

Dennis Loo
The Water Line

Harvey Wasserman
Jet Crashes and Nuclear Reactors: Feds Ignore a Serious Risk

Terry Lodge
The Intelligence is Wrong

Website of the Day
BadCreditReport.Com

February 20 / 22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Lawyer's Tale

Michael Neumann /
Osha Neumann
Remove Our Grandmother's Name from the Wall at Yad Vashem

Ismael Hossein-zadeh
Herbert Hoover Copycats

Paul Craig Roberts
Bill of Rights Under Fire

Linn Washington Jr.
The NY Post's Chimpanzee Cartoon

Saul Landau
On the Road Again

Marjorie Cohn
War Criminals Must be Prosecuted (And Their Lawyers Too)

Binoy Kampmark
Cricket and Cartels: the Fall of Sir Allen Stanford

Dave Lindorff
Using the Recession to Hammer Workers

David Yearsley
Edward Said's Greatest Musical Writings

David Macaray
A Closer Look at the Employee Free Choice Act

James McEnteer
Last Mambo in Minnehaha

Rick Salutin
A Canadian Looks at Obama

Wayne Clark
South Carolina Nears the Abyss

Richard Rhames
Got Farms?

Stephen Martin
Silver Mist Descending

Mitu Sengupta
Slumdog Millionaire's Dehumanizing View of India's Poor

Charles R. Larson
Slumdog Reality?

Richard Morse
Carnival Ramble in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Desperation in an Unavoidable Groove

Poets' Basement
Three Poems of Tu Fu (Trans. K. Rexroth)

Website of the Weekend
Ron Paul: What If the People Wake Up?

February 19, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
The Cleanser: Lobbyists Whistle Up Cordesman to "Prove" Israel Waged a Clean War in Gaza

Harry Browne
How Ireland Went Bust

Robert Bryce
Why the Promise of Biofuels is a Lie

Brian M. Downing
The Winding Road: From Western Europe to Kyrgyzstan

Fred Gardner
The DEA Chief's $123,000 Flight

Andy Worthington
Obama's Uighur Problem

Wajahat Ali
Aftermath of a Beheading

Laura Carlsen
A New Attitude at the White House Toward Bolivia and Venezuela?

Deb Reich
Gaza: Choose Life!

Christopher Ketcham
Crisis? What Crisis?

Website of the Day
Taking Back NYU

February 18, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
President of Special Interests

Mike Whitney
Trouble at Treasury

M. Shahid Alam
Afghan Pitfalls

Patrick Cockburn
A Real Surge at Last

Conn Hallinan
Death's Laboratory

Dave Lindorff
Whatever Happened to Antitrust?

Rannie Amiri
The Perils of Blogging in Egypt

Gareth Porter
Pushing Back Against Petraeus on Pullout Risks

Eric Hobsbawm
Remembering V. G. Kiernan

Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Predicament

Martha Rosenberg
It's the Cymbalta Stupid

Website of the Day
Red Gold

February 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Oligarchs' Escape Plan

Mike Whitney
The Global Ditch

Ralph Nader
The One-Dimensional Congress

Joanne Mariner
Benchmarking Obama: How to Evaluate the New Administration's Counter-Terrorism Policies

John Ross
Commodifying the Revolution: Zapatista Villages Become Hot
Tourist Destinations

Belén Fernández
The Venezuelan Referendum From the Back of a Pickup Truck

Mats Svensson
Who is a Terrorist?

David Macaray
Why America Needs Labor Unions

Gregory Vickrey
$400 in Change

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
Another Hamastan?

Michael Dickinson
Unrest in Istanbul

Website of the Day
Take a Stand for Open Access

February 16, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Reconstruction: the Greatest Fraud in US History?

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
The Truth About Colombia's New Emperor

Paul Craig Roberts
Who Remembers Guns and Butter?

Uri Avnery
Livni's Bitter Options

P. Sainath
The Meltdown: Whose Crisis Is It?

Dedrick Muhammad / Michael Brown
White Recession, Black Depression

Carla Blank
A New New Deal for the Arts

Patrick Irelan
Venezuela Ends Term Limits

Dan Bacher
Is Delta Pumping Driving Salmon and Orca Decline?

Fidel Castro
Chavez's Clarion Call

Harvey Wasserman
Hail to the Spleef: Did George Washington Smoke Pot?

Website of the Day
Mining Black Mesa

February 13 - 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
On the Rocks

Joshua Frank
The Myth of Clean Coal

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Coming Out Party

George Ciccariello-Maher
Venezuela's Term Limits: More Hypocrisy From the NYT

Nikolas Kozloff
Venezuela Beyond the Referendum

Brian M. Downing
Pakistan on the Brink

Paul Craig Roberts
Deficit Nonchalance

Christopher Ketcham
Israel's Ball Boys

Ron Jacobs
At a Campus Sit-In Against Israeli Occupation

Dave Lindorff
Why Can Judd Gregg See What Obama Can't?

Alan Maass
Lincoln at 200

Chuck Spinney
Grassley Sounds Off on Obama's Man at the Pentagon

Phil Gasper
Mr. Darwin's Reluctant Revolution

Stephen Lendman
A Short History of Business Handouts

Charles Thomson
Tate Cruises: Caveat Emptor on the High Seas

Kathy Sanborn
The Suicide Rush

Saul Landau
Bowled Over

Len Wengraf
The Nightmare in Somalia

Harvey Wasserman
Striking a Blow Against Nuclear Power

David Macaray
An Easy Call for Obama on Joining a Union

Tom Stephens
Four Freedoms, Four Changes

Seth Sandronsky
Lincoln and the Collective Mind

David Yearsley
On the Road Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Freaking Out With Danny Barnes

Kim Nicolini
The Body of the Worker: What "The Wrestler" Says About the State of America

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Buknatski and French

Website of the Weekend
The Iranian Revoution and the US Dual Containment Policy: a Presentation

Weekend Edition
March 6-8 , 2009

Obama's Recovery Plan

Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us

By CARL FINAMORE

We know billions of dollars are going to AIG, banks and auto companies to stabilize basic institutions of the capitalist economy. We know other billions are going to state and local governments to fund programs designed to employ some 4 million workers.

But establishment commentators fail to note that not one penny is actually being spent on increasing the standard of living of American workers.

In fact, the Obama Administration is working overtime to keep a lid on wages. This is the same administration that openly acknowledges U.S. paychecks adjusted for inflation have been flatlining since 1973.

Arguably, the main objective of the government stimulus is to stabilize banks and corporations, not regenerate the living conditions of American workers. In this the liberal Obama Administration is not so far in its thinking from that of its conservative predecessors. Both believe helping out banks and major corporations first is the key to economic revival.

If you want evidence of the profound corporate bias contained in the bailouts, read the fine print in the recent General Motors (GM) Restructuring Plan.

The $13 billion in federal funds handed over to General Motors in December 2008 has stringent provisions requiring the United Auto Workers (UAW) to agree to significant wage and benefit reductions by the end of 2009.

The Treasury Department acknowledges “negotiated changes to the Company's labor agreements in 2005 and 2007 have reduced total labor cost per vehicle by 26% from 2004 to 2008.”

“In addition,” the Treasury report continues, “GM and the UAW have agreed to improve competitive work rules, which will also significantly reduce labor costs.”

There's more. The Treasury notes with satisfaction that the UAW recently agreed “to suspend the JOBS program, which provided full income and benefit protection in lieu of layoff for an indefinite period of time.”

In the meantime, GM is doing its part. It just cancelled all health benefits for its 100,000 non-union retirees. Not to be outdone, the now very compliant UAW recently agreed to accept diluted GM stock of questionable value for half of the $10 billion owed to secure previously-negotiated union retiree health benefits.

But the government is still not satisfied with these debilitating, life-changing concessions for several hundred thousand active and retired autoworkers. “Further progress will be required to achieve the full targeted savings [of the stimulus plan],” the Treasury insists. “GM plans to report these changes to the U.S. Secretary of Labor who must certify GM's competitiveness…” [Treasury Dept. website]

This is a completely wrong-headed approach to getting America back to work and re-invigorating collapsed consumer spending. On the contrary, extending substantial wage, medical, and education benefits for the 130 million workers in this country would be the most effective economic stimulus yet proposed.

A Stimulus Plan that Actually Worked

The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 or “G.I. Bill” is a success story that should be the model for any genuine stimulus.

Fearing a revival of the Bonus Army March protests of 1932 by millions of returning World War II jobless veterans and forecasting a serious post-war recession, both chambers of Congress actually voted unanimously to fund the most extensive benefits program in the nation's history.

In fact, concerns about impending social unrest were not unfounded. When the government attempted to extend the wartime “no strike” pledge, it ignited a firestorm of protests. A national strike wave began almost immediately after Emperor Hirohito waved the white flag.

In September 1945, 43,000 petroleum workers and 200,000 coal workers struck. In October, 44,000 lumber workers, 70,000 teamsters, and 40,000 machinists joined them. Then in November 1945, the UAW called its first major strike against GM since the company was unionized in 1937. Nearly 250,000 walked out.

But these incredibly powerful expressions of union power turned out to be only the beginning. In January 1946, 74,000 electrical workers, 300,000 meatpackers, and 750,000 steelworkers went on strike.

A few months later, 350,000 miners went out with the full support of rail workers who together threatened to shut the whole country down.

The memorable year of rolling strikes in 1946 ended with an exclamation point-a 54-hour December general strike in Oakland, California. Picketers controlled traffic in the downtown center of the city. Anyone could leave but entry was permitted only to those with union membership books.

It all began when delivery truck drivers turned off their engines and stopped dead smack in the middle of downtown streets. The truck drivers were responding to attempts to break a retail store strike led by mostly woman clerks.

Shutting the city down was a fitting end to a year of significant acts of solidarity and militancy, actions not seen in more recent decades.

G.I. Bill Funded People

The power of labor was ever present in the aftermath of WW II and returning vets benefited greatly. Each was provided a full year unemployment stipend and a variety of government low-interest home loans and funds for starting small businesses.

At its peak in 1947, about 40 percent of all housing starts in the nation were funded by the government's loan guarantee. In its first eight years alone, the Veterans Affairs (VA) backed 2,360,603 home loans.

But here's the critical point. The government provided the funding directly. This was much different from the current housing industry run by profit-gouging banks and unscrupulous mortgage brokers-the same characters now receiving bailout billions to remain in business.

This is a strong argument for the government to step in and once again provide home loans on a massive scale, replacing the discredited and untrustworthy private lenders.

It's also worth noting that over half of the nearly 16 million eligible veterans used the G.I. Bill's generous education funding for tuition, books, and living expenses from 1945 to 1956. This included 2,230,000 in college, 3,480,000 in other schools, 1,400,000 in on-job training, and 690,000 in farm training. Total cost of the World War II education program was $14.5 billion. [U.S. Dept. of Veteran Affairs]

The late U.S. labor leader Tony Mazzocchi was both a strong advocate and beneficiary of the G.I. Bill as a WW11 veteran. “That social program,” Mazzocchi said, “was in effect at a time when the deficit was four times worse than it is today [in 1997]. The debt exceeded the Gross National Product by 125 percent. But we didn't worry about the debt and the deficit. We actually borrowed even more money and put it in people's pockets and reinvigorated the nation. Money was distributed in such a way that everyone was gainfully employed.” [Tony Mazzocchi interview by Mark Harris, Z Magazine Feb. 1997)

Even the government agreed the largest social program in our history was a great success. The U. S. Senate studied the G. I. Bill in 1988 and concluded that it provided the largest return on investment in the public or private sector in the history of this country.

It is also as true now as it was in 1997 when Mazzocchi noted that the country is richer now than in 1946.

Indeed, the top one percent of the U.S. population grabbed 28 percent of the rise in national income between 1983 and 2001, 33 percent of the total gain in net worth, and 52 percent of the overall growth in financial worth. [Monthly Review]

Thus, the challenge facing us is also the same: How to organize that wealth to serve the public good.

One Paycheck, One Family

Lest we forget, during the unprecedented post-WW II “American Century” economic expansion and for several decades thereafter until around 1970, a household's standard of living was primarily measured by the income of one adult breadwinner.

There was little savings among this Depression-born generation, even less property ownership and no stock market 401 portfolios. The options of excessive borrowing and refinancing a home were also not available.

The growth in standard of living for millions largely depended on a single paycheck earned from one job.

With few other income options, workers were more willing to vigorously defend wages as their primary source of income. As mentioned earlier, unions played an essential role in advancing the standard of living during this period and were powerful collective bargaining agents comprised of millions of supportive members.

The heavy concentration of membership in the industrial belt also substantially increased labor's leverage. In 1955, for example, most of the 35% of workers in unions represented members strategically centered in the manufacturing sector. There was not yet widespread unionization of teachers, hospital workers, and government workers.

Clearly, those first heady days of the post-WW II era gave a powerful impetus to funding extensive social programs whose aim was to appease mounting dissatisfaction with the status quo.

A Different Reality Today

Unfortunately, few of these pro-working class political factors operate today to influence the direction and focus of the government's current stimulus plan. Indeed, stale wage rates since 1973 have compelled workers to seek out other alternatives to supplement their sagging paychecks.

Many have eagerly opted for excessive amounts of overtime and even picked up a few hours at a second job. In many households, both spouses work. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2004, both the husband and wife were employed in 61 percent of married-couple families with children.

Of course, millions in the last decade have also found relief by refinancing homes. Yet, the mountain of credit card debt rose dramatically at the same time. According to the Financial Times, January 2009 recorded the largest number of credit card delinquencies in history with $18.1 billion in penalty fees went to credit card companies in 2007.

This figure is up more than 50% since 2003 and accounted for approximately half of the industry's $40.7 billion in profits in 2008. It was yet another very profitable method of gouging working families while keeping consumer spending up.

And yes, these same credit lenders are also receiving billions of bailout funds to remain in business.

Now the bubble has burst. According to some commentators, we're supposed to believe the fault lies with greedy consumers who supposedly accepted debt they were incapable of paying. But the same corporate elite that has enforced dormant wages since 1973 also designed the extremely profitable, albeit bogus, financial instruments that substituted for an industrial policy that could have led to wage increases and an expanded standard of living based on real income.

Isn't this another argument for nationalizing the banks under public control?

Work to Eat

Of course, it was a dangerous risk for the capitalist elite in this country to set off a borrowing craze, but their actions were dictated by their intrinsic economic imperative to maximize profits by driving wages down.

And herein lies the dilemma. It is precisely the low wage base of American workers that threatens the success of any recovery plan that must boost consumer spending in order to get the economy moving again.

With credit drying up, unemployment rising, home equity evaporating and mortgage defaults and personal bankruptcies skyrocketing, a single paycheck will again become the main, depleted source of income for most Americans.

Hopefully, it is becoming clearer to American workers that exorbitant credit interest rates and spiraling debt is a poor substitute for a wage increase. But these critical wage and benefit increases won't come from the current administration's stimulus plan and they certainly won't come from employers' generosity.

Following the example of our parents and grandparents after WW II is a much better bet. The labor movement has to take responsibility for ensuring a recovery plan that benefits the majority. That begins with flexing our social and economic muscles, organizing the unorganized and mass action in the spirit of those working class fighters who are responsible for every social gain the labor movement has ever claimed.

Carl Finamore is former President (ret), Air Transport Employees, Local Lodge 1781, IAMAW.

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