Today's Stories

January 30 / February 1, 2009

Dave Lindorff
The Ugly Truth: the American Economy is Not Coming Back

Saul Landau
Freedom Fighters, Terrorists or Schlemiels?

Subcomandante Marcos
Gaza Will Survive

Peter Lee
New Hope for Pakistan?

Robert Jensen
Future Farming: an Interview with Wes Jackson

Ron Jacobs
Return of the Democrats

Binoy Kampmark
Apostle of the Middlebrows

January 29, 2009

Peter Linebaugh
Tom Paine's Birthday

Paul Craig Roberts
Is It Time to Bail Out of America?

Riz Khan
The Future of Gaza: an Interview with Jimmy Carter

M. Reza Pirbhai
Pakistan: a New Cambodia?

Wajahat Ali
Obama's Al-Arabiya Interview

Gregory Vickrey
What About the Environment? Cap and Trade and Selling Out

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
Whither the Two State Solution?

Alison Weir
Killing Palestinians Doesn't Count: Fact-Checking Ceasefire Breaches

Alan Farago
Economy Without Escape Routes

Walter Brasch
Taxing a House of Cards

Website of the Day
Madoff Inc.

January 28, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
Behind the Bloodbath in Gaza

Noam Chomsky
Obama's Emerging Policies on Israel, Iraq and the Economic Crisis

Patrick Cockburn
Is Mitchell's Mission Already Doomed?

Rob Larson
The Clinton Foundation Donors

George Wuerthner
Who Will Speak for the Forests?

Allan Nairn
South-East Asian Groups Threaten Retaliation Over Gaza Invasion

M. Junaid
Levesque-Alam
A Muslim's Memo to Obama

Stefan Simanowitz
The Silent Trade

Charles R. Larson
The Autumn of the Patriot

Website of the Day
Veggie Love: PETA's Banned Superbowl Ad

January 27, 2009

Winslow T. Wheeler
Save the Economy by Cutting the Defense Budget

Yigal Bronner /
Neve Gordon
Fueling the Cycle of Hate

Joshua Frank
Obama's Neocon: the Curious Case of Richard Holbrooke

Jordan Flaherty
Torture at a Louisiana Prison

Ralph Nader
Access to Economic Justice

Rev. José M. Tirado
How Iceland Fell: a Hundred Days of (Muted) Rage

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Looking Forward

Russell Mokhiber
What If Israel Were in Your Neighborhood?

Martha Rosenberg
Who Says Technology Transfer Doesn't Pay?

C. G. Estabrook
The Inaugural Address: the Digested Read

Website of the Day
Who Profits From the Occupation?

January 26, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event

Deepak Tripathi
The BBC's Day of Shame

Vijay Prashad
The India Lobby: Drunk with the Sight of Power

Peter Lee
Geithner's Pop Gun Volley at China

Allan Nairn
The Torture Ban That Doesn't Ban Torture

Uri Avnery
On the Wrong Side of History

John Sayen
The Next Shoe to Drop

Dave Lindorff
Afghanistan is No Threat to America

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff

David Macaray
Obama vs. Labor

Roger Burbach
Winds of Change in Cuba

Norman Solomon
The Ghost of LBJ

Website of the Day
Landscapes of Occupation

January 23 / 25, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Ghosts at Obama's Side

P. Sainath
The Freefalling Economy

Patrick Cockburn
In Israel, Detachment From Reality is the Norm

Saul Landau
Reasons for War?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Our Current Economic Crisis: the Monks' Cure

Alan Farago
The Problem with the Stimulus

Christopher Brauchli
When Due Diligence is a One-Way Street

Andy Worthington
Return to Law?

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pentagon: Bowing to the Masters of War?

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Four)

Henry A. Giroux
The Audacity of Educated Hope

David Yearsley
The Music That Wasn't There: Chamber Music for Obama's Masses

Raymond F. Gustavson
Here We Go Again: General Shinseki and Veterans

Dave Lindorff
The Way Forward

Roberto Rodriguez
Fighting for Migrant Justice in the Desert

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
The Struggle of an Un-People

Fidel Castro
Meeting Cristina

J. Michael Cole
Can Obama's Shift on Terror Succeed?

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
It's Time to Free Leonard Peltier

Ramzy Baroud
Breaking Gaza's Will

Mohammad Ali Shabani
The Aftermath of the War on Gaza

Richard Rhames
Panning for Pyrite on a Cold Day at the Mall

Stephen Martin
Voices in the Mirror

Lorenzo Wolff
Jurassic Radio

Kim Nicolini
Katrina's Endless Loop

Poets' Basement
Fleming, Henson, First, Jaramillo and Glendinning

Website of the Weekend
Cartoon Love

January 22, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Another Real Estate Crisis is About to Hit

Kathy Kelly
Worse Than an Earthquake

Allan Nairn
US Intel Nominee Lied About Church Murders

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Three)

Andy Worthington
Halting the Gitmo Trials

Peter Morici
How to Fix the Banks

Joseph G. Davis
The First MBA Presidency and the Business Academy: a Damage Assessment

Adriana Kojeve
The Democrats on Israel: a Brief Oral History

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Poised for Historic Vote

Website of the Day
Support the Gaza Community Mental Health Program

January 21, 2009

Gabriel Kolko
Understanding Gaza

Harry Browne
Obama's Work Ethic

Michael Colby
Ready. Aim. Organize.

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience

Audrey Stewart
Starting Over in Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Obama and the Muslims

Binoy Kampmark
The Marketing of Hope

David Kεr Thomson
Abolition

John Ross
In My Own Bones

Allan Nairn
Killer in Chief: Will This President Murder Civilians?

Sheldon Richman
The Peaceful Transfer of Violent Power

Website of the Day
Globistan

January 20, 2009

Chuck Spinney
Hosing Obama Israeli Style

Kathy Kelly
The Strongest Weapon of All

Raymond Deane
The EU, Gaza and the Lisbon Treaty

Ralph Nader
State Terrorism Against Gaza

Audrey Stewart
Why I am in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Doctrine of Destruction

Harvey Wasserman
A Ten-Point Solar Agenda for Obama

Christopher Ketcham
Inauguration Ad Nauseam

Robert Jensen
A Citizen's Oath of Office

Dave Lindorff
Commie Chorus on the Mall: This Land Really is Made for You and Me

David Macaray
SAG Watches It All Slip Away

January 19, 2009

Kevin Alexander Gray
Time for an New Divestment Campaign

Uri Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Mad

Kathy Kelly
Respite in Gaza

Mike Whitney
What Obama Left Out of His Economic Recovery Plan

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Bernie Madoff

Mats Svensson
For Fatima in Gaza

Harry Browne
Obama's Bard: Springsteen's Working on a Dream

Norman Solomon
The Return of Triangulation

Jeffrey Sommers
The Baltic Riots: Really Existing Thatcherism

Kenneth Libby
Manipulating MLK Day

Peter Ewart
Robbie Burns, Mackenzie and Gaza

Bob Sommer
"The Fierce Urgency of Now"

Website of the Day
Death of a Whaler

January 16-18, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to the Chief

Caoimhe Butterly
Terribly Bloodied, Still Breathing

Audrey Stewart /
Kathy Kelly
Suddenly Bombs Started Falling: Report from Gaza

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Geo. W. Bush, a Concise Biography

Ellen Cantarow
I Could Not Save a Single Child

Neve Gordon
How to Sell "Ethical" Warfare

Vijay Prashad
An African-American in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Attack Injures 1.5 Million Gazans

Rannie Amiri
The UN in Israel's Crosshairs

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Forgotten Child

Joshua Frank
Forecasting Obama

Dave Lindorff
Prosecuting Bush and Cheney

Brian Cloughley
Who Runs America?

Belén Fernández
Changing the Equation

Missy Beattie
Peace and Justice Denied

Fred Gardner
Growing Pot for Research

George Ciccariello-Maher
"Oakland is Closed!"

John V. Whitbeck
Democracy Not Partition

Stephen Fleischman
Card Check

Mischa Gaus
Medicare for All! Tackling Union Opposition to Single-Payer

Saul Landau
The End of the Affair

Norm Kent
Perils of the Grow House

Alejandro López
Give Bush the Shoe! (and Send Us the Photo)

David Yearsley
The Glory That Was Dresden

James McEnteer
Doin' the Time Warp Again

Lorenzo Wolff
An Album That Lives Up to Its Cover

Kim Nicolini
Patti Smith's Dream of Life

Poets' Basement
Three Financial Poems by Brian J. Foley

Website of the Day
Lancet: Medical Conditions in Gaza

January 15, 2009

Pam Martens
Wall Street Powerhouses Invested Alongside Madoff

Karl Grossman
Obama and the Military - Industrial - Scientific Complex

M. Shahid Alam
Gaza's Shattered Mirror

Jules Rabin
Gaza Besieged, Gaza Mauled

Alan Farago
The Nail-Gun Bailout

Ron Jacobs
The State of Black America: From Oscar Grant to Barack Obama

Timothy Seidel
Just Violence in Gaza? The Calculus of Proportionality

George Ochenski
Why No Montana Wilderness?

Todd Chretien
Taking a Stand for Justice in Oakland

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Marijuana Prohibition Acid Test

Website of the Day
Uranium Watch

January 14, 2009

Henry A. Giroux
Killing Children With Impunity

Kathy Kelly
Cease Fire, Cease Siege

Franklin Lamb
A Second Front? Hezbollah Militants Chafe as Gaza Burns

Mike Whitney
The Big Contraction: Why the Stimulus Alone Won't Work

Paul Craig Roberts
The Humiliation of America

Glen Ford
Sullying Dr. King's Legacy: the Congressional Black Caucus and Israel

Aditya Chakrabortty
The End of Property Porn

Dave Lindorff
Fattening the Rats: Feeding at the Bailout Trough

Jonathan Cook
Israel Bars Arab Parties From Elections

David Swanson
Conyers Explains Why He Didn't Push Impeachment

Martha Rosenberg
Fragile: Handle with Risperdal

Website of the Day
Report of a Red Cross Worker in Gaza

January 13, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Is Israel Using Experimental Weapons in Gaza?

Michael Neumann
Hamas and Gaza: Slave Revolts and Passionate Evasions

Coleen Rowley /
William John Cox
No Victors in the War on Dissent

Robert Sandels
Cuba and the Obama Administration: Subversion Through Trade?

Saul Landau
The Changeling: an Obama Nightmare

David Swanson
What to Ask Eric Holder

Wajahat Ali
Waltzing with War Crimes

Sam Bahour
No Other Option? A View From the West Bank

Stanley Heller
Why It's Useless to Lobby Congress on Gaza

Robert Jensen
Beyond Grief and Rage

Robin Mittenthal
Eating Away at the Land That Feeds Us

Website of the Day
The 50 Most Loathsome People in America

January 12, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Blood-Stained Monster Enters Gaza

Paul Craig Roberts
Our Collapsing Economy

Mike Whitney
Israel's Moral and Political Insanity

Ewa Jasiewicz
Oh, Quiet Night: Only Six Homes Were Bombed

Bill Quigley
A Day in Gaza

Dave Lindorff
From Vietnam to Gaza

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Blowback From a Tragic Error: a Message to Barack Obama

Jonathan Cook
Israel Ponders the Third Stage

Andy Worthington
Seven Years of Guantánamo

Kara N. Tina
Oakland on Fire

Brenda Norrell
Palestinians and American Indians: Russell Means Breaks the Silence on Obama

Nour Kharma
A Plea From a Teen in Gaza: "Will I Die, Too?"

Website of the Day
The Villages Group: an Antiwar Alliance in Sderot

January 9/11, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Israel's Onslaught on Gaza: Criminal, for Sure; But Also Stupid

Kathy Kelly
Tunnel Vision: Report from Arish, Egypt

Bill Quigley
Report From Rafah: Doctors Stopped at the Border

George Ciccariello-Maher
Oakland's Not for Burning?

Elaine C. Hagopian
Gaza: History Matters

Mike Roselle
Drowning in a Toxic River: What Can be Done to Save Appalachia?

Steve Hendricks
The Torturer-Elect?

Gary Leupp
Revisiting the Tale of Samson

Jonathan Cook
Outcry Over Israel's War Crimes

Karim Makdisi
The Ceasefire Plan: the UN Finally Acts, But Does It Mean Anything?

Rannie Amiri
Livni's Big Lie

Peter Morici
In the Jaws of a Depression

Peter Montague
Can Chemicals be Regulated?

Ralph Nader
Move Fast to Restore the Rule of Law

Andy Worthington
The Dying Days of the Guantánamo Trials

Nadia Hijab
A Music School Silenced in Gaza

Dan Bacher
Unholy Alliance: Nature Conservancy Backs Schwarzenegger's Big Ditch

Catherine Fenton
The American Peace Movement and Israel

David Macaray
Wal-Mart Caught Stealing

Valia Kaimaki
Why Greek Youths Took to the Streets

Richard Morse
Haiti's Gas Gang

David Yearsley
To Gotham City with Dexter Gordon

Charles R. Larson
The Horror, the Horror

Richard Rhames
Gaza and the Goon Squad Meet the Wizard

Stephen Martin
Meltdown Memo to Come?

Lorenzo Wolff
What They Sing About When They Sing About Love

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Beatty and Valentine

Website of the Weekend
Gaza Protest

January 8, 2009

Jean Bricmont /
Diana Johnstone
Gaza Seen From Paris

Franklin Lamb
How Dershowitz Misstates, Misrepresents and Misapplies the Law

Paul Craig Roberts
The Difficulty of Being an Informed American

Kevin Alexander Gray
Give Burris His Seat

Chris Floyd
The Enduring Priorities in Obama's Time of Change

Ewa Jasiewicz
Riding on Fire in Gaza

Steve Conn
Sanjay Gupta and Obama

Harvey Wasserman
Kill the Nuclear Stimulus!

Wayne S. Smith
An Opening to Cuba?

Linda Mamoun
Re-settling Gaza: the Real Goal of the Israeli Invasion?

Adam Turl
Unions and Young Workers

Chris Papaleonardos
Mourning Maria Dimitriadi

Website of the Day
On the Wing

January 7, 2009

Saree Makdisi
What Kind of Security Will This Barbarism Bring Israel?

Franklin Lamb
Bend Over Professor Dershowitz, It's Time for Your Check Up

William Blum
America's Other Glorious War

Belén Fernández
The Trauma Vortex: Israel's Monopoly on Psychological Suffering

Lawrence Davidson
What is New About Gaza?

Allan Nairn
Adm. Dennis Blair and the Church Killings in East Timor

Jonathan Cook
What is Israel's Objective?

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Watching the War on BBC

Deepak Tripathi
Bush, as He Leaves

Cal Winslow
Now is the Hour to Defend Democracy in the Labor Movement!

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Students Planning Careers: Be Mindful

Dr. Hannah Safran
No More Recycled Military Solutions

Website of the Day
CNN: Israel Broke the Ceasefire First

January 6, 2009

Pam Martens
It's All One Big Lie

Victoria Buch
Real Estate War in Gaza: the History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing

Neve Gordon
Israel's New War Ethic

Tami Sarfatti /
Yonatan Mendel
What Silence Says: Gaza is Still Waiting on Obama

Mike Whitney
The Gaza Bloodbath

Alan Farago
After the Fall

Gary Leupp
A Hamas Coup d'Etat in 2007?

Larry Everest
Silent Partner: the US-Backed War on Gaza

Ron Jacobs
The New Iraqi Sovereignty

David Macaray
Union-Busting is Alive and Well

Stephanie Basile
Where's Anna's Money?

Stacey Warde
An Uncle's Unrest

Website of the Day
Israeli Refusenik on Gaza

January 5, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Will There be a Recovery?

Sousan Hammad
Phoning Home to Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Flying While Brown

Mats Svensson
Longing in Gaza

Jen Marlowe
Abeer's Baby

Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Gaza Phone Tag

Brian Cloughley
Israel is Immune From Criticism

Faheem Hussain
Gaza and India: a View From Pakistan

William Cook
Consider the Realities of Gaza

Dr. Trudy Bond
The Madness Among Us

Christopher Ketcham
The Revenge of the Blogger at the National Press Club: a Rotten Washington Interlude

Steve Early
Who Rules SEIU?

Dave Lindorff
When It Comes to Terrorism and POW Cases, Equal Justice Under Law is a Joke

Website of the Day
The Endangered Fish of the Colorado River Basin

January 2 - 4, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Diary of 2008: an Incredible, Hope-Filled Year

Uri Avnery
Molten Lead in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of the Gaza Assault

Paul Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Western Morality?

Brian Eno
Stealing Gaza: an Experiment in Provocation

Ralph Nader
America Must Stop Shirking Its Responsibility on Gaza

Omar Barghouti
UN Complicity in Israel's Massacre in Gaza

Graham Usher
Where Pakistan's Generals and the ISI Draw Their Lines

P. Sainath
The Economy is Worse Than It Appears

Belén Fernández
Pardon Our Dust: Israel's PR Campaign for Gaza

Deb Reich
Shiv'a in Gaza, December 2008

Gary Leupp
Defacing Mr. Jefferson's Wall: Preachers and the Inauguration

Michael Yates
Top Chef or Top Wage Thief? Tom Colicchio and the Economics of Restaurants

Joanne Mariner
How to Close Guantánamo

Seth Sandronsky
Funding the Israeli Military: the US Pipeline

Cynthia McKinney
We Lived to Tell the Story

Sonja Karkar
Israel's Dogs of War

Deepak Tripathi
Gaza in Perspective

Robert Fantina
Obama, Afghanistan and Israel

John Ross
The Year No One Can Remember

Norm Kent
The Heat on Duval Street: Why Head Shop Raids are Unfair and Unjust

Larry Portis
Syria and the Arab Barbie Doll--Before the Deluge

Richard Rhames
Is Conscience Dead?

Dee C. Lubell
We Come From the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright

David Yearsley
A Gay German at the Courts of the Medici and Hanover, and of Course the BBC

Lorenzo Wolff
Joe Ely, the Fighting Rooster of Rock

Marc Catone
Looting Lennon's Legacy

Poets' Basement
Five Poems by Grzegorz Wróblewski

Website of the Weekend
Earth in High Rez

January 1, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
If Hamas Did Not Exist

Oren Ben-Dor
The Self-Defense of Suicide

Wajahat Ali
The U.S. Response to the Gaza Crisis: Unfair and Unbalanced

Saul Landau
In Cuba No One Man Could Steal $50 Billion From Other People

David Michael Green
What to Expect While We're Expecting

Website of the Day
Morbid Anatomy

December 31, 2008

Pam Martens
Wall Street's Collapse and the Ownership Society

Neve Gordon /
Jeff Halper
Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?

Ted Honderich
The First Casualty of Israel's War

Brian Cloughley
Five Little Girls on a Sofa: Gaza's One-Sided Images

Ron Jacobs
What is Hamas, Really?

Vijay Prashad
Hot Rod and His Sikh Warrior: Blago's Indian Connections

Franklin Lamb
Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down That Wall!

Mike Whitney
My Brilliant Career

David Macaray
What Really Killed the Auto Bailout

Richard Thieme
The Betrayal of the Commons

Mary Lynn Cramer
Who Wins What in Gaza?

Stephen Lendman
The Troubling Case of the Fort Dix Five

Worthy Group of the Day
Western Shoshone Defense Project

December 30, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
May We No Longer Be Silent

Tariq Ali
The Gaza Ghetto and Western Cant

Robert Bryce
The $775,000-a-Year GI

Jonathan Cook
Electioneering with Bombs

Gary Leupp
The Fishbarrel War

Dave Lindorff
Tough Guys Don't Walk: Will Cheney Seek a Pardon?

Brian McKenna
Ted Downing and Troublemaker Anthropology

John Walsh
The End of the Green Party

Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the World

Bob Sommer
The Education of David Frost

Worthy Activist of the Day
Support Marie Mason

December 29, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's Attempted Endgame in Gaza

Neve Gordon
What, Exactly, is Israel's Mission?

Joshua Frank
Obama and the "Special Relationship"

George Salzman /
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The War Against Palestine: Exception From Humanity

Norman Solomon
A Hundred Eyes for an Eye

Ewa Jasiewicz
Gaza Today: "This is Just the Beginning"

Rob Larson
The Banks Laugh All the Way to the Bank

Kenneth Libby
Arne Duncan's Dark Years in Chicago

Robert Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008

Elsa Johnson
High Noon at Black Mesa: Bush's Farewell Gift to Peabody Coal

Nicola Nasser
Resolution 1850: Bush's Parting Gift

Belén Fernández
Hanukkah Games

Worthy Group of the Day
Nuclear Information and Resource Service

December 26-28, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Medusa's Head

Dr Eyad Al Serraj
The Boming of Gaza: "An Earthquake on Top of Your Head"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Cancerous Air

Bradley Simpson
Obama's New Intel Chief, Dennis Blair, Ran Interference for Indonesia's Butchers

Ralph Nader
Government Without Laws

Gary Leupp
Obama and the Graveyard of Empires

Ellen Cantarow
Richard Falk, Israel and the NYT

Matt Landon
The Great Coal Ash Flood: a Report From Swan Pond Road

David Macaray
SAG's Terrible Dilemma

Patrick Bond
End of Neoliberalism? Sorry, Not Yet

Norm Kent
Invoking Bigotry: Obama and Rick Warren

Brian T. Ketcham
Fuel Efficiency is Easy--Just Don't Let Detroit Tell You How to Do It

Rannie Amiri
War Clouds Over Gaza

Larry Portis
Changing the Ethnic Vocabulary

Richard Rhames
Welcome to Soup Kitchen America

Stephen Lendman
29 Red Flags: Early Suspicions About Bernard Madoff

James L. Secor
Unheralded Coup

Ramzy Baroud
Iraq, the Plot Thickens

Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture

Cpt. Paul Watson
Tracking the Cetacean Death Star

Howard Lisnoff
Nixon's Cambodian Shock Treatment

Michael Dee
The Bill of Rights, Killed in Action by the War on Drugs

Steve Conn
Eight Predictions for 2009

Poets' Basement
Valentine, Kaung, Moser and Graham

Worthy Group of the Weekend
United Mountain Defense

December 25, 2008

Judy Gumbo Albert
What Were Those 1960s Terrorists Thinking, Anyway?

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Sole of Christmas

Hannah Mermelstein
Caution: Settlers Ahead

Worthy Group of the Day
Citizens' Coal Council

December 24, 2008

Bill Quigley
Five Bailout Lessons From Katrina

Saul Landau
Then and Now: Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

Sam Smith
Evangelism and Politics

Brian Cloughley
Torture, Slaughter and Lies

John Ross
Where's al-Zaidi's Pulitzer?

Eric Walberg
Cold War Shivers

Norm Kent
What Will Obama Do About Marijuana?

Stephen Martin
Reasons for Cheerfulness

Worthy Group of the Day
Collateral Repair Project

December 23, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Ponzi Paradigm

Michael Yates
The Tombstone Economy

Chuck Spinney
The New York Times Flames Out in Defense Dogfight

Vijay Prashad
India's Reckless Road to Washington, Through Tel Aviv

Brian Horejsi
Interior Decorating: Obama, Salazar and the Future of America's Public Lands

David Macaray
Obama's Best Pick?

Neil Watkins /
Sarah Anderson
Ecuador's Conscientious Default

David Michael Green
Hey, Reagan Democrats! Now Do You Get It?

Worthy Group of the Day
Focus on the Corporation

Weekend Edition
January 30 / February 1, 2009

Last Gasps of the Culture Wars?

Nails in the Coffin

By DAVID ROSEN

PPresident Obama has spoken firmly against Guantánamo and the use of torture on military captives from the war on terror.  Yet, he and the Democratic Congress seem to be fumbling their way forward with regard to a grand economic recovery plan.  Sadly, they remain tongue-tied over Israeli slaughter in Gaza.  Nevertheless, a series of recent developments involving aspects of the culture wars point to a significant change in domestic policy.

These developments occurred, quite coincidentally, during the week of Obama’s Inauguration and may foretell the struggle over cultural life during his first term.  First, he issued a critical executive order shortly after taking office that lifts the abortion “gag rule” on international family planning, signaling a sea change in “soft” diplomacy.  Second, the Food and Drug Administration signed off on Geron Corp’s plan to commence the first U.S. clinical trial of implanted human stem cells in human patients.

Third, the Supreme Court rejected a (lets hope final) U.S. Justice Department effort to enforce the Child Online Protection Act, originally enacted by the liberal Clinton administration in 1998.  Finally, the Texas Board of Education, one of the most conservative and powerful in the country, voted to drop a 20-year mandate requiring science teachers to teach alternative “theories” of evolution.

While important, these developments are but nails in the coffin of the Christian right; they are not stakes in its heart.  Like a vampire of legend, the moralistic right has repeatedly risen from the dead of American history to come back to pray on the living.  For example, the Christian right ceaselessly moralized against all forms of vice in the half-century following the Civil War, a period of unprecedented national modernization and urbanization.  In victory, it secured the passage of the 18th Amendment outlawing the production, distribution, sale and consumption of alcohol.   By attacking one of the effects or consequences of industrialization, it never addressed what caused the need to drink excessively, capitalism itself.

Prohibition’s utter failure, accompanied by the Great Depression and World War II, discredited the Christian right during the next quarter century.  However, like a vampire, it was resurrected in the late-‘70s.  After a quarter-century of mean-spirited, sanctimonious and often vicious efforts to discipline public life and private sexuality, the Christian right is once again in retreat.   But, like a ghost with teeth, it can come back to terrorize cultural life.

These recent developments may be but coincidental and isolated events, with no greater significance.  However, they may be the first round of a widespread and resounding repudiation of the Christian right’s moral agenda and the policies it implemented while in control of many of the Bush administration’s domestic programs. 

* * *

January 22nd marked the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s momentous Roe v. Wade decision.  The newly Inaugurated president issued the following statement: 

On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.

Obama’s statement is a repudiation of the policies of the Bush administration.

However, in an apparently symbolic gesture to placate his friends within the evangelical right, Obama held off from tying his words to deeds.  On the following day, January 23rd, he issued an executive order overturning Bush restrictions, a “gag rule,” on the use of federal support to international organization that informed about, advocated for or provided abortion information or services.   

Obama’s order is one more twist in the ongoing political tug-of-war between recent Democratic and Republican administrations over abortion rights.  It is a war that has been going on for a quarter century.  Reagan first adopted the gag rule in 1984; Clinton ended it in 1993, on the anniversary of Roe; and Bush reinstated it as his first official act after taking office in 2001.  "For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us," Obama said. "I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate."

The order was directed at reinstating US AID support to nongovernmental organizations that provide abortion services; indirectly, it will likely end the anti-abortion mantra of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Bush-administration’s principal initiative to end HIV and AIDS in Africa. 

While Obama issued his order repealing the gag rule covering international support for abortion, he failed to simultaneously address another Bush policy, its restrictions on federal financing of embryonic stem cell research.  As candidates, both Obama and John McCain strongly supported stem cell research.  A few days after his electoral victory, John Podesta, who was handling the transition, stated: “As a candidate, Senator Obama said that he wanted all the Bush executive orders reviewed, and decide which ones should be kept, and which ones should be repealed, and which ones should be amended.”  It remains uncertain when this policy will be overturned.

On the day that Obama issued his executive order overturning the gag rule, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (without apparent approval from the Obama White House) gave clearance to Geron Corp., a Menlo Park, CA, biopharmaceuticals firm, to undertake the first U.S. embryonic stem cell trial on human beings.  Geron is a pioneer developer of treatments for cancer and chronic degenerative diseases and the trials will be with patients suffering spinal cord injuries.  (A week earlier, a Scottish firm, ReNeuron Group Plc, was given the go-ahead to undertake the first clinical stem cell trial in the UK with patients disabled by stroke.)  

In October 1998, just two months before the Congress voted to impeach him, Bill Clinton signed the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) into law.  COPA set stiff criminal penalties for Internet distribution of material deemed harmful to minors.  The late-90s witnessed a growing fear of child predators and the role of the Internet as a leading facilitator of child abuse.  This fear, while all-too-real appears in retrospect more apocryphal than actual, was artfully exploited by the Christian right to initiate an assault on what was they deemed pornography or indecent materials. 

The ACLU was the lead plaintiff opposing COPA.   "It is not the role of the government to decide what people can see and do on the Internet," ACLU staff attorney Chris Hansen stated.  "Those are personal decisions that should be made by individuals and their families."  In its January 21st rejection of Justice Department’s effort to implement COPA, the Supreme Court sided with the ACLU.

COPA grew out of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), originally part of Telecommunications Act of 1996, one of the most reactionary laws passed by Clinton.  CDA was championed as a means to protect young people from "indecent" materials distributed via the Internet.  Challenged by the ACLU, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in 1997 that CDA violated First Amendment provisions. 

Ever resourceful, federal moralists responded with COPA.  However, the Court ruled, first in 2002 and then again in 2004, against the Act.  The Court’s recent action refusing to hear the case speak directly to the profound changes reshaping the Internet and the resulting Constitutional issues involved in determining freedom of speech.

The transformation of the Internet to Web 2.0 represents a sea change in networked connectivity, most of which does not fit under the COPA provisions.  In essence, it is a shift from a web defined by one-to-one connectivity to a web based on social networking and mashups, a connectivity that will increasingly define 21st century Net experience.  This change involves the wide-scale adoption of MySpace and FaceBook, viewing YouTube user generated content, using peer-to-peer file sharing, participating in virtual worlds like Second Life, playing videogames like Virtual Hottie and Cherry Dolls, and much more.

In December ’08, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com released a revealing report, “Sex and Tech."  It found that 20 percent of the 1,280 teens (13-19 years) and young adults (20-26 years) surveyed reported that they've electronically sent or posted online nude or semi-nude images of themselves.  They also reported using a variety of media, including text messages, email, photographs and video, to send and receive provocative messages.

The survey found that about 22 percent of teen girls (including 11 percent of those between the ages of 13 and 16) and 18 percent of teen boys say they’ve shared sexual images of themselves with other teens.  It also found that one-third (33%) of teen boys and one-quarter (25%) of teen girls say they have had nude/semi-nude images (originally intended as a private communication) shared with others.  And 38 percent of respondents said they exchanged sexy content to facilitate dates and other hook-ups.  Most surprising, it found that 15 percent of teens who sent messages with sexual content did so with strangers they only knew online.  While not discussed, the teens and young adults surveyed seem very savvy dealing with someone inappropriate, maybe even a sexual “predators.” [see www.thenationalcampaign.org/sextech]

As teens and young people are increasing involved in “sexting,” the exchange of sexually explicit or suggestive materials, kids around the country are being arrested in growing numbers for violating obscenity laws.  For example, six high-school students in Greensburgh, PA, were arrested on child pornography charges; a 19-year-old Goshen, OH, a cheerleading coach was convicted for taking a topless photo of herself and a 15-year-old girl; and in Texas, a 13-year-old boy was arrested on child pornography charges after receiving a nude photo of a fellow student on his mobile phone. [Times Online, January 14, 2009; NY Daily News, January 15, 2009]

The “Sex and Tech” study adds more weight to an earlier ’08 report from the Guttmacher Institute that found that more that half of the teens surveyed said they had engaged in oral sex and that they began vaginal and oral sex at roughly the same time.  The survey was of 2,200 boys and girls age 15- to 19-years.  It found that 82 percent of respondents had engaged in oral sex, that oral sex was more common than vaginal sex and that although only one in four teenage virgins had engaged in oral sex, within six months after their first intercourse more than four out of five adolescents reported having oral sex. [see Journal of Adolescent Health, July 2008]

Obviously, American teens know something that many lawmakers, but perhaps not the Supreme Court, do not.

Finally, during Obama’s first week in office, the Texas State Board of Education ended a 20-year policy of smuggling creationism into the science curriculum.  For two decades the Christian right exploited what was known as the “strengths and weaknesses” standard to promote an anti-evolution campaign. The chairman of the Board, Don McLeroy, a dentist, argues that "he does not believe in Darwin's theory and thinks that Earth's appearance is a recent geologic event, thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion as scientists contend."  In Austin, two Republicans joined the sex Democrats to win a key preliminary vote; however, a final decision as to the science curriculum will not be made until March.  The decision marks another defeat for the Christian right.  Darwin vs God, how long will this false battle drag on?  [New York Times, January 24, 2007] 

* * *

Are these isolated developments or part of a sea change in the battle over values?  Are these recent actions in international family planning, stem cell research, Internet regulation, teen sexuality and evolution in Texas schools discreet incidents or indicators of a fundamental change in America’s “cultural” sensibility?

The meaning of these recent developments will be evident only when assessed against overall policy changes in the emerging 21st century sexual culture.  This value system will, hopefully, be marked by less hostility toward a woman’s right to an abortion and in more states adopting same-sex civil unions, even some might legalizing same-sex marriages. 

Perhaps most critical, the Christian right’s failed abstinence-only policy will finally be scrapped and teens will receive more informed and sex-positive sex education as well as medical care, condoms and other assistance essential for them to develop a better sense of themselves.  The military might drop its ineffective policy of “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell,” thus finally freely accepting homosexual citizens into the armed services.  The FCC may well embrace a two-pronged strategy with regard to what is deemed obscene: (i) permitting more explicit materials for adults; and (ii) educating parents and children in cyber-literacy so as to be able to better recognize inappropriate (if not worse) contacts from a child predator or sexual exploiter.  We are also likely to see the decriminalization and/or regulation of prostitution, like that already is operation in Nevada and Rhode Island, in other, select sites around the country.  Finally, we will likely see a greater commitment to the internationally fight against HIV and AIDS through an extension and better funding of the PEPFAR [President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] initiative.

The first official act signed by George W. Bush when he became president was to reinstate the gag rule regarding international abortion services.   Eight years later, during the first few days of taking office, Barack Obama rescinded the gag rule.  A new phase of the culture wars may be underway. 

David Rosen is the author of the forthcoming, “Sex Scandals America:  Politics, Morality & the Ritual of Public Shaming” (Key, 2009); he can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com.

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