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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! How Cops Extort Confessions;
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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
How Cops Extort Confessions;
How the U.S. “Justice System” Really WorksNinety-two per cent of felony convictions in the U.S. are obtained by plea bargains or confessions. Without them the “justice system” would grind to a halt. In an important piece in our latest newsletter, available only to subscribers, Emily Horowitz shows how totally innocent people will “confess” under police pressure, even without physical torture. Horowitz outlines the powerful case for banning confessions altogether. Also in this new edition Marcus Rediker, co-author of the legendary The Many Headed Hydra, writes of popular heroism and resistance in the favelas of Medellin, Colombia. Alexander Cockburn reports on how America’s oldest bank, patronized by the global elites, washed billions smuggled out of Russia, and how the Russians might win their money back, shaking the world’s banking system if they do so. Serge Halimi describes the real battle for the soul of Europe. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories August 16 / 17, 2008 Conn Hallinan Robert Fantina
August 15, 2008 Steve Niva David Remington Michael Winship Paul Craig Roberts Farzana Versey Harvey Wasserman Felice Pace Julian Critchley Website of the Day August 14, 2008 Saul Landau / Conn Hallinan Mike Whitney Reza Fiyouzat Ralph Nader Christopher Brauchli The Cheerleader in China Jack Bradigan Spula Patrick Irelan John Walsh Dan Bacher Website of the Day
August 13, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts David Remington Brian Cloughley Glen Ford Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Tom Lewis Stan Cox Alan Farago Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day August 12, 2008 Uri Avnery Anthony DiMaggio Bill Christison Eric Walberg Kate Connolly Diane Farsetta Peter Morici Thom Rutledge Lee Patton Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day August 11, 2008 Ishmael Reed Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Douglas Kammen William Willers Greg Moses Jeff Leys Cynthia McKinney Alan Farago Website of the Day August 9 / 10, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Bruce Jackson Kevin Young Chris Floyd Joshua Frank Robert Fantina Brendan Cooney Mark Almond Lois Gibbs Rev. William Alberts Kathy Kelly John Ross David Michael Green Bill Moyers / Ron Jacobs Richard Rhames David Yearsley Lee Sustar Brenda Norrell Ben Terrall Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 8, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Manuel Garcia, Jr. M. Shahid Alam Andy Worthington Lawrence J. Korb David Model Alan Farago Diop Olugbala Firmin DeBrabander Website of the Day August 7, 2008 Dr. Trudy Bond William Blum Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Robert Weitzel Jacob G. Hornberger Binoy Kampmark David Macaray Howard Lisnoff Website of the Day August 6, 2008 Marc Herold Greg Moses Sheldon Rampton Kevin Young Michael Estrada Robert Weissman Dr. Susan Block Cindy Sheehan Ace Hoffman Website of the Day August 5, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Jeff Halper Patrick Cockburn Nancy Welch Peter Morici Sousan Hammad Eamon Martin Shepherd Bliss Tim Matson Website of the Day August 4, 2008 Uri Avnery Saul Landau David W. Remington Rev. Jesse Jackson Dave Lindorff Peter Morici Joanne Mariner Ramzy Baroud Christian Wright Website of the Day August 2 / 3, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Winslow T. Wheeler James Abourezk Andy Worthington Brian Cloughley Robert Fantina Benjamin Dangl Marlene Martin David Yearsley Fatemeh Keshavarz David Michael Green Obama as Dukakis Harvey Wasserman Jason Hribal Phyllis Pollack Laray Polk Ron Jacobs David Macaray David Rosen Dan Bacher Joe Allen Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 1, 2008 Jonathan Cook Nikolas Kozloff Rannie Amiri Peter Morici Christopher Brauchli M. K. Bhadrakumar Patrick Cockburn James J. Brittain Dan Bacher Website of the Day
July 31, 2008 Michael Hudson Carl Finamore Mike Whitney Joshua Frank Andy Worthington Ralph Nader Bill Moyers / Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff Website of the Day July 30, 2008 Brian M. Downing Chuck Spinney William S. Lind David Ker Thomson Karl Grossman Mike Whitney Martha Rosenberg James Murren Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Website of the Day July 29, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair John Ross Peter Morici Alison Weir Gary Leupp David Macaray Brenda Norrell Marjorie Cohn Eric Ruder Website of the Day July 28, 2008 Dr. Bryant Welch Kathy Kelly Mike Whitney Peter Morici Christopher Brauchli Clifton Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
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Weekend Edition Pain and Profits at the PumpBled Dry by the Oil GiantsBy NICOLE COLSON It's hard to grasp the immensity of ExxonMobil's profits for the second quarter of this year. More money made in three months than the U.S. government spent on its food stamps program. More money in three months than nearly 400,000 U.S. workers getting average pay will earn in all of this year. More money made each and every second during April, May and June than a minimum-wage worker earns in a month and a half of full-time work. ExxonMobil announced that its earnings for the second quarter rose nearly 14 percent to $11.7 billion. It's the biggest quarterly profit for any U.S. corporation in history, and it comes on top of Exxon's record-breaking profits last year, when the company made $40.6 billion over the 12 months. In all, ExxonMobil had a gross income of over $404 billion last year--more than the gross domestic product of two-thirds of the world's countries. Exxon isn't alone. Royal Dutch Shell, Europe's largest oil company, reported a 33 percent increase in second-quarter profits, to more $11 billion. And BP, Europe's second-largest oil company, reported it made $13.4 billion in the first six months of the year. But while profits have never been better for the oil industry, across the U.S., working class and poor people are feeling the pain of high gas prices. Nationwide, gas prices are averaging just below the $4 a gallon mark. Though there are signs that the oil bubble is deflating, consumers are still paying at the pump. Crude oil prices were averaging about $115 a barrel as Socialist Worker went to press--less than the all-time high of more than $147 a barrel in June, but still nowhere near the $72 a barrel it was at in December of 2007. As a result, according to a recent report by the U.S. Transportation Department, over the past seven months, Americans have reduced their driving by more than 40 billion miles. March, April and May marked the steepest three-month reduction in driving on record, according to the report. With driving down, the number of people riding Amtrak has risen 11 percent this year, and mass-transit systems in many areas, including Seattle and South Florida, are experiencing increases of 30 percent or more. That might seem like good news in a world of pollution and global warming, but underfunded and often out-of-date public transit systems are straining to keep up. Plus, because consumption of gas is dropping, so are federal fuel taxes, which go largely to help finance highway and mass-transit systems. As a result, there are now huge shortfalls in infrastructure, with many transportation projects having to be pared down or eliminated. * * * THE MEDIA have focused on the fact that rising gas prices are causing people to cancel vacations, or take "staycations," a theoretical vacation at home. Of course, that's if they're lucky enough to get a vacation at all--a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research last year showed that only one-quarter of U.S. workers get paid vacations. Far more than just disrupting vacation plans, however, high gas prices are impacting people's abilities just to get by. In June, three-quarters of voters responding to a Washington Post-ABC News poll said prices at the pump were causing them financial hardship. Fifty-one percent said it was a serious financial hardship--the first time since the poll began eight years ago that a majority answered yes. "What can you do? You need gas," Barry Modeste, a construction worker who stopped his van at a Shell station in Takoma Park, Md., told the Post. Modeste put in only enough gas to get him to a cheaper station in Rockville. "If you don't have gas, you can't get to work," he said. "And if you can't get to work, you don't get paid. And if you don't get paid, you can't buy food. We're at their mercy." The rise in oil prices has also helped spur the rising cost of food, since nearly every aspect of modern farming--from fertilizer production to the harvesting and transportation of crops and livestock--is impacted by rising fuel costs. In many places across the country, more people are looking for emergency aid from food pantries and aid agencies as they get squeezed by rising food and gas prices. Larry Brown, executive director of CityCare, a nonprofit aid organization, told the Oklahoman that the number of people showing up for a weekly grocery giveaway at a downtown church in Oklahoma City has doubled for the first time in the organization's 16 years. "I don't know if it's the gas prices, and I don't know if it's the grocery prices, but it's been through the summer," he said of the increase. And in Idaho, where the South Central Head Start Program serves 600 kids--with another 800 on the waiting list to get in--the program is being forced to cut back because of fuel costs. "[W]e transport our children," South Central Idaho Head Start Director Mary Marshall told KMVT News. "We cover 17,000 square miles in south central Idaho. It's a lot of ground to cover." In some rural communities, where residents have to drive more as a matter of course, and incomes are typically lower, higher gas and diesel prices have been disastrous. In the town of Allen, Neb., residents must drive 11 miles to get to the nearest gas station. And since the town's only grocery store went out of business last year, they also have to drive more than 20 miles to get to the nearest alternative. With high gas prices, Allen resident Shelly Jones told USA Today, "You're almost forcing the rural communities to shut down." Jones recently quit her job in Sioux City when the commute became too expensive. People in cities and suburbs are cutting back as well. School districts, for example, are cutting bus service for students due to budget shortfalls. Some businesses and colleges--and even some city and county governments--have moved to operating on a Monday-Thursday schedule to save on energy costs for businesses and commuting costs for employees and students. Student Melissa Pate, who commutes more than 100 miles round trip from her Fort Lawn, S.C., home to classes at York Technical College and then to work, told the Associated Press that she was glad when the college dropped Friday classes, reducing her school week from three days to two. "Without that, I wouldn't have been able to afford to go to school," she said. The Bush administration continues to cling to the idea that we aren't officially in a recession. But for many workers, it feels like one, and has for a while. As retired elementary school teacher Carol Netzel told MSNBC, "It doesn't matter what the economists say. All the people I chat with at the grocery store, the gas station, shopping for school clothes, all are feeling very depressed because of the beating their budgets are taking." A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that 45 percent of the public, compared to 24 percent in February, say rising prices are the biggest economic problem. Nearly two-thirds say their incomes are lagging behind their living costs. Seventy-two percent said they believed that the country is already in a recession. Sixty-eight percent surveyed said they are scrambling to cover the cost of gasoline. And 38 percent say it is difficult to afford food, compared with 27 percent in February. * * * THE BUSH White House, of course, barely admits there's a problem. In March, when he was asked by a reporter about what advice he'd give an average American faced with the prospect of $4 gallon gas, the President responded: "That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." Bush has heard of $4 a gallon gas now, but his advice for working people? Drive less, cut back and have faith in the system. "The consumer's plenty bright," Bush said at a July news conference. "The marketplace works...People can figure out if they should drive more or less...It's a little presumptuous on my part to dictate how consumers live their own lives." But, of course, how ordinary people live their lives is dictated by a system where the priority is on profits, not meeting human needs. For its part, Congress passed an "economic stimulus" package that didn't even cover a month's rent--not to mention a month's mortgage--for most people in the U.S., and a housing bill that won't save the houses of most of the people who face foreclosure. John McCain--a man who admits that "[t]he issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should"--is calling for the Bush administration tax cuts for the wealthy to be made permanent. In other words, another round of "trickle-down economics," where nothing ever trickles down to workers. McCain also says he would lift the ban on offshore oil drilling, which even experts admit will not only take years to produce, but will add only a tiny fraction to the pool of the estimated 21 billion barrels of oil the U.S. consumes each day--not to mention the environmental destruction it will cause as well. It's no wonder that campaign contributions from oil industry executives to John McCain spiked in June, to $1.1 million in that month alone. Democratic contender Barack Obama, meanwhile, has gotten a lot of traction criticizing the profits of oil companies and promising to stand up for workers' rights. In a recent Obama campaign ad, a narrator warns, "Every time you fill your tank, the oil companies fill their pockets...Now Big Oil's filling John McCain's campaign with $2 million in contributions." But Obama has accepted more than $213,000 in campaign contributions from individuals who work for companies in the oil and gas industry and their spouses. Obama does call for high-income individuals to pay taxes at the rates that applied prior to Bush's tax cuts, but that's only a tiny step toward addressing inequality in the U.S., which has reached the highest levels since the 1920s. Today, the richest 1 percent of Americans now possesses about 22 percent of the nation's wealth, and the top 10 percent control 48.5 percent. The Obama campaign has also released details of an "Emergency Economic Plan" to provide an emergency energy rebate of $500 to individual workers and $1,000 to families, funded in part by a tax on windfall profits from the oil companies. Yet as journalist Matt Taibbi noted in Rolling Stone, big donors are betting that Obama's talk about taxing the rich and corporations is just that--all talk:
The speculation bill was designed to regulate the ICE and place limits on trades. But on the day before Obama returned from his eight-day, eight-country, mega-dazzling international photo op, Democrats failed by a vote of 50-43 to force a vote on the bill, as heavy lobbying by investment banks like Goldman Sachs torpedoed the effort. Taibbi describes the system in no uncertain terms:
Nicole Colson lives in Chicago, where she works as a reporter for the Socialist Worker.
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