Today's Stories

April 22, 2008

David Isenberg
Spinning Saddam's Linkages

April 21, 2008

Bill Quigley
The U.S. Role in Haiti's Food Riots

Uri Avnery
The Lion and the Gazelle

Dave Lindorff
The U.S. Economy and the Costs of War

Wajahat Ali
Finding Osama Bin Laden with Morgan Spurlock

Andy Worthington
Hollow Gestures at Guantánamo

Robert Jensen
The Sorrows of Race and Gender

Ron Jacobs
Clampdown at Evergreen

Dan Bacher
The Great Salmon Closure

Harvey Wasserman
Where's George?

Danny Alexander
Remembering Danny Federici

Website of the Day
Save Our Taco Trucks!

April 19 / 20, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
McCain: What Really Happened When He Was a POW?

Patrick Cockburn
A New Struggle is Beginning in Iraq

Wajahat Ali
Zinn Speaks

Andrew Wimmer
Papal Benedictions

Rev. William E. Alberts
Jeremiah Wright and America's Continuing "Separate and Unequal" Societies

David Rosen
Texas Two-Step: The Polygamy Raid and the Regulation of Sexual Life

Robert Fantina
McCain Detests War?

Ramzy Baroud
The Politics of Armageddon: McCain's Pastors and the Middle East

Saul Landau
The No Escape Clause on Iraq

Dr. Susan Block
Raelians, Aliens and Evolution

David Yearsley
Suitcase Arias and Ithacan Jazz

Phyllis Pollack
On the Red Carpet with the Rolling Stones

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Hartz, Newberry and Khaiyat

April 18, 2008

John Ross
The Bush Legacy: Losing Latin America

Dave Lindorff
Courage and Conviction: In Praise of Bill Ayers

Dan Glazebrook
An Interview with Robert Fisk

Carl Finamore
A Look Inside the Hangars

Rannie Amiri
J Street: Do We Really Need Another Pro-Israel Lobby?

Richard Morse
A Creepy Roadblock at Midnight

Ko Young-dae
CONPLAN 8022: Inside Bush's Nuclear War Plan for the Korean Peninsula

Farooq Sulehria
A Himalayan Surprise

April 17, 2008

Michael Hudson
Hillary Joins the Vast Rightwing Financial Conspiracy

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Apologists

Kathy Kelly
Weary of War? Don't Collaborate

Madis Senner
The Carrion Feeders' Ball: How Hedge Funds Reap Billions Off Economic Misery

Peter Morici
The G7, the Banks and GE

Ron Jacobs
Washington, al-Maliki and the Militias

William S. Lind
A Confirming Moment in Basra

James Murren
Obama's Disconnect with Small Town America

Ben Terrall
Losing Haiti

Walter Brasch
Political Log Rolling in Clinton County, PA

Website of the Day
Stealth Attack: Homegrown "Terrorism" Bill

April 16, 2008

Bill Kauffman
The Candidates from Nowhere

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Colonization and Massacres

Saul Landau
How to Leave Iraq

Peter Morici
McCain's Economic Plan: GOP Out of Ideas (But So are the Democrats)

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
Bankers Saved, Human Rights Sacrificed

Jeff Ballinger
Inside Nike's Asian Sweatshops: Squeezed Vietnamese Workers Strike Back

David Macaray
Union Strikes and Replacement Workers

Gary Leupp
Electoral Revolution in Nepal

Richard Morse
The Food Riots in Haiti

George Ciccariello-Maher
Einstein Turns in His Grave

Dave Lindorff
Letters from the Bitter Belt

Website of the Day
Surviving Prozac

April 15, 2008

Ralph Nader
The Politics of Distraction in an Age of Gotcha Capitalism

Uri Avnery
Manifest Destiny and Israel

Brian Cloughley
Arrogant Lies

David Price
Outrageous Pre-Tour de France Ban

Joe Bageant
Bitter America: Media Shit Storms and Heartland Reality

Steve Early
The Purple Punch-Out in Dearborn

Mats Svensson
To Create Something from Nothing: the Making of a Palestinian State

Michael Donnelly
Dead-Eye Hil and the Elitist

April Howard /
Benjamin Dangl
Dissecting the Politics of Paraguay's Next President

Laray Polk
Let's Not Put the Torch in a Bubble

Charles Modiano
What Does a Woman Have to Do to Get on the Cover of Sports Illustrated?

Website of the Day
The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree

April 14, 2008

Carl Finamore
Airline Deregulation Makes a Hard Landing

Michael Hudson
A Trillion Dollar Rescue for Wall Street Gamblers

M. Shahid Alam
Hizbullah's Big Win: Has Israel Finally Met Its Match?

Patrick Cockburn
A Cleric, a Pol and a Warrior

Paul Craig Roberts
Petraeus Sets Up Iran

Joanne Mariner
Redition to Jordan: What Happens When the Gloves Come Off?

Martha Rosenberg
Suicide and Cymbalta

Dave Lindorff
The Bitterness Thing: Is Obama Channeling Nader

P. Sainath
Hot Messages to Sex Dancer Doom Condi's New Finnish Pal

John V. Whitbeck
On Hypocrisy Over Tibet: a Personal Reflection

Website of the Day
Spying on Environmental Groups

April 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Olympic Torch Toasts US Candidates

Patrick Cockburn
Warlord: the Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr

Mike Whitney
Want to Save the Economy?

David Yearsley
Film Scores and Westerns: the Stealth Cavalry of Empire

Robert Fantina
Bush's Brand of Morality

Conn Hallinan
Another Defining Moment in Iraq

Bill Hatch
In Praise of Hippies and the Counter-Culture

Ramzy Baroud
The Basra Battles

George S. Hishmeh
Back to Square One

Ron Jacobs
The New New Left in Latin America

Nikolas Kozloff
Olympic Torch in Buenos Aires

Charles Thomson
The British Prime Minister and the Tate's Tin of Shit

Alexander Billet
The Disney-fication of CBGB

Missy Beattie
Huffing and Puffing to Failure

David Michael Green
America's Jones for War

Seth Sandronsky
Education Entrepreneurs

Prairie Miller
Meeting David Wilson

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Ko Un, Ibn Salma and Greaves

Website of the Weekend
Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights

April 11, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
The Clintons and Their Sordid Colombia Advocacy

Wajahat Ali
Revenge of the Ghetto Nerd: an Exclusive Interview with Junot Diaz

Sharon Smith
Let Them Eat Ethanol!

Yigal Bronner / Neve Gordon
Digging for Trouble: the Politics of Archaeology in East Jerusalem

Alan Farago
Eating South Florida

Dave Lindorff
On Waking Sleeping Giants: Lessons for America from China

George Wuerthner
Money for Nothing? The Problems with the Conservation Reserve Program

Christopher Brauchli
Prostitutes Don't Do Funerals

Website of the Day
Animals Explain the Insurance Industry: a Health Care Video

April 10, 2008

Mathieu Vernerey
Tibet for the Tibetans!

Elizabeth Schulte
Slavery in the Fields

David Macaray
Labor Unions Will Never Get a Fair Shake

Ashley Smith
The Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr

Peter Morici
Driving Up Debt and Dragging Down Growth

Jacob Hornberger
The Military's Distintegrating Family Life

Harold Austin
Snitch or Else: Prison Officials Threaten Gang Drop Outs

Website of the Day
Hillary: the Wal-Mart Videos

April 9, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
The Fading American Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Congressional Theater: the Petraeus / Crocker Hearings

C. Hand
Why Dave Marash Left Al Jazeera

Paul Krassner
Sex and Violins

Paul Wolf
Colombian "Magnicidio" Remains a Mystery After 60 Years

Wajahat Ali
Alien Invasion!

Karyn Strickler
Lost in the Fumes: the Sierra Club Sells Out to Clorox

Dan La Botz
Confronting the Economic Crisis

Eric Walberg
The Shadow of Munich: Another NATO Flop

Robin Millenthal
Enough Already! Growth and the Tar Sands Economy

Website of the Day
Conservative Nanny State

April 8, 2008

Mike Whitney
Should Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be Set Free?

Nikolas Kozloff
Bush Bullies Congress on Colombia Deal

Greg Moses
Migrant Detention in South Texas

Joshua Frank
The Other Military Draft

John Ross
Mexico City's Urban Tribes Go on the Warpath Against EMOS

Michael Donnelly
Hillary's Western Swing

John V. Walsh
Why Obama Lost Massachusetts

Jeff Nygaard
Health, Security and Mandates

Bill Piper
Last Shot for a Bush Legacy?

Sen. Russ Feingold
Legal Representation and the Death Penalty

Website of the Day
Catonsville 9, Forty Years Later

April 7, 2008

Ishmael Reed
The Irish Black Thing

Harry Browne
Irish Peace Activist Acquitted; Deported

Uri Avnery
Tibet and Palestine

Lenni Brenner
Obama's Constitution, His Pastor and His Unbelieving Mom in Heaven

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
America Must Respect Pakistan's Democracy

Robert Fisk
Fearful Lives in the Land of the Free

Edwin Krales
Ensuring the Success of Fascism in Spain: the US Corporate Role

Chris Genovali
Vancouver Island's Dwindling Ancient Forests

Website of the Day
LA Artists Against War

April 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Did the Elites Want MLK Dead?

Ramzy Baroud
There are No Checkpoints in Heaven

Ralph Nader
Runaway Bailouts

David Yearsley
How Scott Joplin Had Wall Street Down

Saul Landau
Sex Politics in America

Paul Craig Roberts
The Petraeus and Crocker Show

Lawrence Korb / Ian Moss
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a True Patriot

Seth Sandronsky
Meet America's Promise Alliance: Colin Powell's New Gig

John Ross
La Cumbia de la Doctrina Bush: Colombia Kills Four Mexican Students in Ecuador Bombing

Robert Fantina
McCain, Republicans and Family Values

David Michael Green
Back to Disaster: Hoover at Home, Tet Abroad

Missy Beattie
McCan't

Patrick Bond
Vultures Circle Zimbabwe

Dr. Susan Block
The New American Pot Dealers

Phyllis Pollack
The Stones Meet the Press

Adam Engel
The Boobus in the Lie

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Diamand and St. Clair

Website of the Weekend
Richard Pryor Goes to the Gun Shop

April 4, 2008

Dave Lindorff
The Night I Heard King Had Been Shot

Greg Moses
Missing King

Ron Jacobs
Two Murders, 40 Years On: Bobby Hutton and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Alan Farago
Show Me the Size of Your Bail Out and I'll Show You Mine

Alison Weir
Funding Our Decline: U.S. Aid to Israel

David Rosen
Rape as an Instrument of Total War

Robert Weissman
The Unrealized Dream

Jacob Hornberger
Was Killing Iraqi Children Worth It?

Jackie Corr
Hillary and Obama Head for Butte

Carl Finamore
Taking On United Airlines

Laray Polk
We Are All Dith Pran

Susie Day
Advice for the War-Torn

Website of the Day
Winter Soldiers: a Video Portrait

April 3, 2008

Peter Morici
The Deepening Recession

Joe Bageant
The Audacity of Depression

Andy Worthington
Cleared But Still Detained: The Ordeal of Moroccan Prisoner Said al-Boujaadia

Nikolas Kozloff
Condi's Divide and Rule Strategy in South America

Rannie Amiri
The U.S. Disdain for Mideast Democracy

David Macaray
More Labor Strife in Hollywood

Stephen Lendman
Lynne Stewart's Long Struggle for Justice

Website of the Day
The True Face of Da Vinci?

April 2, 2008

Diane Farsetta
Indian Point on the Potomac

Harry Browne
Bertie Ahern Laid Low by Secretary

Wajahat Ali
The Folly of Attacking Iran: a Conversation with Steven Kinzer

George Wuerthner
Open Season on Wolves

Col. Dan Smith
The Militarization of America

Philippe Marlière
The Politics of Bling-Bling in France: Sarkozy's Cultivated Anti-Intellectualism

Steve Early
A Purple Uprising in Oakland

Bernard Chazelle
Saving the American Left

Reza Fiyouzat
Bowling in Hell

April 1, 2008

Jeff Leys
Fracturing the Peace to End the War

Thomas P. Healy
Restoring the Constitution: a Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg

Winslow T. Wheeler
When Pigs Sprout Wings: Mangled Rationales for a Fatter Defense Budget

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
New Deal Nostalgia

Patrick Irelan
Cocaine, Colombia and the Cartels

Andy Worthington
The Case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani

John V. Walsh
The Shunning of Ralph Nader

Michael J. Smith
Woolly Mamet

Robert Weissman
The New Philip Morris--Even Worse Than the Old?

Dave Lindorff
Bush's Defining Moments

Martha Rosenberg
Brain Mist Disease: Boss Hog's Gift to Humanity

Website of the Day
Support Briana!

March 31, 2008

Mike Whitney
Dead on Arrival: Paulson's Fixit Plan for Wall Street

Mats Svensson
Walls, Tunnels and Daily Humiliations

Paul Rockwell
Hillary's Lies About Outsourcing

Paul Craig Roberts
A Third American War in the Making?

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr Calls for Ceasefire

Peter Dale Scott
The Showdown

Alfredo Molano
Cultura Mafiosa in Colombia

Peter Morici
Why Paulson's Reform Plan Falls Short

Uri Avnery
Day of the Land, 32 Years Later

Michael Simmons
The American Bard in New Orleans

Betsy Roberts / Karen Orr
The Clorox Coup

Phyllis Pollack
First the Sun and Then the Moon: Scorsese Does the Stones

Website of the Day
Five Years Too Many

March 29 / 30, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
When They Pick Up the Phone at 3 AM, What Will They Say?

Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Police Refuse to Back Maliki's Attacks on Medhi Army

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Next Big Bail Out Plan

Christopher Brauchli
The Pastor of Armageddon and the Slave Sale: McCain, Lieberman and Rev. Hagee

William Blum
China, Tibet and the Propaganda Olympics

Robert Fantina
Iraq Troika: McCain, Obama and Clinton

John Ross
AMLO, the Comeback Kid? Fighting the Privatization of Mexico's Oil

Allison Kilkenny
Shady Lending Hits Home

Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba, the Beatles and Historical Context

Suzanne Baroud
The Great Lake of Gaza: a New Crisis in the Making

Richard Rhames
Social Security: Throwing Granny from the Gravy Train

Christopher Fons
Transcending the 60s? Obama and the Baby Boomers

Carl Finamore
Misery at 35,000 Feet: Mergers Stall, Fares Soar, Services Slump and Consumers Sour

Eamonn McCann
Hillary Misremembers Again!

Missy Beattie
Justice and the Monsters of War

Fred Gardner
Jim Thorpe, All-American

Kim Nicolini
Cock Chuggers and Cheese Curls: Richard Kelly's "Southland Tales"

David Yearsley
"All the World's a Hospital"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Valentine and Ko Un

Website of the Weekend
Hidden Iraq

March 28, 2008

Saul Landau
Growing Dread About Iraq

Alan Farago
Other People's Money: the Chop Shop Economy

Peter Morici
Knocking Down False Economic Gods

Andy Worthington
Plight of the Uyghus: a Chinese Muslim's Desperate Plea from Guantánamo

Felice Pace
Ashes of Lies: Why No One Trusts the US Forest Service

Peter Montague
Sierra Club Cleans House -- With Clorox!

Dave Lindorff
The Mumia Exception

March 27, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Basra Erupts

Binoy Kampmark
Free Market Apostates

Joanne Mariner
"Was George Washington a Terrorist?"

Norman Solomon
NPR News: National Pentagon Radio?

William S. Lind
Mars Only Knocks Once: a Prognosis for Iraq

John V. Walsh
Obama's Speech: a Touch of Bigotry?

Robert Weissman
How Things Work

Ron Jacobs
Meeting Charlie Ehlen

Ralph Nader
Put Impeachment Back on the Table

David Macaray
Court Rules Against Grocery Workers

John Borowski
Clearcutting the History of Forest Destruction

Website of the Day
Going Out for an English

March 26, 2008

Stan Cox
The Germs Next Door

Sharon Smith
Greed Pays: Welfare on Wall Street

Anita Sinha / Jill Tauber
Dreams Turned into Rubble in New Orleans

Matt Vidal
So Much for the Self-Regulating Market

William S. Lind
Operation Cassandra

Joe Mowrey
The Audacity of Hypocrisy: Obama's Pandering to Israel

Dave Lindorff
Duck and Cover (Up): Hillary Under Fire

Ray McGovern
Frontline's War: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late

Justin Smith
Why Race and Gender are Separate Issues

Sam Husseini
The Winter Soldier Hearings and Indy Media

Martha Rosenberg
Blood on Ice: Gentlemen, Pick Up Your Clubs

Michael Dickinson
Politicians as Dogs

Website of the Day
The Wal-Mart Virus: How the Infection Spread

March 25, 2008

Ishmael Reed
The Crazy Rev. Wright

Corey D. B. Walker
The Politics of Jeremiah Wright

Linn Washington Jr.
Racism in America and Other Uncomfortable Facts

Alan Farago
The Money Launderers: a Picnic for Wall St. Insiders

Vijay Prashad
A Glimmer of Hope From the Gulf Coast

Joshua Frank
A Silver Lining to the Bush Years?

Ralph Nader
How Public Servants Can Help End This War

David Rovics
If I Can't Dance: Why is the Left So Boring?

Peter Morici
America's Banks are Broken

Dave Zirin
Olympic Flames: China's Crackdown in Tibet

David Krieger
The Crisis in Tibet

Website of the Day
Memorializing Iraq

March 24, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Blonde Ambition: Hillary's Berserker Campaign for 2012

Peter Morici
Digging Out of the Recession

Uri Avnery
Two Americas

Wajahat Ali
First of the Mohicans: an Interview with Rep. Keith Ellison

Paul Craig Roberts
Inside the Shell Game

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Coming War on Venezuela

Stephen Lendman
Sami Al-Arian's Long Ordeal

Christopher Brauchli
Possessing Someone Else's Country

Cat Woods
A Letter to Mom on Obama

Stacey Warde
Tax Burden

Dave Lindorff
The American Dead Hits 4,000, But Who's Counting?

Website of the Day
Live from the Longest Walk

March 22 / 23, 2008

Ralph Nader
Bush Blisters the Truth on Iraq

Nicole Colson
Can You Afford to Feed Your Family?

James Petras
The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives

Laura Carlsen
From Bombs to Markets: The Andean Crisis and the Geopolitics of Trade

Greg Moses
Tolerance and the American Pulpit

Andy Worthington
Torture Stories Dog Guantánamo Trials

Michael Dickinson
Art on Trial

John Ross
Bush's Surge Hits Mosul

Missy Comley Beattie
Killer Economics

David Michael Green
Happy Anniversary, America!

Ramzy Baroud
The Coming Uncertain War on Iran

Martha Rosenberg
Easter Egg Shells from Hell

Paul Watson
Evolution is Going to the Dogs in the Galapagos

Isabella Kenfield
Monsanto's Raid on Brazil

James Murren
Logging v. Water in Honduras

Jacob Hornberger
Sex and the Immigration Officer

Kathlyn Stone
Ben Heine, Master of the Art of Resistance

Seth Sandronsky
Rethinking New Mexico's History

Kim Nicolini
Class, Gender and Abortion in Communist Romania

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up: What I'm Reading This Week

Poets' Basement
Wilson, Woods, Gibbons and Orloski

Website of the Weekend
Merci, McCain!

March 21, 2008

Marleen Martin
Land Behind Bars: the Hidden Casualties of America's "War on Crime"

Peter Montague
Run Your Car on Coal? Maybe Not

Saul Landau
Monroe's Deadly Doctrine

Anis Hamadeh
Merkel in the Knesset

Jacob Hornberger
McCain's Al Qaeda Scare: Slip or Tactic?

Khalil Nakhleh
Al Nakba of 1948: How Long Will It Persist?

Adam Isacson
Colombia, Paramilitary Threats and Assassinations

Kenneth Couesbouc
Money for Nothing

Madis Senner
Will the Feds Underwrite the Stock Market?

Monica Benderman
The Costs of Freedom: What Are You Willing to Pay?

Website of the Day
Stop Foreclosures and Evictions

March 20, 2008

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
The Triple Failing of the Big Private Banks

Mike Whitney
Winding Up Bear

John Ross
What Do We Owe Iraq?

Dave Lindorff
Paying the Piper: the Bodies and Bills are Piling Up

Wajahat Ali
Pakistan on Fire

Jill Nagle
Memo to Sex Workers: Stop Financing Shock Journalism

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America

Dan La Botz
Obama's Race Speech

Robert Weissman
Alternative Power: Shutting Down the API

Stella Dallas /
Jennifer Matsui
Apostasy Now! Mamet, Enter Stage Right

Website of the Day
The Angry Monk

March 19, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
A War of Lies

Robert Fisk
The Little Men and the Inferno

Jeff Taylor
Five Years of War in Iraq

Ed Ruggero
From Pinkville to Iraq: the Dark Anniversary of My Lai

Ron Jacobs
Who'll Stop the Rain?

Christopher Fons
Obama Takes the Race Bait

Sherwood Ross
In Defense of Rev. Wright

Cynthia McKinney
An Urgent Crisis: Confronting America's Racial Disparities

Joshua Frank
The Kool-Aid That Kills

Robert Weissman
Monsanto's Genetic Food Gamble

Walter Brasch
It's a Welfare State--If You're Rich

Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation

Andrew Wimmer
War Demands Its Due

Website of the Day
Glimpses of Nature

March 18, 2008

David Price
The Military "Leveraging" of Cultural Knowledge

Paul Craig Roberts
The Collapse of American Power

Tim Wise
Of National Lies and Racial America: Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth

Patrick Cockburn
One of the Most Disastrous Wars Ever Fought

Conn Hallinan
Afghanistan, a River Running Backward

James T. Phillips
Monsters: Past, Present and Wannabe

Uri Avnery
The Killing in Bethlehem

David Macaray
Could Wal-Mart Revive the Labor Movement?

Marjorie Cohn
Beware an Attack on Iran

Peter Zinn
Obama in New Orleans

Dan La Botz
The Economic Crisis, Labor and the Left

Monica Benderman
Where are We Going?

March 17, 2008

Pam Martens
The Fed's Wall Street Dilemma

Sasan Fayazmanesh
The US, Iran and the Policy of Dual Containment

Nelson P. Valdés
The Imperial Branding of Simon Bolivar and the Cuban Revolution

Peter Morici
The Corrosive Consequences of the Trade Deficit

Wajahat Ali
Disrobing the Nine: a Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on the Supreme Court Since 9/11

Ronnie Cummins
Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma

Shaun Harkin
Saint Patrick's Day in Fortress America

Ali Khan
No Pardon for Musharraf

Robert Jensen
Beyond Peace

P. Sainath
Oh, What a Lovely Waiver!

Greg Moses
Jeremiah was a Bullhorn

Dr. Susan Block
Advice for Eliot Spitzer

Website of the Day
No Cowboys

March 15 / 16, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
How to Destroy a Country in Five Years

Mike Whitney
Bearly Alive: Investment Giant Rushed to ICU by Panicky Fed Chief

Ralph Nader
Of Laws and Men

Robert Pollin
It's Still the Economy, Stupid

Diane Christian
The Poetics of Perversity: From Boccaccio to Spitzer

Wajahat Ali
Faking the Hood: a Conversation with Ishmael Reed

Tom Wright /
Therese Saliba
Rachel Corrie's Case for Justice

Alan Farago
Back to Florida: Where Bushtime Began

Greg Moses
Raiding the Family Room in Texas

Michael Hudson
A Grand Global Bargain?

Martha Rosenberg
Why Hillary's Favorite Chicken Company is Eying China

John Goekler
Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict

Uzma Aslam Khan
A Letter to Barack Obama: Where's the Change, Barack?

Oren Ben-Dor
The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon

David Underhill
Mammon, Morals and the Mobile Tanker Deal

Fred Gardner
The Education of Eliot Spitzer

David Michael Green
Why Spitzer Should Have Resigned (and Why He Shouldn't Have)

Rev. William E. Alberts
Jesus, Entombed in Heaven

Gail Dines
It's All About the John: Prostitution and Male Power

David Yearsley
Conducting, Anarchy and the Problem of When to Begin

Chris Clarke
Walking with Zeke: the Luckiest of Dogs

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Lodge & Subiet

Website of the Day
Deviant Art

March 14, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching the Dollar Die

Don Santina
Vichy Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration

Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons

Tim Rinne
StratCom Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska

Robert Fantina
In Torture We Trust

Saul Landau
Letter to the Presidents-in-Waitings

David Macaray
Common Myths About Labor Unions

Franklin Lamb
Is the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon

Michael Neumann
The One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics

March 13, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Republicans and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America

Mike Whitney
Meltdown Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze

Assaf Kfoury
"One-State or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives

Andy Worthington
Afghan Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story

Adam Federman
From Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road

March 12, 2008

Dave Lindorff
Bringing Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US

R.F. Blader
The Spitzer Backlash

Yonatan Mendel
How to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or "Palestine"

Jonathan Cook
One State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism

Bill and Kathy Christison
Fallon and Gates -- At Least One Cheer

James J. Brittain
Was the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders

Ron Jacobs
"All the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul"

March 11, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
How to End the Subprime Crisis

Ed O'Loughlin
How Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal

Ramzy Baroud
'Unwavering Commitment' to Inequality

Kathy Christison
One State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine

China Hand
PRC Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran

John Joslin
Thank You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette

Mike Averko
Serb Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide

Ben Rosenfeld
Gavin Newsom's Kneejerk Plan

Thierry Paquot
High Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block

March 10, 2008

Uri Avnery
"Kill A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza

Col. Dan Smith
Scoring the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond

R.F. Blader
Why "Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its Sheen

Michael Neumann
The One-State Illusion: More is Less

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
Did the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?

James J. Brittain
Anti-Uribe Protests in Colombia and the World

Missy Comley Beattie
The Passion of John McCain

March 8-9, 2008 Weekend Edition

JoAnn Wypijewski
The Only Way to Fight the Clintons

Mike Whitney
Sorting Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America

Peter Morici
Fed and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets

Ralph Nader
The Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore

Jonathan Cook
The Meaning of Gaza's Shoah

Steve Niva
Behind the Israeli Escalation in Gaza

Bill and Kathy Christison
Crisis over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax

Hervé Do Alto and Franck Poupeau
Bolivia: Morales is Checked

Eric Walberg
To Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…?

Scott Johnson
City of A Thousand Foreclosures

Mark Scaramella
James Brown's Gate

Bill Clinton
President Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force Chairman

Poet's Basement
St. Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson

Website of the Weekend
Hillary Blackens Barack

March 7, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
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March 6, 2008

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Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats

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Jacob Hornberger
No Standing to Lecture on Justice

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Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers

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The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa

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Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left

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James Murren
Bombing Somalia

Adam Engel
Necropolis Now

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Mumbo Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed

William Blum
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The Cleansing of New Orleans

Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution

Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela

James J. Brittain /
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Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America

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The War Election

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Guantánamo and the European Parliament

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Kosovo and the Press

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Tex-Mex Primary

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Gazan Holocaust

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Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador

Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup Poll with John Esposito

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Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu

Uri Avnery
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The Political Economics of Greenwashing

Green as a Blackjack Table

By STAN COX

Hard times are looming.  And in their desperation to keep the American economy afloat, government and business will be tossing overboard any proposals for real environmental protection.  No time for such romantic foolishness when there are investments to be protected.  Get those tax refunds back into retailers' registers, quick! 

Not that we won't be hearing about the environment; indeed, the next growth spurt, if it comes, is likely to be clothed in a green as green as the felt on a blackjack table.

Earlier this year, entrepreneur Eric Janszen declared in Harper’s magazine that the next bubble – alternative energy – had already been “branded”.  His projection: the eventual creation of $20 trillion in fictitious, speculative wealth, “money that inevitably will be employed to increase share prices rather than to deliver ‘energy security.’" and that "when the bubble finally bursts, we will be left to mop up after yet another devastated industry.” [1]  After that next big bust, not only alternative energy but a host of other "green" industries will be left in ruin.

As long as an investing class is allowed to make all major environmental decisions, no new sources of energy will actually replace even one barrel or ton of fossil fuel; rather, they will go to further parasitizing the planet in the cause of growth.  The boosters of "green" capitalism have never even bothered to argue otherwise in any effective way.

Typical is a book by Daniel Esty and Andrew Winston entitled Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, which became an immediate hit among “green” tycoons when it was published in 2006. It was a how-to manual for business people wanting to run the kinds of companies that, in the authors’ phrase, “get ahead of the Green Wave,” whose “environmental strategies provide added degrees of freedom to operate, profit, and grow.” 

These are some of the helpful tips to be found in Green to Gold:

*  “Most successful green marketing starts with the traditional selling points – price, quality, or performance – and only then mentions environmental attributes. Almost always, green should not be the first button to push.”

*  “Eco-labels can provide legitimate environmental information to a demanding public. But they can also be used as a trade barrier, disadvantaging competitors in the marketplace.”

*  “Corporate strategy 101 tells us that a company can drive revenues by increasing price or volume. With green products, volume is a much safer route.”

*  “Partnering gives a company a strong defense against NGO [nongovernmental (nonprofit) organization] attacks, but a large part of that defense is the demonstration of genuine progress. We call it brand inoculation . . .” [their bold]

Green as tar

Right in the first chapter, Esty and Wilson rank companies they’ve designated as green “WaveRiders”. Number One in their international ranking is petroleum giant BP. Their account of how BP reached the top of the green heap is little more than a description of a masterful public-relations campaign. "Despite being in a business with large environmental impacts, the company is now seen as green,” they write, and “Here’s the real proof: BP’s brand value, as measured by experts in measuring intangibles, has jumped significantly.” 

But BP’s primary mission is still to earn a profit by selling fossil fuels, so it was no big shock when the Independent reported in 2005 that the company had been lobbying against substantive proposals then before the US Congress that would cap carbon dioxide emissions.  Instead, BP supported a watered-down move that would have “companies only try to cut emissions with the promise of tax breaks.”[2]

Then, last year, the Environmental Protection Agency exempted BP from what the company regarded as a too-restrictive environmental law, allowing its Whiting, Indiana facility to discharge increased quantities of ammonia and other pollutants into Lake Michigan and to continue dumping mercury into the lake.  This reportedly was done so that BP could refine heavy crude oil from Canadian tar sands.[3]

Under a hail of criticism from local residents and environmentalists, BP promised, cross-its-heart, to stick to the old water-pollution limits, but its pending state permit for a $3.8 billion expansion of the Whiting facility has critics fuming over potential impacts on local air quality.  The permit is expected to be approved by June 1.  That is an important deadline, because it's then that some of BP’s previously earned air-emission credits will expire. BP claims that by juggling credits, it will decrease the “net” carbon emissions from the new plant -- ecological virtue as thin as the paper the credits are printed on.  And, according to reports, “particulate matter and sulfur dioxide emissions would increase.”[4]

Writing recently for In these Times, Michael Moreci described the ecological crimes that will be committed far to the northwest in the Alberta tar sands that are going to supply BP's refinery:

“The first step involves razing vast amounts of wilderness for open-pit mining -- meaning that small plants, trees and topsoil must be extracted by the ton. And because five barrels of water are typically needed to produce a single barrel of crude, surrounding rivers must be routed to the pits, then re-routed to man-made lakes of toxic sludge.  ... Once the forest and wildlife are out of the way and the pits have been dug, the raw process of extraction requires substantial manpower, heavy machinery (some of which can be up to three stories tall and weigh as much as a jetliner) and an incredible amount of energy. And that's to produce only a single barrel of unrefined crude oil from two tons of tar sands.  ... Over the next seven years, global warming pollutants released into the atmosphere from tar sands oil production are projected to quintuple to 126 megatons ...  What's more, the tar sands industry consumes enough gas in a single day to heat approximately 4 million American homes.” [5]

If BP is a "WaveRider", the wave is one of toxic sludge.

Greenwash your body

In a chapter section of Green to Gold headed, “Perfect is the Enemy of the Good” (that well-frayed motto of green capitalism), Esty and Wilson contrast what they see as an exemplary decision by McDonald’s – to give its McNuggets a package that was not environmentally offensive enough to drive away eco-conscious customers yet not so “flimsy” that it would annoy conventional customers – with what they see as the too-radical approach of The Body Shop International, whose pursuit of its “environmental and social mission” was “inattentive to economic realities”.

To cite the The Body Shop, a UK-based firm specializing in skin-and-hair-care products, as a company striving for the "Perfect” reveals the shallowness of Green to Gold's analysis.  For more than 30 years, The Body Shop and its CEO, self-styled anti-capitalist capitalist Anita Roddick, avidly cultivated a corporate image as pioneers of high business ethics.  But The Body Shop has been dismissed by critics as no more than a world leader in pale-green consumerism.

A 1994 expose by John Entine [6] charged the company with exploiting workers, franchisees, and indigenous peoples who supply ingredients; using artificial and sometimes harmful chemicals in products labeled as “all natural”; selling bacteria-contaminated products; flushing toxic chemicals into sewage systems; and promoting overconsumption of costly but Wal-Mart-quality products. 

Others have blasted the company’s much-publicized relationships with indigenous peoples who supply some of their ingredients.  An anthropologist who worked for more than thirty years among Brazil’s Kayapo people charged in 1995 that The Body Shop purchased much smaller quantities of products like brazil-nut oil than the Kayapo wanted to sell, and forbade them to sell to other companies.  The company did that, he charged, because the real purpose of the project was to acquire not oil but rather the exclusive right to heartwarming photographs of the Kayapo that would appeal to the tastes of “Western ecoliberals.”[7]

The Body Shop was purchased in 2006 by L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics company. L’Oreal has refused to sign a proposed international Compact for Safe Cosmetics. The buyout prompted Ethical Consumer magazine to drop The Body Shop from a rating of 11 on the magazine’s 1-to-20 “Ethiscore” scale all the way down to 2.5.6 (The company has since climbed to a still-wretched 5 out of 20).

Ethical or not, The Body Shop can't be considered an environmental leader, wrote Entine on the occasion of Roddick’s death last year: “She sold cosmetics made mostly with water, colorings, fragrances and preservatives made from petrochemicals. Body Shop packages beauty notions in plastic bottles, an anathema to serious environmentalists, and ships them around the world in carbon-belching trucks and planes. From an environmental perspective, its business model is a train wreck.” [8]

But in having offered its healthy business and virtuous image for sale to a huge corporation, The Body Shop is far from alone.  Noting that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream has “melted into the Unilever empire,” that “organic and fairtrade chocolate producer Green & Black’s was snapped up by Cadbury Schweppes,” and that Colgate-Palmolive was about to “clean up on the American ethical toothpaste brand Tom’s of Maine,” journalist Faith Glasgow looked into the reasons that well-intentioned companies sell out:

“The founders of small ethical firms face a challenging dilemma when it comes to bringing their products into the mainstream. Many of their supporters buy those products at least partly because they do care about the irresponsible behavior of big corporations: sell out, and a proportion will walk away. On the other hand, the quickest and easiest way to reach and maybe raise the awareness of a much wider audience is undoubtedly by accessing the superior marketing and distribution network of a multi-national.  ‘I think they genuinely want to reach wider audiences with their products, and they see a takeover as the best way of accessing that market,” affirms [Ethical Consumer’s Rob] Harrison. ‘They believe that the knock to their reputation will be outweighed by the boost to sales.’”[9]

Green as a dollar bill

In Green to Gold, Esty and Winston applaud two other companies, Wal-Mart and Whole Foods Market, for making environmental improvements and peddling green products. They quote with approval Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, who told his fellow executives “that their sustainability efforts would help protect the company’s ‘license to grow’.”

One chapter of my own book Sick Planet recounts how those two Fortune 500 companies (Wal-Mart now at No. 1, Whole Foods at No. 411) are attempting, each through its own tried-and-true strategy, to expand the market for natural and organic food.

The two Goliaths are slugging it out to capture that big stretch of socioeconomic territory that separates them. Wal-Mart, the shopping home of American families who live below the median income, made headlines in May, 2006 by announcing a big increase in its marketing of organic food and cotton clothing. (Organic coffee has since been added to the menu.)  By the end of 2006, probably not by complete coincidence, the 196-store chain Whole Foods, leader in the natural-food market and purveyor of edible wonders to the prosperous, announced that its long string of double-digit growth years was ending, with projected 2007 growth dipping to “only” 6 to 8 percent.

Whole Foods handled that problem last year by the time-honored method of buying out the competition: Wild Oats Marketplace, operator of more than 70 stores in the US.  In August, with a Federal Trade Commission antitrust suit still standing in the way of the merger, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey unwittingly bolstered the government’s case with an email to his board. He wrote that his target Wild Oats “is the only existing company that has the brand and number of stores to be a meaningful springboard for another player to get into this space . . . Eliminating them means eliminating this threat forever, or almost forever.”[10]

Whole Foods has grown phenomenally by selling luxury goods to consumers in the upper income brackets.  Mackey is frank about that. In 2005, he told the Independent, "You can't have it both ways. If you want the highest quality, it costs more. It is like complaining that a BMW is more expensive than a Hyundai. Yes, but you're getting a better car.”[11]  And that’s why you don’t see rusty Fords and Plymouths parked outside a Whole Foods Market.

Of the pre-merger company’s 170 US stores in 2006, not a single one was located in a zip code with an average 2003 household income as low as $27,800 – the most common Whole Foods hourly-job salary.  More than 95 percent were in zip codes above the national median income, with more than 25 percent above $100,000 [12].  Lower-level Whole Foods employees could eat fairly well shopping at Wal-Mart, but supplying all their food needs at Whole Foods would be a stretch.  Meanwhile, most Wal-Mart employees would have trouble affording their own employer’s rock-bottom food, let alone its organic food, and could not afford to open the doors at Whole Foods.[13] 

Asked how virtuous food can be made more affordable, Mackey has shown a touchingly simple faith in economic progress: ”I think [organic and natural food] can continue to penetrate, as the culture becomes wealthier.” [14]  If that’s what it takes, don’t count on much progress in the economically fraught years that lie ahead.

Wal-Mart's announced goal was to sell organic food at only 10 percent over the price of conventional food.  That hasn't happened. This week at the company's Supercenter in Salina, Kansas, organic food was available but not easy to find, tucked into small bins scattered here and there in the huge produce section.  Organic versions were selling at the following premiums: spinach, 28% above its conventional counterpart; lettuce, 50%; onions, 56%; potatoes, 100% (i.e., double the price of conventional "NASCAR" brand Russets); milk, 105%; and tomatoes, 200% (and the organic ones were from Mexico).

One result of the corporate takeover of organic food retailing has been the industrialization of organic agriculture. Whole Foods and other big sellers are forced to seek out suppliers who can deliver massive loads of a relatively uniform product, even out of season. Those generally idealistic companies unintentionally paved the organic highway that Wal-Mart is now traveling, and, too late, fear is spreading. For one thing, everyone’s afraid a big share of Wal-Mart’s organic products will come from the company’s favorite source for just about all other merchandise: China.

Michael Pollan has asked how Wal-Mart will manage to cut organic food's typical premium of 50 percent over conventional food to only 10 percent: "It may mean that they’ll have to import food from China or other countries. They’ll have to buy only from the biggest suppliers.”[15]

Critics charge that corporations are exploiting organic agriculture’s feel-good image even when selling conventional products. At a Whole Foods store in Manhattan, writer Field Maloney spotted pictures and folksy profiles of neighborly food-growers (like “a sandy-haired organic leek farmer named Dave”) positioned above non-organic onions from Oregon and Mexico. (Wal-Mart has been caught in similar deception). Maloney guessed that Whole Foods executives are feeling a little off-balance these days, amidst so much talk about the virtues of locally grown food: “After all, a multinational chain can't promote a ‘buy local’ philosophy without being self-defeating.”[16]

If you want to coax higher prices out of customers and keep employees happy at low pay, it helps for both groups to feel a connection to a movement that’s making the world a better place. But the bigger Whole Foods and other retailers grow, the harder it will be to extract premium prices from consumers while convincing workers that they’re part of an important cause.

***

Of all religions, the one to which Americans cling most tightly is the doctrine of the free market.  No belief is more deeply held than the one that says markets will always satisfy people's needs in the best and most efficient way.  That belief persists, unaffected by the market economy's repeated, spectacular failures to perform as advertised.  If green energy and green consumption remain as they are -- as sects within the religion of the market -- they also are doomed to fail.

Stan Cox is a plant breeder and writer in Salina, Kansas. His book Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine will be published by Pluto Press in April. They can be reached at: t.stan@cox.net.

Notes

1.  Harper’s, February 2008.
2.  The Independent, 12 June 2005
3. Chicago Tribune, 30 July 2007
4.  Sauk Valley Telegraph, 26 March 2008
5. http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3568/beyond_propaganda/
6.  Entine’s article was first dropped by Vanity Fair, for whom it was originally written, because the magazine feared being sued under highly restrictive British libel laws.  It has been reprinted in Killed: Great Journalism too Hot to Print, edited by David Wallis (Nation Books, 2004)
7. Terence Turner, ‘Neoliberal ecopolitics and indigenous peoples: the Kayapo, the “Rainforest Harvest,” and The Body Shop’, Yale F & ES Bulletin 98: 113-127 (1995)
8. National Post [Toronto], 21 September 2007
9.  http://www.acca.org.uk/
10.  The Independent, 12 Jan 2006.
11. The Times, London, 2 August 2007.
12. Fortune (2007),
13. S. Cox, Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine (Pluto Books, 2008) 
14.  Wall Street Journal, 4 December, 2006.
15.  Austinist, 25 May 2006
16.  Field Maloney, Slate, 17 March 2006,