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PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS ON HOW THE 'FREE TRADE' CASE FOR OFFSHORING AMERICA'S JOBS HAS COME UNGLUED Roberts on the sensational exposure of the faked "gains" and phantom stats of the free traders. Who was America's most anti-imperialist president? Try Grover Cleveland! JoAnn Wypijewski on the unlikely hero of Hawai'i's restoration movement. Alexander Cockburn reports on evangelical Christians in crisis amid fresh onslaughts by forces of darkness. The Warbler's Parable: Rosa Miriam Elizalde on the black-masked visitors to Cuba defying the US economic blockade.
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Today's Stories June 26, 2007 Jonathan
Cook June 25, 2007 Paul
Craig Roberts Jennifer
Loewenstein Bob
Anderson Robert
Pollin Patrick
Cockburn Eva
Liddell Dan
Bacher Larry
Atkins Mark
Brenner James
Rothenberg Website
of the Day June 23 / 24, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Jeff
Taylor Oren
Ben-Dor Gary
Leupp Robert
Fisk David
Rosen Russell
Mokhiber Alison
Weir Robert
Fantina D.
K. Wilson Nicole
Colson Stephen
Soldz, Steven Reisner and Brad Olson Dave
Lindorff Benjamin
Dangl Michael
Dickinson Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 22, 2007 Andy
Worthington Sherwood
Ross Eliana
Monteforte Robert
Weissman Richard
Rhames Christopher
Brauchli Ramzy
Baroud Ehud
Krinis, David Shulman and Neve Gordon David
Michael Green Kathryn
Webber Website
of the Day
June 21, 2007 Peter
Linebaugh Natsu
Saito Ron
Jacobs Saree
Makdisi John
Stauber Scott
Liebertz Tom
Clifford Robert
Jensen Michael
J. Smith Jeb
Sprague Website
of the Day
Omar
Barghouti Andy
Worthington Margaret
Kimberley Robert
Weissman Russell
D. Hoffman Rannie
Amiri Stephen
Lendman Dave
Lindorff David
Swanson Anne
Dachel Website
of the Day
June 19, 2007 Ralph
Nader Dr.
Shepherd Bliss Bill
and Kathleen Christison Jeff
Leys Dave
Zirin Chris
Floyd Ben
Terrall Anthony
Papa VIPS Linda Flores Website
of the Day
John
Ross Paul
Craig Roberts Martha
Rosenberg Norman
Solomon Don
Santina Isabella
Kenfield James
Brooks Eva
Liddell Sam
Husseini Akiva
Eldar Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn John
Halle Robert
Fisk Andy
Worthington Uri
Avnery Fred
Gardner Saul
Landau P.
Sainath Missy
Comley Beattie Alan
Gregory Walter
Brasch Website
of the Weekend
June 15, 2007 Alan
Farago Andy
Worthington Michael
Simmons Franklin
Lamb Gary
Leupp John
Ross Website
of the Day
June 14, 2007 Michael
Donnelly
Faisal
Kutty Harry
Browne Charles
Jonkel Steven
Higgs Bruce
Dixon Bruce
K. Gagnon
Website
of the Day June 13, 2007 Glen Ford Marjorie Cohn Bill Christison Charles Jonkel Silvia Cattori Richard Gott Firmin DeBrabander William S. Lind Keith Rosenthal Website of the Day June 12, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair Paul Craig
Roberts P. Sainath Ralph Nader Omar Waraich Dave Lindorff Harvey Wasserman Malini Johar
Schueller Ramzy Baroud Website of
the Day
June 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Norman Solomon Eva Liddell Rannie Amiri Rachel Voss Christopher
Brauchli D. K. Wilson Website of
the Day
Alexander Cockburn George Ciccariello-Maher Saul Landau Robert Fisk Brian Cloughley Ron Jacobs Ward Boston Conn Hallinan Leonard Peltier Lawrence Davidson John Ross Kate Allan Fred Gardner Stephen Fleischman Monica Benderman Geoff Bailey Missy Beattie Patrick Dyer Tim Lengerich James Irani
Gary Leupp Michael Tillery Michael Simmons Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 8, 2007 Serge Halimi Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair
Paul Craig Roberts William Blum Joshua Frank Lance Selfa Dave Lindorff Lawrence Ferlinghetti Website of the Day
Marjorie Cohn Soldz, Reisner
and Olson: Soldz, Reisner
Paul Craig Roberts Bill Quigley Silvia Cattori Carl G. Estabrook Ellen Taylor Corporate Crime
Reporter Brenda Norrell D. K. Wilson Kevin Zeese Website of
the Day
Alain Gresh Gary Leupp Steven Sherman Bruce Dixon Corporate Crime Reporter Brian M. Downing Ron Jacobs George Bisharat Nicole Colson Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
June 5, 2007 Michael Neumann Jonathan Cook David Vest Robert Fantina Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury John V. Walsh Richard Cretan Adam Engel William S. Lind Myles Hoenig Jim Minick Website of
the Day
Nizar Latif Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Paul Watson Susan Rosenthal,
MD Richard Ward Eva Liddell Zahi Khouri Evelyn Pringle China Hand Karyn Strickler Website of the Day
June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Marc Levy Martin Smith Diana Johnstone John Ross Uri Avnery Sunsara Taylor Richard Neville P. Sainath Missy Comley
Beattie Nisrine Abiad Rannie Amiri Margot Pepper Eric Stewart Ralph Nader Dan Bacher Shaun Harkin Richard Rhames Frederick Hudson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
Dave Marsh Saul Landau David Phinney Robert Jensen Stanley Heller Yifat Susskind Robert Weissman Paul Buchheit William S.
Lind Sherwood Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
Robert Bryce Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Kathy Kelly Marjorie Cohn Chris Kutalik
Corporate Crime Reporter Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway Franklin Lamb Terrence E. Paupp Uri Avnery Alan Maass Rock and Rap
Confidential Ralph Nader Nirmal Ghosh Jean Daniels Tom Barry Website of the Day
Stephen Soldz Eliza Ernshire Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Mike Whitney David Swanson John Holt Cynthia McKinney Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day
Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Dr. Susan Block Jeeni Criscenzo Douglas Valentine Website of the Day 
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June 26, 2007 Student's Rights or Corporate Personhood?Free Speech Hypocrisy at the Supreme CourtBy ANTHONY DiMAGGIO The Bush administration's successes in appointing its preferred nominees to the Supreme Court appear to have paid off in light of the judicial body's recent rulings favoring corporate power over free speech rights. Monday's Supreme Court students rights and lobbying decisions, while masked as efforts to prevent drug abuse and promote free speech, appear more likely to consolidate big business dominance, while giving short shrift to fundamental First Amendment protections. Problematic in-and-of-itself is the court's student free speech ruling, which constitutes a major step toward curtailing student expression. In a 5-4 decision, the ruling reaffirmed the suspension of an Alaskan high school student who held up a banner with the words "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" across the street from his school during the 2002 Olympic parade. The student, Joseph Frederick, was disciplined for violating a school policy, due to his alleged advocacy of drug use. Although Frederick was standing on a public sidewalk at the time of the incident, school Principal Deborah Morse claimed that Frederick was taking part in a school sanctioned event hence his actions were seen as reflecting poorly on the institution as a whole. Monday's ruling is not the first attack on high school free speech rights, but merely the most recent, as the Supreme Court's 1988 Hazelwood decision is commonly hailed as the first major decision aimed at restricting student expression. The Hazelwood case set a lower free speech threshold for high school student publications, which were not to be classified as "public forums," but rather became the subject of the prior review of high school administrators, many of whom have shown interest in censoring controversial stories and editorials. While the Supreme Court was moving to demolish the free speech rights of real people, it set a new precedent for the strengthening of the First Amendment "rights" of artificial constructs, as it moved to weaken restrictions on use of political advertisements by major corporations. The new decision (which specifically ruled on the political advertising activities of an anti-abortion Wisconsin group) looks as if it will roll back a limitation put forth in the 2002 Campaign Reform Act (a.k.a. the McCain and Feingold bill) which prohibited corporations and unions from financing political ads during the two months before general elections and the month before primaries. The ruling was defended by Chief Justice John Roberts, who claimed that, "the First Amendment requires us to err on the side of protecting political speech rather than suppressing it." Such a rationale is difficult to take seriously though, in light of the court's flagrant contempt for the rights of real persons, as seen in the student free speech case, and its preference for artificial ones. The decision is also dubious, not only in its faulty historical reasoning (the Founding Fathers clearly did not have corporations in mind when they were laying out the free speech protections in the Bill of Rights), but also in terms of its implications for democracy. While the Supreme Court ruling purports to have both labor unions and corporations in mind, the reality of campaign finance and election lobbying is heavily tilted in favor of corporate America and big business. In the 2006 mid-term election, for example, big business gave over 17 times as much in campaign contributions to candidates as did organized labor. Overall, business donations accounted for 73.5% of total contributions, whereas labor donations accounted for a mere 4.2% of contributions in the 2006 election cycle. In such a lopsided lobbying/advertising environment, it is difficult to believe that the Supreme Court's ruling will somehow contribute to a strengthening of pluralistic, democratic competition amongst different interest groups. Quite the contrary, the court's ruling will likely further cement the "shadow cast on society by big business" to borrow an insight John Dewey. Although the recent federal rulings represent a major threat to American democracy, there are signs of hope, albeit on a more decentralized level. While the McCain-Feingold bill itself did much to enable a rebirth of "soft-money" contributions to local candidates and parties (ironically strengthening corporate lobbying power in the name of limiting it) state legislatures have stepped forward to reaffirm free speech rights for real people. State legislatures in Washington, Illinois, Michigan, and Oregon have proposed free speech bills this year that will protect students in higher education from the possible censorship of school administrators. Such initiatives, should they be implemented in these states, represent a major victory for those committed to free speech. While recent rulings such as Hosty v. Carter have sought to limit free speech in higher education exclusively to papers designated by universities and colleges as "publicly designated forums," the bills arising from within these states would extend publishing protections to all school newspapers, regardless of their technical titles. The Illinois College Campus Press Act, for example, circumvents the "publicly designated forum" restrictions entirely by designating all school papers as free forums for student expression. The bill has gained the support of civil liberties watchdogs such as the ACLU, as the initiative was heralded by Edwin Yohnka (Illinois ACLU Director of Communications and Public Policy) as "a major step in restoring the free speech and free press rights of student journalists on our college campuses." Of course, such bills are still more the exception than the norm. Similar bills will need to be introduced and passed either in every state, or at the federal level, for student free expression to be ensured. In addition, there is still the issue of big business dominance of campaign finance and political advertising. Major steps toward eliminating legal bribery (a.k.a. political campaign contributions) and corporate dominance of advertising will be necessary if we are to move toward truly democratic, open elections. As John Dewey so presciently warned in his day: "talk of democracy has little content when big business rules the life of the country through its control of the means of production, exchange, the press, and other means of publicity, propaganda, and communication." Only time will tell whether the American people are up to the challenge of taking back their democracy from the corporate and political elite and their plutocratic stranglehold over government. Anthony DiMaggio has taught Middle East Politics and American Government at Illinois State University. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Mass Media, Mass Propaganda: Understanding American News in the "War on Terror" (December 2007). He can be reached at: Adimag2@uic.edu
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CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy  Click Here to Buy! How the Press Failed The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
