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What You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter AFTER IRAQ, BUSHIES PLAN WORLD WAR THREE Japanese "defense force" practices amphibian landings in Southern California. Target: China. Chris Reed reports from Tokyo. The FBI and the Myth of Fingerprints: Cockburn and St Clair trace the final downfall of "100 per cent certainty" on fingerprint matches What's a miner's life worth? Do we hear $230 and seventy six cents? Jeffrey St Clair on Big Coal's lethal auction, courtesy of the Bush administration. ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Today's Stories January 16, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Bush Crosses the Rubicon January 14 / 15, 2006 Alexander Cockburn What the FBI Repairman Wore When He Tried to Bug Edward Said JoAnn Wypijewski What is an Antiwar Movement? James Petras The State of the Empire, 2006 Ron Jacobs Fifteen Years of War: Who's Better Off? Brian Cloughley Fly Boys and Lie Boys: Smart-Bombing Iraqi Families While They Sleep Marianne McDonald The Madness of Ajax: a Play for Our Time Bruce Tyler Wick Bush on Torture Echoes Charles I on Arbitrary Imprisonment Fred Gardner A Last, Desperate Plea to Stay in Canada Flavia Alaya Victory at Passaic County Jail Gary Leupp A Neocon Plan to Plant WMDs? Dr. Susan Block Peeping Tom in the Bush: Nonconsenual Voyeurism and the NSA Nicole Colson The House Jack Built: The Abramoff Giude to Buying Friends and Influencing Politics Jeffrey Kolakowski Senator as Illusionist: the Hypocrisies of John McCain Missy Comley Beattie The Stepford Hearings of Samuel Alito: The Senator, the Weepy Wife and a Secret Annoiting Charles Thomson Is Serota Dead in the Water?: the Ofili Scandal at the Tate St. Clair / Walker / Vest Playlsts: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Albert, Engel, Ford and Davies Website of the Weekend Historians Against the War   January 13, 2006 Ralph Nader The Two Questions the Senate Should Have Asked Alito Leonard Weinglass The Singular Story of the Cuban Five Amira Hass Prisoners in Their Own Land: 800,000 Palestinians Sealed Off by IDF in West Bank Chris Kutalik / Jennifer Biddle Airline Workers Fight Back Lawrence R. Velvel Alito and the Democrats Dave Lindorff Eight Who Dared: a (Short) Congressional Honor Roll Mike Whitney Countdown to War with Iran? David Price How the FBI Spied on Edward Said   January 12, 2006 Jennifer Van Bergen The Unitary Executive: Why the Bush Doctrine Violates the Constitution Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith Command Responsibility: Torture and Legal Accountability Lawrence R. Velvel Alito Refuses to Answer Fundamental Questions Ralph Nader / Robert Weissman Corporations, Originalism and the Bill of Rights: an Open Letter to Justice Scalia Jackie Corr Killing the Big Sky's Golden Goose: Marc Racicot and the Deregulation of Montana Power Jared Bernstein The Wage Doldrums Russell D. Hoffman New Horizons in Space, New Lows in Government Aubrey Streit I Was Born in a Small Town: the Fate of Rural America Clancy Sigal Hugh Thompson and My Lai: He Broke Ranks; He Did the Right Thing Website of the Day Nukes in Space   January 11, 2006 Kevin Zeese NSA Spied on Baltimore Peace Group (And They've Got the Documents That Prove It) Ray McGovern The Big Wiretap Allan Maass / Joe Allen Schwarzenegger's Hit List: Smearing Mandela, Killing Tookie Earl Ofari Hutchinson Snatching at King's Legacy: Mythmaking, Profiteering & Outright Distortions Annie Murphy Evo Morales' Sweater Allan Lichtman Abramoff's Kind of Big Government Ramzy Baroud Politics of Chaos: Gaza's Turmoil in Context Joshua Frank MoveOn Surrenders to Hillary Kathleen and Bill Christison "Eating Palestine for Breakfast": the Real Sharon Website of the Day Memoirs of Rummy's Geisha   January 10, 2006 Uri Avnery The Post-Sharon Landscape: Three Fingers, No Fist Saul Landau Different Americas Noam Chomsky Beyond the Ballot: Iraq, Iran and China Brian J. Foley Playing with Fire: Congress and Executive Power Lenni Brenner The War Within the Antiwar Movement Ronan Sheehan Sheehan to Sheehan: Cindy Sheehan's Irish Interview Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Con Jobs   January 9, 2006 Behzad Yaghmaian Who is to Blame for the Deaths of the Sudanese Refugees? George Bisharat US Aid to Israel is Out of Hand Dave Lindorff How the US Press Squelches Bush Impeachment Drive Norman Solomon Smoke a Marlboro, Then an Iraqi: How Media War Images Distort Not Inform Christopher Brauchli The Generosity of Credit Card Companies Aharon Shabtai A Poet's Letter on the Occupation Andrew Cockburn How Many Iraqis Have Died Since the US Invasion in 2003?   January 7 / 8, 2006 Lawrence Velvel The NYT's Unconscionable Decision to Sit on the NSA Story for a Year James Petras AIPAC on Trial: Them or US J.L. Chestnut Racism and Injustice in Alabama's Courts Mike Ely The Dead Miners in Sago Andrew Wilson The Dying of Ariel Sharon Lila Rajiva Two Moms Go to Capitol Hill William Cook The Rape of Palestine Ramor Ryan The Sub Motorcycle Diaries: On the Road with the Zapatistas Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff An Interview with Michael Scheuer on the CIA's Rendition Program Peter Montague Inherit the Wind: the Global Spread of GMO Crops Ron Jacobs Would Ethan Allen Pay to Protest? Neve Gordon Images of Real Eco-Terrorism in Twaneh Fred Gardner Business as Usual in San Diego Josh Mahon Idaho Timber Industry Leader Advocates Violence Against Green's Mom Dr. Susan Block Abramoff Family Values: the Lobbyist Who Screwed Us All Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Albert and Engel Website of the Weekend Bush Crimes Commission   January 6, 2006 José Pertierra Posada Carriles May Soon Hit the Streets Joe Allen Gary Freeman's Struggle: a Black Radical from the 1960s Fights Extradition to the US Winslow T. Wheeler Huge Defense Budget, Lousy Equipment John Bomar A Former NSA Officer on Snoopgate: the Squawkers Should be Congratulated Jason Leopold Snoop and Shred Norman Solomon Axis of Fanatics: Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad Robert Pollin Remembering Harry Magdoff: the Man Who Explained the Empire   January 5, 2006 Scott Boehm Big Profits, Buried Lives: Bulldozing the Dead in New Orleans Zoltan Grossman New Challenges for the Antiwar Movement Heather Gray Whistling Dixie Yet Again Haninah Levine Simple is Dangerous: the Pentagon's Plan for a Manhattan Project on IEDs Pierre Tristam The Sham of Homeland Security: a West Virginia Parable Remi Kanazi Stroke of Luck?: Political Hemorrhage in Israel Gilad Atzmon Sharon Meets His Maker Kathleen and Bill Christison What Hillary Clinton Doesn't Know About Palestine   January 4, 2006 Ron Jacobs Pity the Miner: A-Diggin' My Bones Lila Rajiva Terror Hits Bangalore Huibin Amee Chew Why the War is Sexist Pat Williams How the West Turned: Biting the Hands That Steal Linda Milazzo The House That George and Jack Built: Ownership Society Meets the Entrepreneurial Style Nick Dearden The Fantasy of "Even-Handedness": Blair's Cynical Policy on Palestine James Petras Evo Morales: All Growl, No Claws? Website of the Day Rat Out a Lobbyist for Jesus   January 3, 2006 James Ridgeway Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and 9/11: How Much Did the Bush Administration Know? Laith al-Saud Iraqi Intellectuals and the Occupation: an Interview with Dr. Saad Jawad Dick J. Reavis Border Walls: the View from Mexico Joshua Frank Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran Rochelle Gause Inside Rafah: Collective Punishment as Normalcy Missy Comley Beattie How My Mother Went from a Republican to a Screaming Progressive Paul de Rooij A Glossary of Dispossession   January 2, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts A Gestapo Administration Clancy Sigal A Trip to the Far Side of Madness Cindy Sheehan A Tour of Europe: Friends Don't Let Friends Commit War Crimes Alexander Cockburn A NYT Editorial Contemplates Iraq   Dec. 31 / Jan. 1, 2005/6 Patrick Cockburn The Year in Iraq Alexander Cockburn Who Are We to Complain?: a Diary of 2005 Ralph Nader Rumsfeld vs. the Military: a Pentagon of Loyalists and Enforcers James Petras The Politics of Language: "Escalation" or "Retaliation" in Israeli Attacks on Palestinians Peter Montague A Darker Bioweapons Future J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Black Forever: Race, Class and Activism in the South Vijay Prashad My California Vacation: Conversations with Indian Americans P. Sainath Farm Suicides in Vidharbha James Brooks The Spoils of War: Israel's Corruption was Inevitable Eileen E. Schell The Farmer Wants a Wife: Hayseeds and Hickxploitation in the Land of Reality TV Christopher Brauchli Birds of a Feather: George and Vlad Jo Guldi Politics, Gay Marriage and Christianity Fred Gardner America's Only Legal Grower Ben Tripp A Hapless New Year St. Clair / Walker / Pollack Playlists: What We're Listening To This Week Poets Basement Engel, Albert, LaMorticella, Buknatski, Davies, Ford and Bear Dog Website of the Weekend Commit Bloggamy with Dr. Suzy   December 30,2005 Evo Morales I Believe Only in the Power of the People Earl Ofari Hutchinson The Toxic Air in Black America Dave Lindorff Bush's NSA Spying Jeopardizes National Security Gary Leupp Targeting Iran and Syria: Goss Builds Case for Turkey-Based Attacks Ron Jacobs A Dead New Year's Eve Brian Concannon Down in Haiti, the Chickens are Coming Home to Roost Sandra Lucas Inside TeenScreen: the Making of Mental Patients T.W. Croft The Wind Has Changed: Gulf Storms, Fables of Reconstruction and Hard Times for the Big Easy Website of the Day Images of Mass Consumption   December 29, 2005 Norman Solomon Journalists Should Expose Secrets, Not Keep Them Missy Comley Beattie Christmas Without Chase Dave Zirin Over the Edge: the Year in Sports Kevin Zeese Top 10 Antiwar Stories of 2005 Derrick O'Keefe Bolivia and Venezuela Offer an Alternative to Neo-Liberalism Sam Bahour Turning the Page in Palestine, Again Macdonald Stainsby What's Behind Paul Martin's Broadside Against Bush? Bill & Kathleen Christison Let's Stop a US/Israel War on Iran Website of the Day Deconstructing the Democrats   December 28, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair The Worst Day of Ted Stevens' Life? Lila Rajiva Operation Romeo: Lessons on Terror Laws from India Amira Hass The Humanitarian Lie Joshua Frank Let the Drilling Begin: Iraq's IMF Loan David Swanson Leaking Top Secret Lies Richard Thieme High Time for Torture Paul Craig Roberts Three Books to Wake You Up Website of the Day Conyers Report: "Constitution in Crisis"   December 27, 2005 Evan Jones Whither the National Guard? Uri Avnery The Peretz Shuffle Mike Whitney Pop Goes the Bubble! Gideon Levy Dusty Trail to Death David Swanson Kurt Vonnegut: a Man Without a Country Norman Solomon NSA Spied on UN Diplomats During Push for Invasion of Iraq   December 26, 2005 Lawrence R. Velvel The Usurpers of Our Freedoms Lance Olsen The Toughest Challenge for Intelligent Design Ben Terrall No Holiday Compassion for Haiti's Political Prisoners Scott Boehm Santa Drove a Bulldozer Charlie Ehlen A Vietnam Vet's Appraisal of Bush Tom Kerr The Atheist Dad at Christmas   December 24/25, 2005 Aleander Cockburn The Year of Vanished Credibility James Petras Iran in the Crosshairs: Israel's Deadline Ralph Nader Talkin' About the "I"-Word Lila Rajiva Horowitz's New Project: Begging for Brownshirts Fred Gardner Dialogue with the DEA Ron Jacobs When Impeachment was Taken Seriously Dave Lindorff Xmas Games for a Gitmo World Gary Leupp Happy Birthday Mithras!: the True Meaning of December 25th Saul Landau Bush's Year in Review: a Report Card from Santa John Chuckman A Christmas Tale for Bushtime Dr. Susan Block Merry XXX-mas! St. Clair / Vest / Pollack / Donnelly Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Holt, Jones, Landau, Ross and Albert Website of the Weekend Merry Xmas, From the Beatles   December 23, 2005 John Ross The Corrido of Death Row: Mexico Ends the Death Penalty Chris Floyd Gospel Truth: Bush Hypocrisy, Radical Holiness and Woody Guthrie Lawrence Mishel / Ross Eisenbrey The Economy in a Nutshell Joanne Mariner Bringing Torture into Court: the Loopholes in McCain's Bill Eric Johnson-Debaufre The Trew Law of Free Democracies? Ray McGovern Cheney the Bully; Rockefeller the Coward J. L. Chestnut, Jr. What White America Doesn't Hear Website of the Day BB King: What I've Learned This Year   December 22, 2005 Ingmar Lee The Citizen's Metamorphosis: I Awoke an Object of Suspicion Elisa Salasin Classrooms in Cages Christopher Brauchli Absolut Bush: "I Swear to Upturn and Rear End the Constitution of the United States" Robin Blackburn Rudolf Meidner, a Visionary Pragmatist Evelyn Pringle Dan Olmstead, Autism & the Dangers of Thimerosal Amira Hass A 14-Year Old's Prison Journey: "I Refused and He Hit Me" Francis A. Boyle Iraq and the Laws of War: US as "Belligerent Occupant" Stew Albert The Spies Who Thought We Were Messy Website of the Day How to Reach a Human Voice   December 21, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts One Nation, Under Prosecutors: Presumed Guilty Lila Rajiva A Short History of Radio Free Iraq Joshua Frank Nancy Pelosi's Truth Dave Zirin The Bray of Pigs: Bush Nixes Beisbol Cubano Ramzy Baroud US Image Problem Rooted in History, Not Media Sonia Nettnin Connect the Dots: Decoding Bush's Mumbo Jumbo Ben Saul Torture as Calculated Policy Jonathan Cronin Anniversary of a Handshake: Cherry-picking History in Iraq Patrick Cockburn Iraq Election Spells Total Defeat for US Website of the Day Nixon on Presidential Power   December 20, 2005 Jackie Corr Natural Gas: a Montana Tragedy Earl Ofari Hutchinson Nothing New About NSA Spying on Americans Michael Donnelly "Eco Terrorism": Cui Bono? Gian Paulo Accardo Empire of Shame: a Conversation with Jean Ziegler Pierre Tristam Trifler, Fibber, Sophist, Spy: How Bush Flouted the Constitution Norman Solomon The Foulest Media Performances of the Year Sen. Robert Byrd No President is Above the Law Dave Lindorff Missing Black Boxes in WTC Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by NTSB, Concealed by FBI Website of the Day FBI's Spy Files: Got Yours Yet?   December 19, 2005 Mike Marqusee The Global War on Civil Liberties Gary Leupp Feds Ask Student: "Why are You Reading that Little Red Book?" Ron Jacobs The Antiwar Movement, the Democrats and the Delusions of Bushworld John Blair Stealing the Golden Shovel: Lessons on Civil Disobedience Gideon Levy Sadism at the Qalandiyah Checkpoint Kevin Zeese The Global War on Civil Liberties Missy Comley Beattie Warnings from a Military Man and Dad Don Santina Ride 'Em Brush Cutter: Cowboy Imagery and the American Presidency Website of the Day A Call for Justice in Palestine   December 17 / 18, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Time-Delayed Journalism: the NYT and the NSA's Illegal Spying Operation Gabriel Kolko The Decline of the American Empire Susan Alcorn Texas: Three Days and Two Nights Werther The Democrats are an Impotent and Tolerated Opposition Party Ralph Nader The Senator Without Guile: Proxmire of Wisconsin Patrick Cockburn Counting Ballots and Bodies in Baghdad Fred Gardner When Prosecutors Deceive: Did the Feds Frame Bryan Epis? Dave Lindorff Spy Scandal Far Larger Than Just NSA Ned Sublette Essence is Gasoline Lee Sustar The Class War Economy Jason Leopold Did Karl Rove Destroy Evidence in Plame Case? Laura Carlsen Report from Hong Kong: Deciphering the Language of Globalization Jeff White Teacher Fired for Talking About Peace? Ray McGovern Torture Between the Lines Chris Floyd Pale Fire: the White Death of Fallujah William Loren Katz Remembering the First Quagmire at Xmastime: Zachary Taylor vs. the Seminoles Rose Miriam Elizalde Mashenka and the Bear: a Tale for Our Time Greg Moses Pinter's Provocation: Self Love in America Heather Gray Privatizing the Social Contract Alison Weir My Bethlehem Experience: the Sequel St Clair / Walker / Pollack Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Landau, Engel and Albert Website of the Day At Least Homeland Security Believes that Mao Still Matters   December 16, 2005 Tom Kerr CNN's Goddess of Vengeance: What's Not to Love About Nancy Grace? Mark Engler The WTO in Hong Kong: Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? John Bomar When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs Patrick Cockburn Iraq Votes; Now What? Pierre Tristam Iraq, Ourselves William S. Lind The Fine Art of Withdrawal Cyril Neville Why I'm Not Going Back to New Orleans Robert Jensen Monkey See, Monkey Do: Reason, Evolution and Intelligent Design Saul Landau Bolivian Democracy and the US: a History Lesson Website CounterPunch & Dr. Price Vanquish Anthropologist Spies   December 15, 2005 Oren Ben-Dor The Ethical and Legal Challenges Facing Palestine Stan Cox "Agroterrorists" Needn't Bother Joshua Frank Organic Inconsistencies: Federal Food Politics Ben Terrall Waivers for State Terror: Bush and the Indonesian Generals Patrick Cockburn Silence Descends on Baghdad Monica Benderman What Peace Needs Walter A. Davis Fear and Loathing in San Quentin Vijay Prashad Our Torture Problem Website of the Day Hourly Wages After Four Years of "Recovery" December 14, 2005 Patrick Cockburn Iran Poised to Win Iraqi Elections Paul Craig Roberts Lethal Developments Lawrence R. Velvel A Bore Called Bob: On Trying to Read Woodward Wayne Garcia The Summer of Sami John Sugg Preach Peace, Sami; Get Truthful Prosecutors Gary Leupp Bush and the Constitution: "Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper" Ray McGovern Torture: a Defining Moment Alan Maass They Murdered a Peacemaker April Hurley, MD NPR Swallows Bush's Guestimate on Iraqi Dead Kevin Alexander Gray Richard Pryor's Mirror on America   December 13, 2005 Stephen T. Banko, III Heroes Patrick Cockburn America's War So Far: 1000 Days of Getting It Wrong Laura Carlsen What's at Play at the WTO Karl Grossman Nuclear Routlette in the Troposhere: Another NASA Plutonium Launch Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Original Sin Kevin Zeese Report from the International Peace Conference in London Norman Solomon At the Gates of San Quentin Michael G. Smith Ending the Death Penalty Stew Albert California Killers Bob Dylan Song for Tookie: George Jackson Phil Gasper California Murders Tookie Williams: a Report from San Quentin Website of the Day Boot Hill   December 12, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts The Defenders of Torture Lawrence R. Velvel George the Disconnected Jessica Stewart My Husband is at the Gates of Gitmo George Bisharat Busharon: a Fusion of Like Minds Nate Mezmer Killing Tookie Williams: If a Black Man Dies in America, Does It Make a Sound? Earl Ofari Hutchinson Richard Pryor Wasn't Crazy Alison Weir My Bethlehem Experience Seth Sandronsky Thank You, Richard Pryor Patrick Cockburn Iraq: the Beginning of the End Website of the Day Wrestling for Peace December 10 / 11, 2005 Alexander Cockburn All the News That's Fit to Buy Landau / Hassen The Condemned of Nablus Ralph Nader The Widening Wasteland of American Media Linn Washington, Jr The Philly Media and Mumia: When They Don't Bash, They Ignore Bill Christison Apathy, US Culpability and Human Rights Day Mike Ferner The Courage of Jim Loney Elizabeth Schulte Abortion and the Bush Court Neve Gordon / Yigal Bronner Murder in Jerusalem Linda S. Heard Saddam's Trial: Grandstanding in the Theater of the Absurd Ingmar Lee A Kayak Journey to Vancouver Island's Wildest Forest Ray McGovern Lies, Torture and the Six Blind Mice John Chuckman Torture and White Phosphorous: the Moral Hell of Condi Rice John Ryan An Honorary Degree in Child Sacrifice?: Madeleine Albright and US Foreign Policy Dick J. Reavis From Waco to Baghdad Christopher Brauchli Bush's Hired Pens Behzad Yaghmaian Trapped at the Gates of the European Union Aseem Shrivastava The Winter in Delhi, 1984 John Ross Bushlandia in Black and White Ben Tripp War, What is It Good For? St. Clair / Pollack / Vest / Despair Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Hassen, Bear Dog, Ford, Mickey Z, Albert & Engel Website of the Week Burn a Brick for Bush   December 9, 2005 Linn Washington, Jr. Roots of Gitmo Torture Lie Close to Home Dave Zirin / Mike Stark On Seeing Wesley Baker Die Patrick Cockburn Blair Tries to Cover Up $1.3 Billion Iraqi Theft Alexander Cockburn Murtha Returns to Attack; Flays Bush Lila Rajiva Shooting the Mentally Ill Gary Leupp White House Liars on the Defensive Jason Leopold Rove Running Out of Answers, Time Bruce K. Gagnon So These Are the Democrats? Andrew Cockburn Meet Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats' New Gatekeeper Website of the Day "X-mas Time for Visa"   December 8, 2005 Kathy Kelly Blessed are the Merciful in Baghdad James Petras The Venezuelan Election: Chavez Wins, Bush Loses (Again) William S. Lind Questionable Assumptions: Dissecting the Stategy for Victory Laura Carlsen The Strange Mission of Vicente Fox: Free Trade and Mexico Justin Akers Bush's Border War Thomas Graham, Jr A Nuclear Pearl Harbor in Outer Space? Norman Solomon Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn The Lost John Lennon Interview Website of the Day Pigs at the Trough of War   December 7, 2005 John Ryan Dershowitz vs. Chomsky: a Review of the Harvard Debate Gary Leupp Suicide Before Dishonor in Occupied Iraq Fran Quigley How the ACLU Didn't Steal Christmas Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith Bush War Crimes: the Posse Gathers Joshua Frank Bird Dogging Hillary William W. Morgan Rendition, Torture and Democracy Dave Lindorff A Stunning Win for Mumia Abu Jamal Patrick Cockburn Saddam: "Come Visit My Cage" Harold Pinter Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture Website of the Day Witnesses to Torture   December 6, 2005 Ron Jacobs No One is Illegal; No One is an Infidel Patrick Cockburn Inside Saddam's Trial: Tales of the Human Meat Grinder Yifat Susskind Death, Politics and the Condom: African Women Confront Bush's AIDS Policy Mike Whitney How Greenspan Skewered America Pat Williams Public Land Should Stay Public Paul Craig Roberts Condi to Europe: Trust Us Website of the Day Debunking Woodward   December 5, 2005 John Walsh The Lies of John Edwards: What Did the Democrats Know and When Did They Know It? Brian Cloughley The Poor Dead: the Relative Value of Human Lives Mokhiber / Weissman The Corporate Crime Quiz Robert Jensen How Big Money Eviscerates the First Amendment Norman Solomon Hidden in Plane Sight: US Media Ignores Iraq Air War Plan Peter Rost, MD An Open Letter to the Justice Department: Pfizer May Have Violated Federal Laws When They Fired Me Lila Rajiva The Torture-Go-Round: CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons Website of the Day National Day of Counter-Recruitment December 3 / 4, 2005 Alexander Cockburn The Revolt of the Generals Lawrence R. Velvel Iraq, Brains and Lies Rev. William Alberts The Forgotten Christmas Story: Saying No to King Herod Saul Landau Latino Troops Have Parents Ralph Nader Consumerama Paul Craig Roberts Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts Mike Whitney Blood Feast: Celebrating Executions in America Allan Lichtman The DeLay Scheme: Blatantly Buying Our Government Dave Lindorff A Sudden Rush for the Exits? Brian Concannon, Jr. Haiti's Elections Fred Gardner Oregon NORML Honors Growers Manuel Garcia, Jr. On Freeing the CPT Carol Wolman Remembering the 60s St. Clair / Vest / Walker / Pollack Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Albert, Engel and Orloski Website of the Weekend Free the CPT   December 2, 2005 Stan Goff An Open Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad Mike Ferner Beware Iraqization: Melvin Laird, Vietnam and Christmas Bombings Over Baghdad? Christopher Brauchli Bush's Constitutional Kamikazes: Padilla's No-Win Dilemma Niranjan Ramakrishnan Questions for the President Manuel Talens The Chávez Theorem Peter Phillips Death By Torture: Media Ignores the Hard Evidence J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Alabama's Taliban: Judge Roy Moore, Preachers and Dixie Hypocrisy Website of the Day Support the Hampton University Peace Activists!   December 1, 2005 John Walsh, MD The God Gaps Ron Jacobs Hard Rain: Toward a Greater Air War in Iraq? Jenna Orkin EPA's Latest Betrayal at Ground Zero Joshua Frank Howard Dean's Blunt Message: Forget Palestine Tiffany Ten Eyck Rank and File Resistance to Delphi Missy Comley Beattie Home on the Range: Where the Fear and the Animus Play Eli Stephens The Reed and Kerry Show Elaine Cassel A Government Game of "Gotcha" with Jose Padilla Website of the Day Rare Erotica     Subscribe Online

January 16, 2006 How Would Martin Luther King Judge America? Dreams and Nightmares By ROBERT JENSEN In Martin Luther King Jr's most famous speech, he had a dream. But in another of King's important addresses, he faced the depth of our nightmare. We all know the famous words -- "I have a dream" -- delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." On this day that we mark with his name, all over this country, that speech will be played, as it should be. King articulated -- perhaps more eloquently than anyone had to that point -- the demand that the United States make good on the American dream, for all its citizens. But on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York City, in a speech titled "Beyond Vietnam," King spoke just as eloquently of the nightmare that lies underneath that dream. In that speech to Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, King not only made a compelling case for ending the U.S. attack on Vietnam, but went beyond that to diagnose a failed society. On this day that we mark with his name, we owe it to King -- and to ourselves -- to face that failure honestly. This might sound crazy in a world in which the United States dominates as no nation has ever dominated. After all, we won the Cold War. We are the largest economy in the world. Our cultural products circulate everywhere. The world fears our military. We are the most affluent nation in the history of the world. And we have a black secretary of state. A failed society? The United States? To borrow from a younger generation, "We rule!" Yes, we rule, sort of, for a time. But we also are a failed society, a society heading toward collapse. We might remember that nothing looks quite as invincible as a great army on the morning of its greatest defeat. The majority of King's Riverside speech was dedicated to an analysis of the Vietnam War and an argument for a political settlement of that conflict. Although many wanted him to avoid the controversial subject of the war, King said he was moved "to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart," to go "beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history." When he did that, King reached a difficult conclusion, that "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" was "my own government." He saw what imperial war does not only to the target, to those on whom the bombs fall, but also to the aggressor society: "If America's soul becomes totally poisoned," King said, "part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over." We might pause to consider what that means for us today, as the United States fights another imperial war, this one in the Middle East. If we were to go beyond a "smooth patriotism" and let conscience guide us to a "firm dissent," what actions are required of us? But I want to put aside for now the issue of wars, past and present, and speak of King's deeper analysis in that speech. He knew that simply condemning that war was "seductively tempting," but that his principles demanded that he "go on now to say something even more disturbing." King was blunt: "The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit," a condition that had left the United States "on the wrong side of a world revolution." He continued: "I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered." "Our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men." In short, Martin Luther King Jr. saw that the task of the United States was not simply to transcend racism. He saw racism as inextricably connected to militarism and materialism. And he saw a hyperpatriotic nationalism not as virtue but as a problem to be overcome. So, we find ourselves today in an odd place: In a country in which we routinely repeat the phrase "God bless America" with no sense of shame; in which conventional politicians all clamor to be "tough" on national security and support bloated military budgets; in which the shopping mall is the real temple where people go to worship -- in that country, King is a hero. That means the King who condemned not only racism but nationalism, militarism, and materialism has to be pushed aside, forgotten -- "whitewashed," if you'll allow the term. King's radical political analysis and vision have to be rendered invisible if we are to name a holiday after him. After years of calling him a traitor and a troublemaker, white America is willing to allow King is to serve as the icon for a national quest for racial justice, but only so long as we don't actually listen to what he had to say or take it seriously. None of this is surprising; it's the nature of power: When faced with demands for justice by a movement of oppressed people, dominant groups tend to concede only as much as necessary to relieve the pressure. When enough time has passed and the threat to the system has been contained, then the importance of the movement and some of its leaders can be acknowledged, but only if their legacy can be constructed in a way that doesn't undermine the existing distribution of power. The nature of privilege is to ignore these realities when they make us uncomfortable. We white people have that privilege. We have that privilege because we live in a white-supremacist society. It is true that the United States made enormous progress on race in the last half of the 20th century, but we still live in a white-supremacist society. What do I mean by that? By "white supremacist," I mean a society whose founding is based in an ideology of the inherent superiority of white Europeans over non-whites, an ideology that was used to justify the inhuman crimes against indigenous people and Africans that created the nation and its wealth, an ideology that also has justified legal and extralegal exploitation of every non-white immigrant group in our history. By "white supremacist," I also mean a material reality. Forty years after the victories of the civil-rights movement that ended legal segregation, dramatic racialized disparities in wealth and well-being endure. On some measures, such as family income and unemployment, the gap between white and black America is wider today than it was in the immediate aftermath of the civil-rights legislation of the 1960s. On other measures where there has been some progress, such as home ownership, closing the gap will take decades or centuries if current trends continue. This is a society in which white people occupy most of the top positions in powerful institutions, with similar privileges available in limited ways to non-white people if they fit themselves into white society. It is a society in which many white people hold to that supremacist ideology, believing the culture, politics, philosophy, and art that comes out of white Europe to be superior to all others (even if they won't admit in public that they believe this). If white America were truly interested in racial justice, would we not ask, simply, "why?" Why do so many still believe that? Why are the racialized disparities still with us? We don't ask because the answer is all too clear and painful: Most white folks don't much care, and privilege allows us not to care. What will it take for the United States to transcend white supremacy? It seems obvious that it requires a revolution. But what kind? King called for "a true revolution of values" based in a rejection of the fundamental injustice of the systems in which we live. In King's words: "A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: This is not just." "A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love." In 1967, King laid it out clearly: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." In 2006, that spiritual death is closer than ever, as it is clearer than ever that it is not "military defense" on which we spend but "military offense." At some level, I believe we all know this to be true. We all know the grotesque and widening inequality -- within our own society and between the First and the Third worlds -- cannot continue indefinitely. We know that the belligerent militarism designed to secure resources cannot continue indefinitely. At some level, somewhere within us all, we know that the path this society is on is not the road up to a better future, but a spiral down to something that will look like hell made real in the world. We rule, for now. But how long can that continue? We know the cost to the world of the quest for domination. About half the world's population lives on less than $2 a day, and a quarter on less than $1 a day. Iraqis count their dead in the tens -- perhaps hundreds -- of thousands as a result of U.S. liberation. Those are the bills being paid elsewhere. What of the cost to us? What of our spiritual death? The shopping malls are full. Does it fulfill our longing for community? Does it make us feel loved? We "support the troops." Does it fulfill our obligations to the world? Does it make us safe? What judgment would Martin Luther King Jr. render if he were with us today? Lucky for us, we don't have to face that. The great thing about dead heroes is that they can't speak. The theologian and historian Vincent Harding quotes a poem by Carl Wendell Hines: Now that he is safely dead Let us praise him build monuments to his glory sing hosannas to his name. Dead men make such convenient heroes: They cannot rise to challenge the images we would fashion from their lives. And besides, it is easier to build monuments than to make a better world. But, of course, it doesn't matter what King would say. It matters what we say, and -- as King always pointed out -- it matters what we do. If you live in privilege, as I do, one thing is for sure: You haven't done enough. I haven't done enough. We haven't done enough. If we had, this world would look very different than it does. We all carry that burden, one that is more than we should have to face. In this world, it should be enough to just be a decent person -- to work hard, treat folks around us fairly, care for those we love. That's difficult enough in a world full of disappointment, disease, and death. Just being an ordinary person is hard enough. But at this moment in history, being decent in our private lives is not enough. There is too much at stake, and too little time to correct the course. We face crises on all fronts: Political, economic, cultural, and most dramatically, ecological. We cannot know how much time is left before destructive forces set in motion cannot be turned back. We should be scared, and that fear should motivate us. King was scared. In the new book, At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68, Taylor Branch writes about how King was tired and struggling with depression in the last months of his life. I believe King understood how little time there was, not just for him but for us all. So, we have to face what one writer has called "the long emergency." There can be no illusions about the nature of the struggle required to create a different world, a world based not on domination but on a new communion among peoples. The choice still remains the one King asked us to face: "nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation." Privilege makes it easy to hide, but soon there will be no hiding from the need to act. To turn from this knowledge of the world and its demands on those of us with privilege is to turn from the values of justice and equality that we claim to hold. Worse than that, it is to turn away from our own humanity. And if the call to justice, the yearning for our own humanity isn't motivation enough, realize this: Soon, to hide will be to resign ourselves to that hell on earth that we are creating. To act is to have faith, in ourselves and in the possibility that there is time. If King were alive today, we can be sure he would ask that of us. And we can look to King's words on that April night in New York in 1967 for a reminder of what fate awaits us if we turn away: "If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight." If we act, there is no guarantee that we can make right all that has been torn asunder. We cannot wait for certainty, but must act out of love, with hope. It is through our action that we learn to love and feel hope. That action is the way we make love real in the world and find hope in our hearts. I don't pretend to know what King would say if he were alive today. I don't know what analysis he would offer or what strategy he would propose. But he would certainly challenge all of us to act -- every one of us here today, everyone in this country, which has the opportunity to turn its power away from wealth and war, toward justice and peace. Whatever else King would say, he would say this: Act. Now. Before the only path before us is that long, dark, shameful corridor, which ends at a door we should all pray is never opened. Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the board of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center. He is the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.

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