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Today's
Stories
December 26,
2006
Peter Stone
Brown
James
Brown: Please Don't Go
Ron Jacobs
The Golem: a Conversation with Marc Estrin
Website of
the Day
JB:
Prisoner of Love
December 25,
2006
Saul Landau
A
Jeep Trip with Fidel
Lang / McGovern
To
Surge or Not to Surge?
Michael Dickinson
Should Stupid Thoughts Be Crimes?: Deny Santa If You Will, But
...
Website of
the Day
James Brown, RIP
December 23 / 24, 2006
Marjorie Cohn
What's
Going On?
Jeffrey L.
Gould
The Capital of Salvadoran Memory: El Mozote After 25 Years
Diane Christian
The Rape of Iraq
William Loren
Katz
From the Raid on "Fort Negro" to Iraq: Lessons from
the First US Invasion
Greg Moses
This War Can't be Made Right by Winning
M. Shahid Alam
An Islamic Civil War: Chaos by Design?
Fred Gardner
Exposé as Inoculant: HRT, Zyprexa, Lilly and the Press
Dave Lindorff
Crime of the Century
Azmi Bishara
Ways of Denial
Ralph Nader
The BCS: a Monopoly on College Football
Seth Sandronsky
Fiscally Imperiled Social Security?
William Hughes
Cop Assaults Activists at Lockheed Protest
Ron Jacobs
Making Stones Weep
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to on New Year's Eve
December 22,
2006
David Rosen
Bush's
Foreign Sex Policy: Imperialism's Second Front
Christopher
Brauchli
When the Secret is the Question: Secret Prisons, Top Secret Interrogations
John Ross
Flashlights
in the Tunnel of Hate
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Political
Sell-Outs in Black and White
Rahul Mahajan
Dennis Kucinich: Maverick or Stalking Horse?
Arthur Neslen
Provoking Civil War in the Occupied Territories
Peter Rost, MD
The Secrets of His Success: Fired Pfizer CEO Walks Away with
$198 Million
Website of
the Day
10 Ways to Change the World in 2007
December 21, 2006
Rosa Mariam
Elizalde
An
Interview with Gore Vidal: "I am Jealous of Cuba"
Arundhati Roy
Breaking the News
Brian Cloughley
Poppies Rising: Afghanistan's Drug Catastrophe
Daniel White
Jimmy Carter in Austin: Time to Come Clean on the Shoot Down
of That Itavia DC-9
John V. Whitbeck
On Israel's Right to Exist
Sam Smith
Still Smearing Ralph Nader for 2000
Paris Reidhead
GM Ice Cream: Something's Fishy in Your Good Humor Bar
Kevin Wehr
Denying Disaster: Katrina and the Case for Impeachment
Website of the Day
Pesticides and Amphibians: a Vital New Database
December 20, 2006
Gabriel Kolko
Rumsfeld
and the American Way of War
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The Pentagon Measures the Chaos in Iraq
Tariq Ali
The War is Lost
Saree Makdisi
Israel, Apartheid and Jimmy Carter
Bruce Jackson
Saying "Oh!": John Mohawk and the Power to Make Peace
Dave Lindorff
Democrats Walk Into a Bush Trap on Iraq
Leslie Radford
The Winter Harvest of the South Central Farmers
Dave Jansson
Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Secessionists Confront the
Empire
Johnny Barber
Jesus is a Terrorist
Website of
the Day
Is It for Freedom?
December 19, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
Democrats
Prepare to Fund Longer War
Jonathan Cook
End
of the Strongmen
Greg Moses
Globalized Gulag: Palestinian Refugees and Children Held in Hutto,
TX Jail
Sean Penn
Georgie,
There's a Crowd Downstairs
Dave Lindorff
Innocents Abroad: Cracking Down on Gitmo Detainees Despite Overwhelming
Evidence Most Are Not Terrorists
Ralph Nader
Going
Postal
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Pink Tide?
Carlos Villarreal
The
Well is Poisoned: Victory Requires an Immediate Pull-Out
Website of
the Day
Chuck Spinney on the Pentagon
December 18, 2006
Luis J. Rodriguez
En
Lak Ech: Chicanos, Mayans and Mel Gibson
Norman Solomon
Washington Refuses to End the War: Powell, Baker, Hamilton--Thanks
for Nothing!
Uri Avnery
Lebanon: War Without a Plan
Ron Jacobs
More Troops, More Body Bags
Phil Gasper
Afghanistan: Bush's Other War Unravels
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Iran's Elections: The World Isn't Florida and Bush Isn't Its
Supreme Leader
William Blum
The United States of Punishment
Jim Goodman
So What's the Big Deal If Wal-Mart Makes a Mistake?
James Brooks
Talking Surge: Let's Kill Some More Before We Go
Maria C. Khoury
Walking Into the Art World: Designing a Palestinian Academy for
the Arts
Website of the Day
Got Powell
December 16 / 17, 2006
Weekend Edition
Vijay Prashad
A
Perilous Way to Socialism
Saul Landau
Filming Fidel
Anthony Arnove
The US Occupation of Iraq: Act III of a Tragedy of Many Parts
Paul Cantor
The Puppet and the Puppeteer: Pinochet and Kissinger
Annie Nocenti
Baluchistan's Fight: The Khan of Kalat Gathers the Tribes
Nicole Colson
Hard Times on the Killing Floor: Smithfield's Rotten Record
Stephen Gowans
Tehran's Holocaust Conference
Jordan Flaherty
A Catastrophic Failure: Foundations, Nonprofits and the Second
Looting of New Orleans
Fred Gardner
Dustin Costa Faces 15 to Life
P. Sainath
There's No Such Thing as a Free Cow
Seth Sandronsky
The Democrats and Social Security: Watch What the Party Says
and Does
Nadia Hijab
An AIPAC Shot Across Baker's Bow?
Deb Reich
Dear Santa, (Or Someone): Greetings from the Occupied Holy Lands
Susie Day
Cops Shoot Another Rich White Man!
Albert Wan
Why Does It Take 50 Bullets?
Missy Beattie
Will the Next Leader Stand Up? Please!
Martha Rosenberg
Kicking the Wyeth Habit Saves Women's Lives
Lee Ballinger
The Devil's Highway: Clinton, Border Checkpoints and the Deaths
of the Yuma 14
Michael Dickinson
Kingdom of Fear
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Live/Evil: Listening to Miles Davis
Poets' Basement
Davies, Buknatski and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine"
December 15,
2006
Eliza Ernshire
Palestinian
"Civil War" and the Israeli Chocolate Ration
Virginia Tilley
What
Are You Going to Do Now, Israel?
Mike Ferner
Roll Call for the Choir: If They Vote for War, Occupy 'Em!
John Ross
Mad Mel's Mayan Apocalypse
Fred Wilhelms
The Flip Side of Ahmet Ertegun: Where Did You Get Those Shoes?
Kevin Zeese
Dennis Kucinich's Strange Mission: Can You Be a Real Anti-War
Candidate in a Pro-War Party?
David Severn
Social Engineering Begins at Home: Jeffrey Skoll, Billionaire
Philantropist
Dave Lindorff
Sen. Tim Johnson Death Watch: Senate Gridlock May Be Best Outcome
Sunsara Taylor
As American as Shopping and Torture
Website of
the Day
June 2, 2004: When Iraq Was There For The Looting
December 14,
2006
Jonathan Cook
The
Recognition Trap
Riz Khan
An Interview with Jimmy Carter
Jason Hribal
Kasatka, the Sea World Orca
Pennick / Gray
The Plight of Black Farmers: Racism in the US Farm Program
Richard Levins
That Embezzled Anti-Castro Money
Pat Williams
The College Crisis: Universal Access, Student Loan Debts and
Pell Grants
Peter Rost, MD
Simply Irresistible: Do Women Prefer Bad Boys?
Website of
the Day
The Sound of Rummy
December 13,
2006
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
is Beyond Repair
Greg Moses
The Dixie Chicks Come Home to Roost
Elizabeth Schulte
Hungry for the Holidays
Joshua Frank
Death By Coke
Debra Eschmeyer
Corporations Control Your Dinner
Leon Hadar
Baker's Rescue Mission: Too Little, Too Late
Peter Rost, MD
I've Been a Very Bad Boy
Margaret Knapke
Mow bé and Malachi, Presenté!
Reza Fiyouzat
Are Cows Free?
Fred Wilhelms
A Last Minute Appeal: If You Know One of These Musicians Let
Them Know They Are Owed Money--By Friday!
Website of
the Day
The Crimes of Augusto Pinochet
December 12, 2006
Fernando A.
Torres
The
Last Man of the Junta: an Open Letter to Kissinger from One of
Pinochet's Political Prisoners
Paul Craig
Roberts
America's
Injustice System is Criminal
Stephen Soldz
Abusive Interrogations
Uri Avnery
Baker's Cake
William S. Lind
Knocking Opportunity: From Vulcans to Vultures in Iraq
Missy Beattie
Convicted for Our Convictions: Trespassing for Truth at the UN
Dave Lindorff
The 35-Year Long Scream: Torture, Impeachment and a Vietnam Vet's
Tears
George Pyle
Our Perverse Farm Plan: Where Christmas Comes Every Five Years
Norman Solomon
Is the USA the Center of the World?
Website of
the Day
Citizens' War Tribunal
December 11,
2006
Virginia Tilley
Banning
Mandela
Roger Burbach
The Condor Model: the Atrocities of Pinochet and the US
Col. Douglas MacGregor
There's Only One Option Left: Leave!
Fawwas Traboulsi
Lebanon on the Brink
Ron Jacobs
Death of a Pig: Poetic Justice for Pinochet
Gideon Levy
The Cruel Line into Gaza: Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle
Mary McGrane
Burning Books at Harvard Law
Bernardo Ruiz
The Disappeared of Oaxaca: a Message from One of the Actors in
Apocalypto
Website of the Day
La Cancion de la Unidad
Video of the
Day
Killing
Castro: Congresswoman as Contract Killer?
December 9
/ 10, 2006
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
Liberal
Consensus for More Troops in Iraq
Sen. Gordon Smith
Out of Iraq: Cut and Run or Cut and Walk
Greg Grandin
Jeane
Kirkpatrick, Mid-Wife of the Neo-Cons
Paul Craig Roberts
How Many More Will Die for Bush's Ego?
Col. Dan Smith
The Vietnamization of Iraq: Inside the Military Training Program
Ralph Nader
The Man from NAM: John Engler's Trail of Destruction
Behrooz Ghamari
The Donkey and the Date: Iran's Upcoming Municipal Elections
Rev. Willliam Alberts
Doing Unto Others: Pastor Haggard and President Bush
James T. Phillips
The James Gang: "Did You Kill Her?"
Bennis / Leaver
A Bi-Partisan Occupation
Dave Lindorff
A Congress of Hucksters and Pipsqueaks
Nikolas Kozloff
Robert Gates and Venezuela: Another Saber Rattler in Latin America
Seth Sandronsky
Activating White Racism
Lucinda Marshall
McKinney and Karpinsky: Silenced for Telling the Truth
Mike Whitney
Something's Gotta Give: James Baker vs. the Lobby
John V. Whitbeck
Recommendation No. 80
Faisal Kutty
Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Merely a Western
Construct?
Hugh Sansom
Smearing Jimmy Carter: an Open Letter to the New York Times
Robert Gold
My South American Journey: Impunity in Colombia
Boots Riley
Crash and Burn: an Urgent Message from The Coup
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Engel & Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Alive in Mexico
December 8, 2006
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Study Group's Cautious Appraisal
Leutisha Stills
Just
How Progressive is the Congressional Black Caucus?
Norman Finkelstein
The Media Lynching of Jimmy Carter
Will Youmans
Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington: Brookings Hosts an Ethnic
Cleanser
Peter Rost, MD
What Went Wrong at Pfizer?
Jonathan Demme
My Friend Bruce Langhorne: a Great Musician Needs Your Help!
Ray McGovern
Senate Democrats Give Gates a Free Pass
Lucinda Marshall
What She Wore
Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn
The Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
John Lennon's FBI Files
December 7,
2006
Alex Friedman
Rev.
Phelps' Hate-Fueled Fanatics Find a Home in the Kansas Prison
Industry
Maureen Webb
Risk Scoring and the National Insecurity State
Paul Craig Roberts
Catastrophe Still Awaits
Dave Lindorff
Prosecutor Admits: Mumia Abu-Jamal Had "No True Defense"
Matt Vidal
Drug Pushers, Inc.: Power and Profit in the Legal Drug Trade
Yifat Susskind
Looking for a Few Good Principles: What Should be Done in Iraq
Rodriguez / Jones
NYPD's Death Squads: From Diallo to Sean Bell
Website of
the Day
2006, Remixed
December 6, 2006
Robert Bryce
Omitting
the Obvious with James Baker: From the S&L Crisis to the
Iraq Study Group
William S. Lind
The Boomerang Effect: When Will the First IED Strike Cincy?
Zoe Blunt
The Clearcut Truth About the Great Bear Rainforest
Corporate Crime Reporter
The New Conventional Wisdom: Prosecute Individuals, Not Corporations
Amira Hass
A Regrettable Indifference: Israel's Treatment of Palestinian
Prisoners
Richard W. Behan
The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War
Sophie McNeill
Why Hezbollah is Broadcasting Sunday Mass
December 5, 2006
Virginia Tilley
Apartheid
Israel: a Beacon of Hope?
Sharon Smith
The New Washington Consensus: Blame the Victims in Iraq
Joe Bageant
Somewhere a Banker Smiles
Ron Jacobs
A War Washington Can't Win
Norman Solomon
Media Consensus, Stay in Iraq!
Mike Whitney
Rumsfeld's Final Snowflake: "I Was Just About to Change
Everything ... "
Derrick O'Keefe
Regimes Unchanged: Chavez's Victory Strengthen's Cuba
Julian Assange
The Road to Hanoi
Missy Beattie
Bush, the Unhappy Helmsman
Website of
the Day
Lessons of Suez and Iraq
December 4,
2006
Alexander Cockburn
Gaza
and Darfur
George Ciccariello-Maher
Tears of the Escualidos: Election Diary, Venezuela
Ray McGovern
Lame Ducks, Hold That Nomination!: a CIA Insider's Take on Gates
John Ross
Repression on the Menu in Mexico
Walden Bello
Hurricane Milton: Friedman, Bayonets and Markets
Peter Rost,
MD
Pfizer's Clueless Executives
Stephen Lendman
The Withering of the Bush Dynasty
Gideon Levy
This Ceasefire will Go Up in Flames
Website of the Day
The "Babes" of Hizbullah?
December 2
/ 3, 2006
Weekend Edition
Barucha Calamity
Peller
The
Dirty War of Oaxaca
Paul Craig
Roberts
Is Bush Sane?: When Denial Goes Pathological
Ralph Nader
The Big Boys of Financial Crime
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Committee of Enablers: Is Gates Fit to Serve? Are the Senators?
Amira Hass
The Checkpoint Generation
Maymanah Farhat
Depoliticizing Arab Art: Christie's and the Rush to "Discover"
the Arab World
Dave Lindorff
Fighting the Iraq War--At Home
Fred Gardner
Dr. Jimenez Defends His Practice Methods
Col. Dan Smith
The Semantics of Civil War
Raed Jarrar
Maliki's Monopoly of Power
Seth Sandronsky
US Prison Nation: Locking Up Surplus Labor
K.-Y. Taylor
The Bride Wore Black: the Shooting of Sean Bell and the Resurgence
of American Racism
Yifat Susskind
Greed, Dogma and AIDS
David Rosen
Made in China: the Global Trade in Sex Toys
Ron Jacobs
All Hands on Deck!: the New Pirates of the Caribbean
Nikolas Kozloff
Venezuela Prepares to Vote
Talli Nauman
Fighting La Choya: the Secret Toxic Dump on the Border
Alan Gregory
Shadow Trout: Why Hatchery Fish Aren't Real
Joe Allen
RFK and Hollywood Mythmaking: Emilio Estevez's Beatification
of Bobby Kennedy
St. Clair /
D'Antoni
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Davies, Engel, Ford and Orloski
Website of
the Day
Demo for Oaxaca
December 1,
2006
Greg Grandin
Midnight
in Mexico: Calderón's Inauguration Behind Closed Doors
Linn Washington,
Jr.
The
Mumia Case After 25 Years: Still More Keystone Kops Antics
George Ciccariello-Maher
Sleeping with the Enemy: At Home with the Anti-Chavistas
Brian J. Foley
Taking Responsibility for Iraq
Dave Zirin
Rebel Athletes: Organizing the Jocks for Justice
Joshua Frank
The Montana Formula: Jon Tester's Neopopulism
Chris Floyd
Hideous Kinky: Thomas Friedman Comes Undone
Ingmar Lee
Atomic Porker Strikes Indian Point Nuke Plant
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Dark Fire: the Fall of WTC 7
Website of the Day
No Gun Ri Revisited
Video of the
Day
Drunken Hack Goes Ape at Aussie "Pulitzers"
November 30, 2006
Jonathan Cook
Palestinians
Are Being Denied the Right of Non-Violent Resistance
Tariq Ali
Axis of Hope: Venezuela and the Bolivarian Dream
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Confirmation
Hearings as Kabuki Dance
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
Heat and Steel: the Thermodynamics of 9/11
William S. Lind
More Troops Into a Lost War?
Ray McGovern
Gates is Rumsfeld Lite
Fidel Castro
"It is Our Duty to Save Our Species"
Agustin Velloso
Equatorial Guinea: So Close to the West, So Far From Democracy
CP News Service
The Arrest of Gerardo Bonilla: Muralist Among Oaxaca's Disappeared
Website of
the Day
The Life and Times of H-Bomb Ferguson
November 29, 2006
Glen Ford
Barack
Obama and the Winds of War
Chris Sands
Blood, Snow and NATO: the Latvian Summit Viewed from Afghanistan
Rochelle Gause
Dispatch from Oaxaca: Where Murderers Still Stalk the Streets,
Protected by Police
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
The Physics of 9/11
Norman Finkelstein
HRW's Shameful Press Release on Palestine
Peter Rost,
MD
Pfizer's Shell Game: the Contraction Begins
Gary Leupp
CIA Report: No Evidence of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program
Joe DeRaymond
From Norman Morrison to Malachai Ritscher: Self-Immolation as
Anti-War Protest
Christopher Fons
Prostituting Democracy: History, Latvia and Bush's Night on the
Town in Riga
Sibel Edmonds
Auctioning Off Former Statesmen and Dime-a-Dozen Generals
Website of the Day
Bombing a Mosque
November 28,
2006
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
Nears the "Saigon Moment"
Winslow T.
Wheeler
SASC-ing Robert Gates
Michael Ratner
The War Crimes Case Against Rumsfeld: a Q&A
John Ross
The War on Rebel Journalists
Molly Secours
Racism Kills: From Michael Richards to the NYPD
Peter Rost,
MD
Big Pharma and "the Pill": Profits, Branding and Experimentation
on Women
Lucinda Marshall
War Chic
Website of
the Day
"Action" in Iraq
November 27,
2006
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Genocide
or Erasure of Palestinians: Does It Matter What You Call It?
Uri Avnery
An Evening in Jounieh
Nikolas Kozloff
The Rise of Rafael Correa: Ecuador and the Contradictions of
Chavismo
Michael Donnelly
Freedom Air: Keeping the Skies Safe from Nipples and Muslims
Ben Terrall / John Miller
Bush's Big Indonesian Photo-Op
Robert Jensen
Digging In and Digging Deep
Sol Littman
Missing Canada's Health Care System in Tucson
Website of
the Day
State Minimum Wages: a Policy That Works
November 25
/ 26, 2006
Gabriel Kolko
Factors
in Our Colossal Mess
Saul Landau
Republic
of the Repressed
William Blum
New Congress, Same Quagmire
Ralph Nader
The Trouble with the Bubble
Fred Gardner
The War on Us: Another 1.9 Million Victims
Daniel Wolff
Return to District 8, New Orleans
M. Shahid Alam
Pitting the West Against Islam
James J. Brittain
Censorship in Colombia: the Arrest of Freddie Muñoz
George Ciccariello-Maher Contingency and Counter-Contingency
in Venezuela
Aseem Shrivastava
India on 20 Cents a Day
Seth Sandronsky
The Washington Post's War on Social Security
Julian Assange
The Curious Origins of Political Hacktivism
Christopher Brauchli
The Rout and the Honeymoon: In and Out of Bed with Bush
Michele Naar-Obed
A Letter to the Judge Who Sentenced My Husband to Federal Prison
for Protesting Nuclear Weapons
Ramzy Baroud
Reclaiming America
Christiane
Passevant /
Larry Portis
Women in the Israeli Army: Two New Films
Adam Engel
Striving of His Day-Days: a Prose Poem
Jeffrey St.
Clair /
David Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Davies, Gibbons, Louise, Buknatski, Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
The Black Agenda
November 24,
2006
Charles Glass
How
to Let Lebanon Live
Gideon Levy
A Prayer in Paradise
Jonathan Cook
Syria as Fallguy
Ron Jacobs
Build a Fire on Main Street: Stop the War, Now!
Brian McKenna
Native Resurgence Spurs Hope: Giving Thanks to America's Indians
Kim Ives
The UN Fails Haiti, Again
November 23,
2006
Alexander Cockburn
The
Democrats and the Slaughterhouse
November 22, 2006
Kathleen Christison
The
Massacre at Beit Hanoun
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's Lone Victory: Defeating the Bill of Rights
Mike Roselle
Green Muscle on Election Day: Now is the Time for Boldness
Dave Lindorff
The First Task of the New Congress
Greg Moses
Up From Chiapas: Giving Thanks to Women's Revolution
Dave Zirin
Born Under Punches: the Pimping of Mike Tyson
Nadia Martinez
Dealing with Ortega
Sherwood Ross
Why the World Needs Trade Unions Now More Than Ever
David Kalbfeisch
I Am A Navy Veteran Against Wars
Gilad Atzmon
Palestinian Solidarity in a Time of Massacres
Website of the Day
Sorry, Charlie: No Draft
November 21,
2006
Robert Bryce
The
Ongoing Myth of Energy Independence
John V. Walsh
Spoilers of the World Unite!
Luis Hernandez Navarro
Lessons from the Teachers of Oaxaca
Kevin Zeese
An Interview with Michael Isikoff on Iraq
Peter Rost, MD
Rules of the Game: How Big Corporations Avoid Paying Their Taxes
Evelyn Pringle
Drug Your Fetus: How Big Pharma Hits on Pregnant Women
Roger Morris
Reason in an Age of Folly (and Felony)
Don Monkerud
Here Come the Democrats ... So?
Website of the Day
The Grind
November 20,
2006
David H. Price
American
Anthropologists Stand Up Against Torture and the Occupation of
Iraq
Col. Dan Smith
Usurpation of Power
Katherine Hughes
Compassion on Trial in War on Terror: Muslim Charities and the
Case of Dr. Rafil Dhafir
Dave Himmelstein
Ziodammerung: Netanyahu and the End Times
Robert Jensen
Opportunities Lost
Joe Mowrey
America's Progressive Nightmare: Here Come the Armani Democrats
Mike Whitney
Housing Bubble Smack Down: Alan Greenspan, Homewrecker
Carl N. McDaniel
Living Within Limits
Robert Fisk
Shia Walk
Ramzy Baroud
Killing Hope in Beit Hanoun
Website of the Day
Iraq:
the Hidden Story
November 18
/ 19, 2006
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
Top
Dems to Voters: "Shut Up! We've Got a War to Run!"
Ralph Nader
The Hole in Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Lost the Senate
Barucha Calamity Peller
Who Will Live on in the Oaxaca Uprising?
John Ross
Halliburton Wrecks Mexico
Dave Lindorff
The Albatross: Why the Democrats Should Cut Loose Joe Lieberman
Fred Gardner
The Adverse Effects of Marijuana: California Medical Survey
Ron Jacobs
Back in the Aether Again: Thomas Pynchon's Stunning Return
Larry Portis
The Songs of Basilio Martin Patino: Father of the New Spanish
Cinema
Frida Berrigan
The Weapons Bonanza: a Perfect Storm of Profit
Wes Enzinna
Ghosts of Dictatorships Past: the School of the America's and
Memory in Latin America
Elizabeth Schulte
The Fall of Donald Rumsfeld: Architect of a Disaster
Peter Rost,
MD
The Credit Card Trap
Martha Rosenberg
We're Drinking What? Milk, rBST and Monsanto's Rats
Seth Sandronsky
University Unity: California's Professors and Students Unite
Missy Beattie
Explore This!
Adam Engel
Data Days
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Newberry and Curtis
Website of the Weekend
A Modest Proposal for the Art World
November 17,
2006
Greg Grandin
The
Road from Serfdom: Milton Friedman and the Economics of Empire
Joseph Massad
Pinochet in Palestine: Fateh's Unholy Alliance
Kevin Zeese
George McGovern's Return to Capitol Hill: "A Down-to-Earth
Disengagement Plan"
Gideon Levy
After the Rain of Death
Bill Quigley
WMDs Protected!: Blood-Pouring Anti-Nuke Clowns Sent to Prison
David Swanson
Last Chance for the Democrats?: a Tale of Two Conyers
Sherry Wolf
Gay Rights: When Will the US Catch Up with Africa?
Jerry Beisler
What James Webb Knows
Website of the Day
Thanks for the False Memories!
November 16,
2006
Kathy Kelly
Sources
of Violence
Col. Douglas
MacGregor
Was It Only Rumsfeld?
Norman Solomon
Operation Last Resort: the Media Offensive to Prolong the Iraq
War
Nikki Thanos
From Oaxaca to Portland
Cindy Sheehan
Impeachment Proceedings
Lena Khalaf
Tuffaha
Jimmy
Carter and the "A" Word: Will the Democrats Listen
to Carter on Palestine?
Gloria La Riva
Where is the Justice? Anti-Castro Terrorist Gets Only 4 Years
Pat Williams
How the Democrats Won the West
Kerry Joyce
From Rummy to Rahmmy: Bob Novak's New Source
CP News Service
Wal-Mart Charged with Selling Non-Organic Food as "Organic"
David Letterman
Top 10 Slogans for Wal-Mart Wine
James Ridgeway
Did Robert Gates' Planning Help Bring Black Hawk Down?
Website of
the Day
A Conversation with West Point Grads Against the War
November 15,
2006
Jennifer Loewenstein
Alice
in Erez: the Gaza Crossing
David Rosen
Rev. Ted Haggard and the Eclipse of Evangelical Fury
Ashley Smith
A Socialist in the Senate?
Landau / Hassen
Talking Tough on Iraq Isn't Courageous
Walden Bello
Iraq After November 7: New Challenges for the AntiWar Movement
Sibel Edmonds
The Highjacking of a Nation
Austin / Bernstein
Why Bill Cosby is Wrong to Link Black Culture to Economic Decline
Yitzhak Laor
This Merchandise, Security
James Rothenberg
Unimpeachable: a Brief Argument Why
Gail Dines
"Borat": It's a Guy Thing
Website of the Day
Kakistocracy
November 14, 2006
Werther
Beltway
Bromo-Seltzer: a Sneak Peak at the Baker Report
Ray McGovern
Benching Scowcroft
John Walsh
Korea, Vietnam and Iraq Syndrome: Alive, Well and Gaining Strength
David MacMichael
Gates to the Pentagon
William S.
Lind
Lose a War, Lose an Election
Sharon Smith
Democrats, Born to Compromise
Laura Carlsen
Oaxaca Fights Back
Ron Jacobs
The Perishing Republic
Peter Rost,
MD
Whistleblowers: Who Are They?
Carol Norris
Post-Campaign Ad Stress Disorder?
Website of
the Day
A Map of the US Nuclear Arsenal
November 13,
2006
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Screw
the Palestinians, Full Steam Ahead
Bill Quigley
Robin Hood in Reverse: the Corporate Looting of the Gulf Coast
Paul Craig Roberts
The Democrats and Civil Liberties: Will They Turn a Blind Eye?
Uri Avnery
Call It What It Is: a Massacre!
Joe DeRaymond
The Strange Return of Daniel Ortega
Norman Finkelstein
Jimmy Carter's Roadmap
Col. Dan Smith
The Pentagon's Revolving Gates: Out with the Old, In with the
Old
Shepherd Bliss
After the Party
Dave Lindorff
What Vote-Theft Conspiracy?
Missy Beattie
For Better / For Worse: Will Laura Stay the Course?
Trenticosta / Fleming
Vindication for the Angola 3
|
December
26, 2006
A Conversation with Marc Estrin
The
Golem Lives
By RON JACOBS
Marc Estrin is the author of the highly
praised novel Insect
Dreams and The
Education of Arnold Hitler. Both of these books cast
an unlikely character in the midst of the twentieth centruty--Insect
dream's protagonist Gregor Samsa in the first half and Arnold
Hitler (the second novel's anti-hero) finds himself in the midst
of the second half of that recent past. His newest novel, Golem
Song, is the story of an angry Jewish man who identifies
with the bellicosity of Israel--the Israel of the Old Testament
and the Israel of today--while laughing at himself and the world
he blusters through. Likeable like Mort Sahl, but detestable
as Meir Kahane, Alan Krieger of Golem Song is ultimately
incapable of carrying out his most reprehensible fantasies.
Marc and I have worked together
on various labor, political and journalistic endeavors over the
past dozen or so years, usually agreeing, but at times not so
much. His life includes stints as a theatre director of Micahel
McClure's paly The Beard in San Francisco back in 1965, writing
and improvising antiwar agitational theater in Washington, DC
during the late 1960s, time teaching at Goddard College in Vermont,
working as a physician's assistant for a few years, and teaching
at an alternative high school. Anyhow, he and I carried on an
email conversation in early September 2006 about the themes in
Golem Song and other things.
Hey Marc, in your latest
book, you tell the story of an out-of-control potentially homicidal
Jewish man in the Bronx who has decided that African-Americans
need to be killed. It seemed obvious to me while reading the
book that there were a number of metaphors at work here, not
the least of them the main character Alan Krieger, as the new
kind of Jew--the militarist Zionist politician or general. What
do you make of my perception and why?
It's interesting (and perhaps
a caution) that the perception of Alan as a character differs
so much when viewed from the completed figure, as opposed to
seeing him through his conceptual and writing development. The
same stuff is in there, and can likely be perceived from either
direction, but let me take you on the path from A to B, as an
alternative to your looking at him from B to A.
"An out-of-control potentially
homicidal Jewish man in the Bronx" -- yes, definitely, that
was the beginning -- not only of this book, but of my writing.
A phone call from same, asking me to send him "a high-powered
rifle with a telescopic sight". It was hard for him to get
in NYC, but in Vermont... "Why?", I asked. "So
I can kill black people." "Why do you want to kill
black people?" "Look, there's going to be a war in
NYC between the blacks and the Jews, and I want to take some
with me when I go. And any cops who might try to stop me."
Well, I refused to send, got called all sorts of names, told
I didn't understand "reality", living in Vermont, and
we basically haven't talked since. That's where it began. But
it's not where it ended.
I wrote down the conversation
because it was so weird and disturbing, and then it began to
grow in me -- a character beyond this particular character, but
sharing some of his traits, a kind of "genius", a poet,
musician, someone who could quote long passages of Yates and
Dostoevsky verbatim, knew every note of the St. Matthew Passion
-- but more malleable in a way than the original, less constricted
by an already-arrived-at conviction, and therefore also funnier,
more inventive, more agile with the vast pallet of materials
sloshing around in his heartmind.
As I wrote further, I rolled
into his character many of the wonderful maniacs I have known
(and cultivated as friends, being so straight myself), maniacs
from other compartments of my life: a filmmaker I lived with
as a graduate student, a viola-playing computer programmer I
play quartets with, my best friend in college (himself now the
model for a work in progress, my own father's Seder fights with
my grandfather over whether there was any historical evidence
for the Jews being in Egypt at all. All those folks are rolling
around in there, and they certainly do not answer to the description
of "an out-of-control potentially homicidal Jewish man in
the Bronx". They generate and modify Alan's take on things,
they paint his landscape of desires, they soften the potentially
vicious strangeness of his perceptions. And made my editor happier.
You'll notice, of course, that
Alan Krieger doesn't actually kill anyone, and is not likely
to. Anyone, that is, except his pet snake, Shlong, which, believe
it or not I realized only last night as I was thinking about
what I might write you, might have Freudian significance Why
sure it does! Symbolic, symbolic!
Which brings up the strangest
part of the story. The Golem was not a part of this work until
it was almost finished. Alan Krieger, who wants to be a golem,
who wants to be the rabbi who makes a golem to protect the Jewish
community, who even wants his snaky to be a golem so they can
be a team. Golem, golem, golem, the title of the book -- it
was all not there, even when I had almost a whole manuscript
together. The golem was a completely fortuitous late entry, which
took over the book, and instructed me what it was really about
-- not "an out-of-control potentially homicidal Jewish man
in the Bronx", but rather a contemporary embodiment of a
myth, happily also a Jewish myth, thematically so. And "mythic"
more than adds to the levels that are playing around in there,
it modulates them into a different key. At least for me.
Some of the political applications
of the Golem myth are obvious: The US in the world, Israel in
Palestine and Lebanon -- scenes of vast, out-of-control violence
visited on others in the name of self-protection. But there
are many other qualities of golem and golemism which I am only
now learning from reading the text I had written without knowing
what I was writing about, material which on the surface has little
to do with "the golem" per se, material which was developed
only characterologically without any demonstrative purpose.
Examples:
-- Alan's answer to a Personal
ad in the NYR showed me the fascinating combination of übermensch
and untermensch thinking, the inherent sadomasochism of creating
golems, the phony "realism" invoked, the fundamental
misogyny of golemism.
-- Alan's tutorial on Jews
and goys for his German girlfriend, demonstrates the off-kilter
nature of talmudic pilpul when appled to human pain, and the
lopsided evaluations of "everyone good is us."
-- Alan's tête-a-tête
with Mary Brown shows how easily golemists can dismiss others'
suffering,
-- his psychoanalizing himself
in the "Shrinking" chapter shows how self-deceiving
such self-analysis can be, and the ridiculousness of self-improvement
(and weight loss) is under such conditions.
None of these qualities of
people-who-make-golems were "put in there" to demonstrate
a political analysis, but were rather arrived at by inviting
all my crazies to come together to generate a character. So once
again, although true, "an out-of-control potentially homicidal
Jewish man in the Bronx" is not really the way I perceive
it.
As far as "the new kind
of Jew" goes, yes, of course, that concerns me greatly,
and was part of my original perception of the phone call. As
you probably know, Yiddish is looked down on in Israel as victim-language,
while modern Hebrew is the preferred language of warriors. I
read Yiddish writers as a specific antidote to Netanyahu/Sharon/Olmert
and their military gangs. Walter's letter, read with saliva and
stuffed mouth to Ursula pretty much represents my own take on
things. It was written at the end of the 90's during the first
conflict with Hezbollah, and lo and behold, has become totally
current once again.
If it is is true, does his
failure to undertake his plan for mass murder signify anything
as regards Israel's apparent plan?
I think this is more charactological
than anything else. Alan is basically full of shit, an Ubu-like
coward, puffed up with his own playfulness and erudition. He
spent bigtime money on his shiny "Israeli sniper rifle",
but I don't think he even bought any bullets.
Israel, however, is another
story. The government is clearly more than willing and most
able (given massive US political, economic and military support)
to perpetrate any mass murders it needs to achieve its golem
goals. And there seems to be no Rabbi Loew to bring it up the
stairs in the Altneuschul, remove the aleph from its forehead,
or the parchment from its mouth, and make it once again into
gray Vlatava clay. Perhaps the most disturbing thing in the whole
disturbing gemisch is a poll taken by Tel Aviv University in
the middle of the Lebanon campaign which indicated that 93% of
Israelis believe that "the campaign (was) justified",
and 91% back the airstrikes "even if they destroy infrastructure
and inflict suffering on civilians." How much destruction
does the Golem need to do before the people understand what they
have created and endorsed?
The protagonists in your
other books (Insect Dreams and The Education of Arnold Hitler)
are also creatures on the outside of society--the other, if you
will--yet they internalize their feelings about their otherness.
Krieger, as a Jewish man, is also another human on the outside
of society, not only because of his Jewishness (which until recently
was the ultimate otherness in most of Western culture and remains
so in much of it still), but because of his personality and habits.
Yet, instead of retreating from society like Gergor Samsa in
Insect dreams and Arnold Hitler in the Education of..., he assumes
a position that he is superior to the rest of humanity and designs
a plan to kill those whom he fears the most. Why the different
reaction?
Well, first of all I wouldn't
agree that Gregor, at least, retreats from society. He tries
his damndest to stop the development and deployment of the bomb,
with the determination (and success) of a Leo Szilard. Both Gregor
and Arnold, are actively searching. Their values are in conflict
with the dominant values around them, values affecting the world
via violence and the distortion of language. But they do struggle
to find a solution to their conflicts with the outside world
(ours).
Alan, too, is searching. But
unlike Gregor and Arnold, and prompted by some very local experiences
-- his getting rolled on the subway, his experiences in the ER,
his getting fired over racial issues, his girlfriend leaving
him for a black man -- he is prompted to come up with a "solution".
A golem solution. I originally had him going psychotic at the
end, thinking the Exterminator was Tolstoy or God come to punish
him, ready to commit suicide using roach poison "tomorrow"
Now, he's just mucho-neurotic, playing out, perhaps in an extreme
way (especially for Schlongy) an absurd theory and fantasy life.
So although he appears to be
more agentic than Gregor or Alan -- he makes things happen rather
than having things happen to him -- he actually makes very little
happen, other than to increase the profits of White Castle hamburgers.
If anything, he is more in retreat than they are, more internal.
He just wears his inside articulately on his outside.
Good questions!
I'm going to jump very far
astray (or maybe not so far) and ask you about Bread and Puppet
Theatre. I know you are one of the early (or is it original?)
members. Also, that you were involved with a theatre group in
DC as part of the Washington Free Community back in 1967-68,
I think it was. First, can you let the readers know what bread
and Puppet is about and what they are doing now. Plus, what was
the deal with the Washington Free Community and the theatre group
you were with?
Well, that IS a huge leap --
especially in the quotient of evil. And yet -- as you observe
-- maybe not so far. For the first step in the puppet making
is hauling gray clay from the banks of a river. Then Rabbi Schumann
fashions it into often huge figures, yes, finally designed to
protect the community (all of us) from the butchers and horrorists
which threaten. The protection, however, does not involve violence
but rather a change of consciousness, a prick for conscience,
ridicule where warranted, and bathing in mysterious beauty.
Bread & Puppet and I came
together in 1970 when the group became theater-in-residence at
Goddard College (in PLainfield, Vermont), where I was teaching
and conducting the college/community chorus. I had known of
them in my last incarnation, as theater director and Institue
of Policy Studies visiting fellow in DC, and had reprinted a
booklet of theirs in ReCreation, a collection of resistance strategies
I had edited the year before. But I'd actually never seen them.
Their arrival in Plainfield was a life-changing event for me,
and for Vermont. I have recorded thirty-five years of impressions
and speculations concerning Bread & Puppet in Rehearsing
With Gods: Photographs and Essays on the Bread & Puppet Theater
(with Ron Simon, photographer), a book that recently won a book-of-the-year
award. It was the subject matter, for sure, since (in my opinion)
Bread & Puppet -- along with Stanislavsky and Brecht --
is one of the three most crucial contributions to theater in
the last century. And unlike Stanislavsky and Brecht, they are
still with us, and going strong in this one.
In Washington, while trying
to raise money (never, never again!) to build a radical political
theater in the belly of the beast, I was biding theatrical time
by doing workshops and organizing demonstrations with my buddy,
Dennis Livingston. Out of that collaboration came The American
Playground, a group that specialized in street theater and "guerrilla-ing"
events -- pulling off political stunts at affairs organized by
others. Out of that work, I developed what I think of as my most
original theater contribution, the theory and practice of "infiltrative
theater" -- theater pieces which the audience would simply
think of as real, if strange-ish events in their non-audience
lives, hopefully getting them to question things they may not
have questioned before. Example: eight of us dressed as sales
people going into a large import store, accosting customers,
and praising the items they might be looking at -- especially
the low price, and explaining the wonderful way large-scale buying
can reduce the cost of labor: "Hey, better 50¢ an hour
than nothing, right? The natives have to live too." Or stealing
books from a famous lefty bookstore, having one of us discover
the thievery, having the thief break into a defense of stealing
from "left capitalist pigs", and invoking (three times)
a big discussion among customers about the ethics of theft, and
questions of community policing. I wrote some of these pieces
up, published them in The Drama Review, and received much
nasty mail about "manipulation". I tried to distinguish
between manipulation that closes minds down, and manipulations
that open them up -- but still felt shaken enough to stop doing
infiltrations. Even now I'm not clear on what to think about
that theater form. But in today's climate of secrecy, spying,
and normalized sting operations, and to avoid even more public
paranoia and cynicism it's probably best to refrain. On the
other hand, in the Baudrillardian world of simulacra...
The American Playground fit
easily into the world of the Washington Free Community, an authentic,
post-revolutionary, 60s collaboration of housing cooperatives,
free medical and legal clinics, underground newspapers, news
services, and film groups, all infused with the general consciousness
that things could be changed for the better.
Do you think there's a progression
from that group to the puppets at protests today? Do you think
they are effective?
There's no doubt that, beginning
in the 60s Vietnam war protests, Peter Schumann initiated a new
way (for America) of using big puppets in large street events.
We see (bad) imitations of his puppets at almost every major
demonstration. And we understood the effectiveness of those
huge puppets when the first act of the Philadelphia police at
the 2000 Republican convention was to "bust the puppets",
to break into the citywide puppet-making workshop, confiscate
material, break and smash sculpture, and accuse puppet-makers
of having "molotov cocktails" -- jars of paint thinner.
Now, puppets are routinely kept out of demonstrations by some
police departments (along with picket signs) because they use
sticks or other hard objects which "could be used for violence."
So yes, there's been a quantitative progression in puppet use,
even if sometimes coupled with qualitative regression.
Now, back to the Golem.
Is Israel the Golem? Should it be decommissioned, much like the
Golem of myth was? Does this version of Judaism have much of
a shelf life or is it, as many Israelis seem to think, the Judaism
of the Old Testament?
No one, no nation is "the
Golem". Golem is an idea, a disturbing myth, a strategy
of self-protection at all costs, regardless of the consequences
for others, and often for oneself or one's own nation. We see
examples of golemism all around us, all nourished on fear, from
the obvious lethality of some nations, to the manipulation of
elections, to the backlash against threatening feminism, to the
catastrophic overuse of antibiotics "just in case".
If there is an October surprise (this year or 2008), that will
be an example of golemism.
It makes little sense to talk
of "decommissioning" Israel, "pushing it into
the sea", an idea useful only to Zionists for rallying the
troops and spinning events, and having no "reality"
attached. There are huge "facts on the ground" -- not
the settlements and Jewish-only rules and roads, but the people-facts:
lives lived, trying to be normal. What needs discussion and
action is the ongoing relationship of Jewish immigrants to their
Arab hosts, and to the people displaced by their coming. Should
the world normalize the idea of "a Jewish state", or
should there be a democratic state in the middle east, one person,
one vote, irrespective of race or religion? Rightwing calls
for the United States to be or become "a Christian nation",
are generally seen as outrageous except among the callers. Yet
the analogous demand by Israel is seen as reasonable. The topic
of "Should Israel become a nation like any other (borders,
military, etc.)?" was once a topic for rich, passionate
debate among Jews and others, beginning with 1Samuel:8. This
needs more level-headed discussion now, when such discussion
has become verboten.
There are certainly Jews who
don't embrace the aggressive military Zionism of the current
Israeli/US governments. I am one. But here in the US, it's very
hard to speak or write about it -- much harder, in fact, than
in Israel. Read Haaretz (available in English), not the
New York Times, if you want to hear varieties of opinion
and obtain wide objective reporting of what's really going on
over there. But people who see the almost 40-year brutal occupation
of Palestine, as destructive not only to world peace, but to
Israel itself, and the fate of Judaism, are called "anti-semitic"
or "self-hating Jews", and are often intimidated from
speaking out concerning issues which are still reasonable to
discuss, and crucial to the world, Jews, and Judaism.
Golem Song is my attempt to engage two major,
related, themes -- golemism itself, and the pathology of thinking
oneself "chosen". It is set not in Israel/Palestine
or at the Pentagon, or in Teheran, Najaf or Karbala, but in a
landscape I know better, and in a context -- though the original
phone call was unreasonable -- which was, is, not unreasonable
in itself. That call came ten years ago in 1996. In 1996 Carl
Rowan, the widely-syndicated black columnist, published a book
called The Coming Race War in America: A Wake-Up Call. The tensions
are still simmering ten years later, exacerbated by Israeli behavior
in the middle east and US behavior across the third world. Golemism
is with us big time, and needs to be dealt with. My book, though
basically a comic novel, tries to raise the subject to broader
consciousness, and not just as interesting, even charming, Jewish
kitsch.
Why do you think religion
matters so freaking much today? What happened to good ol' secular
revolution? Progressing from there, what happened to good ol'
secular revolution?
I don't think the secular revolution
was ever a revolution in the sense of replacing anything with
anything else. What it, and the march of science and technology,
did was to add a dimension of rational, and -- in its place --
effective thought to a body of complex human urgings and behavior.
It certainly seems as if the temperature of the rational side
of things has gone down lately, while the temperature of the
other sides (I'm not opposing "rational" to some sort
of disparaged "irrational") has gone up, at least among
those among us who embraced the totality. The fundamentalists
had always held the latter high, the former low. The rationalists-only
now feel ever more irrelevant and deflated. Why that particular
direction? Let's just look at US Americans.
I think some of it has to do
with the general dumbing down in schools, the replacement of
thoughtful speech and reading by soundbites and eye candy, the
loss of historical memory, the inability to concentrate on one
thing for any length of time, the decay of language with its
consequent inarticulateness of thought. As a culture, we are
largely pushed back towards the cave, both Plato's, and to actual
Paleolithic thought-conditions.
(On the other hand, I am reminded
of one of my favorite New Yorker cartoons: two cavemen
standing outside a large opening in the rock in which one can
see people wall-painting, making music, dancing around a fire.
One says to the other something like, "Big budget crunch.
We'll have to get back to basics." The other responds, "Yeah.
Music and art." Alas, with the hegemony of capitalism over
art, they ain't exactly basic anymore.)
Given the loss of rationality
necessary to capitalism the other sides tend to burgeon out and
take over in cultures such as ours, which once had a balance,
or at least the option of enlightenment thought. Other cultures
have kept such thought-trains at a distance, preferring to concentrate
not on the "finite and corrupt", but on what Tillich
called "ultimate concern". This is not an entirely
bad idea, and it even has a holographic representation on the
"secular" side: Do we really want to follow every
detail of the rhetoric in Bush's speeches, or the rationalizations
for mass murder by Bush and other terrorists around the world?
Or do we want to ask and demand answers to questions on other,
higher levels, more ultimate levels, like "Regardless of
the intensity of your golem's need for protection, is there a
humane and justice-embracing way to achieve whatever security
is possible in the face of the unpredictabilities of life?"
Bad prose, but you get the idea. I'm for more ultimate concern.
More ultimate concern.
Is it too late for such a thing? If not, where do you think
it will come from? And what are people really so afraid of that
they'll give up what they will redefine their values in such
a way that they become something quite different. for example,
democracy and freedom have a very different meaning when Bush
and his supporters use them then the meaning assumed by more
traditional conservatives.
Well, let's remember that we're
not talking Tillich here. Or at least I'm not. If we were talking
Tillich, answer would be a simple no -- one cannot be "too
late" in his intended dimension of "To be or not to
be" -- finding and actualizing the meaning of life. Nor
can a society be too late -- at least until its death. And as
Monty Python once said, "I'm not dead yet."
Things get more problematical
if we ask "too late to save the planet", "too
late to avoid fascism", "too late to avert nuclear
proliferation" -- questions like that. So many variables
are at play, including hidden ones, like unthought-of positive
feedback loops catastrophically increasing global warming, or
pandemic-causing mutations coming out of once-innocent genomes,
or assassinations or false-flag attacks. Chaotic systems can
go anywhere including a rainstorm of too-lateness.
But let's at least discuss
a homey, and not improbable -- in fact, partway accomplished
-- situation: rewriting fundaments of the American condition,
lately, and most obviously, by the Bush administration, but equally
assignable to Clinton & Co. who weakened habeus corpus, did
away with "welfare as we know it", DLC'd the Democratic
Party to further approximate a one-party state, and committed
economic genocide with his Iraqi sanctions. People put up with
it. Some even encourage and root for it. American friendly
fascism.
I am so often driven back to
a particular quote of Einstein's: "Three great power rule
the world: stupidity, fear, and greed. Interesting allegation.
Fear is in the limelight now
-- Rove's favorite ploy, a popular topic for journalists, and,
even if over-hyped, a real concern for the public, even that
public that sees through the mixing-liquids-in-aircraft-toilets
farce. So yes, as you imply, fear suggests a trade-off of freedom
for security. Those who are freest and have most to lose are
security's biggest fans. Many can buy their own, but it's nice
to have the government supply the Pinkertons for you.
What is less often addressed
are the other two great powers.
Stupidity has been a long-term
project. Stupidity buys what you want it to -- objects, attitudes,
and political behavior. American "dumbing down", widely
noticed and documented, is not related to natural human capacity
-- orientals and other "exotic" groups seem to be doing
quite well in their test scores -- but to policy decisions largely
determined by profits and desired behaviors such as complacency.
We score high on that. We love stupidity so much that half of
us vote to have a beer with it for leadership.
But the biggie, I think, is
greed, a pathology so large as to contain the other two. Greediness
involves both fear of deprivation, and the prize-winning stupidity
of thinking that the way to be secure is for others to be insecure.
But greed is also a condition unto itself, since the very rich
and the very secure, even the very fearless, are frequently greedy,
and lethally so. Greed is often the way they got to be very rich
and secure.
When does greed develop? We
see it in childhood, and wait for "moral development"
to keep our toddlers out of jail. We see it in the competitions
of adolescence, in the position-jockeying of middle age, and
in the golden parachutes of maturity. It tends to disappear
on the death bed.
Man, greed is a tough one.
It may be the core of our fallenness (to go back to theology).
People will mouthe sermons against it, but when push come to
shove, all but the saints grab for the gold. Paul advised us
towards faith, hope and charity, "but the greatest of these
is charity". And, I would add, the most difficult. One
can try to shame the greedy into giving up some of the goods,
perhaps offer them tax incentives or carbon-trading credits.
But guilt-tripping is a poor tool.
I have no answer. I don't get
it.
And with that, we ponder
on.
Ron Jacobs is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground,
which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill
Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art
and sex, Serpents
in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up,
is forthcoming from Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net
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