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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 8, 2008 Manuel Garcia, Jr. 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 Ronald 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 July 26 / 27, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair James G. Abourezk Joseph Nevins Uri Avnery Linn Washington, Jr. David Yearsley Binoy Kampmark Saul Landau Joshua Frank Brendan Cooney Jonathan Cook Robert Fantina Lee Sustar Michael Winship David Macaray Missy Beattie Robert Weissman Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend July 25, 2008 Harvey Wasserman Paul Craig Roberts Alan Farago Paul D'Amato Gary Leupp Niranjan Ramakrishnan Mike Whitney Paul Krassner Mike Roselle Website of the Day July 24, 2008 Greg Moses Andy Worthington James Bovard Joe Bageant George Wuerthner DC Larson William Willers David Macaray Website of the Day July 23, 2008 Winslow T. Wheeler Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Mike Whitney Susie Day Website of the Day July 22, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Patrick Cockburn Soldz, Olson, Reisner Arrigo and Welch Moshe Adler Martha Rosenberg Dan Bacher Harvey Wasserman Anthony Papa Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day July 21, 2008 Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Scott Pellegrino John Ross Robert Weitzel Mike Stark Website of the Day July 19 / 20, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Dave Lindorff Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Uri Avnery Neve Gordon Roane Carey Robert Fantina Christopher Brauchli Fred Gardner David Macaray Richard L. Hutto Bill Moyers / Ronnie Cummins David Yearsley Alison McKenna Wajahat Ali Poets' Basement Website of the Day July 18, 2008 Corey D. B. Walker Mike Whitney Robert Bryce Mike Roselle Bouthaina Shaaban Eve Spangler Website of the Day
July 17, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts James G. Abourezk Ralph Nader Allan J. Lichtman Andy Worthington"Screwed Up" and"Abused": Omar Khadr's Interrogations at Gitmo Ronnie Cummins
July 16, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig Roberts Conn Hallinan Dave Lindorff William S. Lind Christopher Brauchli Website of the Day
July 15, 2008 Michael Hudson Brian Cloughley Patrick Cockburn John Ross Howard Lisnoff Website of the Day July 14, 2008 Uri Avnery Paul Craig Roberts Trish Schuh Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Alan Farago Seth Sandronsky Phyllis Pollack Website of the Day July 12 / 13, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair James Abourezk Nicole Colson Stan Cox Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Wajahat Ali / John Stauber Alan Farago Missy Beattie Robert Fantina Rannie Amiri Gregory Kafoury Fran Shor Martha Rosenberg David Macaray Andrew Wimmer Ron Jacobs Farzana Versey Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend July 11, 2008 Kevin Alexander Gray Sasan Fayazmanesh Peter Morici Mike Whitney Manuel Garcia, Jr. Robert Weissman Ramzy Baroud Kelly Overton Adrian Burgos Website of the Day July 10, 2008 Brian McKenna Paul Craig Roberts Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Joshua Frank Peter Morici Alan Maass Robert Weissman William Blum Alan Farago Website of the Day July 9, 2008 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Luis Rodriguez Sheldon Richman Fatemeh Keshavarz Chad Hanson Sen. Russ Feingold Niranjan Ramakrishnan Dave Lindorff Stanley Heller Philip Rizk Website of the Day July 8, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Laura Carlsen Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Patrick Irelan Chellis Glendinning David Macaray Dave Lindorff John Chuckman Phillip Doe Website of the Day July 7, 2008 Patrick Bond Kathy Kelly Andy Worthington Clifton Ross Elizabeth Schulte Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Binoy Kampmark Stephen Fleischman Website of the Day July 5 / 6, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair / Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Robert Fantina Binoy Kampmark Rannie Amiri Eric Ruder Brian Cloughley William Blum Frank Barat Christopher Brauchli David Yearsley Ron Jacobs Karim Makdisi Wendy Thompson / N. D. Jayaprakash Ramzy Baroud Kelly Overton Richard Neville Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
July 4, 2008 Kathy Kelly Dave Lindorff Paul Krassner Jackie Corr Laray Polk Dan Bacher Walter Brasch Charles Modiano Website of the Day July 3, 2008 Sharon Smith Andy Worthington Laura Carlsen Peter Morici Ramzi Kysia Martha Rosenberg Anne Landman Dave Zirin Kristin Bricker Website of the Day
July 2, 2008 Patrick Irelan Vijay Prashad Brian Cloughley Ralph Nader Robert Fantina Dave Lindorff Parvez Ahmed Robert Bryce Website of the Day July 1, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Mike Whitney Douglas Macgregor Steven Higgs Andy Worthington Binoy Kampmark Dave Lindorff Roger Burbach Richard W. Behan Gary Leupp Website of the Day |
August 8, 2008 The Politics of the Housing CrisisWhen Miami Goes BustBy ALAN FARAGO Miami-Dade is the most populous county in Florida, a state that has proven its electoral importance in presidential races. So, what happens in Miami bears scrutiny, in particular in respect to how voters assess responsibility for the nation's economic ills. Both presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, are attempting to focus the electorate's inchoate anger through high gasoline prices. In Florida, the issue is manifesting in a decidedly desultory and misdirected way: proposals for offshore oil drilling. For its part, Wall Street would be perfectly happy to keep the nation's attention on gasoline prices, but the real affliction of the United States economy is debt and insolvency. Both have their roots in a housing bust draining the wealth of the nation. ("Florida's real estate bust cost: $153 billion", Miami Herald, August 5, 2008). The political origins of this national economic catastrophe began in Miami. Hard to believe but true: using the deflection of Castro to animate block voters in Hispanic districts distorted public policy in service of private real estate speculators; from Section 8 housing to subdivisions in farmland, and served as a model to bring down the whole economy. Parochial, ward politics have been practiced to perfection throughout America. But the defining feature of ward politics in most cases is leveraged in political patronage and union contracts. The Miami model had both with the addition of a new element: the manipulation of US foreign policy in service of domestic real estate speculators. To be sure, private fortunes were being made in Florida real estate long before the waves of immigration, but it was the Latin Builders who perfected a scalable model, a model that not just used local ward politics to direct public infrastructure in service of private development but also depended on suppressing dissent by privately funding radio talk show hosts for whom hatred of Castro corralled voters into electoral cattle chutes. Both Wall Street and the building industry grasped how the Miami model of development could proliferate throughout the fastest growing areas of the nation whose citizens didn't care about Castro. Of the political parties, Republicans-- and especially Karl Rove-- understood how rapid growth of suburbs in farmland, facilitated by free market ideology that demonized "regulation" (ascribed by Miami Cuban politicians as "the hand of communism"), dovetailed with national political ambitions. The ascendancy of two-term former governor Jeb Bush, a Miami developer before his political career materialized, and then President Bush depended on campaign contributions aggregated through builders, exemplified by Miami's Latin Builders Association, and the supply chain maximizing profits based on platted subdivisions in farmland. In Miami-Dade, all farmland was once Everglades wetlands. The scalability of an economic model based on real estate speculation--the one that pushed both Bush brothers to power-- required a radical shift of power and authority from federal laws to the states and local regulations. During the housing boom in Florida and in Washington, DC, under control of Republican majorities, a virtual holy war was waged against rules and regulations protecting the public interest. Intense resources were applied to messaging the virtues of self-regulation, privatization, and shrinking the size of government so it could fit in a bathtub, presumably to be drowned. In Miami-Dade and in Florida, the last phase of the housing boom added a fourth feature: new laws raising impossibly high barriers to the ability of citizens to petition their own government. The "democracy" the Bush White House has tried to export needs to be understood through the Florida viewfinder, where the demon of regulation substituted for Castro and law denied more than 10,000 felons the right to vote but allowed them to work in the mortgage industry. Today, US newspapers are struggling for ways to report the worst real estate crisis since the Great Depression. For the most part, news stories-- filed by economic writers uncomfortable with reporting politics, or political writers uncomfortable making connections to powerful newspaper advertisers-- rely on the sources and interests that caused the asset bubble and bust in the first place-- production homebuilders and condo kings linked to bankers and local city and county commissioners and economists. The Miami model of development-- that steam-rollered the region's quality of life, the environment, and sound planning for infrastructure-- was built on "what the market wants" without challenge by the mainstream press. Critics received minimal coverage, as though the media were frightened off by the intensity of charges of "elitism" by developers and advertisers. We don't hear that, anymore. What we hear is how trillion dollars has been drained down the rathole of toxic debt from the housing bust, now backed by the US taxpayer. We don't hear how these financial events already rained billions in fees and commissions to Wall Street bankers and will rain more, as the sale of new "rescue" packages generate more commissions and fees. In specific, what we read today is what the blogs like eyeonmiami.blogspot.com said a year ago: that the subprime crisis had to be just the tip of an iceberg, the leading edge of an economic tsunami. "The first wave of Americans to default on their home mortgages appears to be cresting, but a second, far larger one is quickly building." (NY Times, "Housing Lenders Fear Bigger Wave of Defaults", August 4, 2008) What we read today, in reports like the front page of the Miami Herald today, is the consequence of so much misplaced public priority in the service of real estate speculators: massive budget deficits in state and local government tied to a $153 billion loss of real estate values in Florida. What we read are the effects: like Rudy Crew, Miami-Dade's school superintendent--one of the top educators in the nation--, being chewed like a dog bone by school board members as though Crew himself was to blame for the $150 million shortfall in the county school budget; declining income that is the direct result of horrendous growth policies whose past profits funded political campaigns for those very same school board members who want Crew's head. The Herald story on the crash of real estate values quotes Broward County Property Appraiser Lori Parrish "pinning much of the blame 'on really unscrupulous mortgage brokers'". But blaming mortgage brokers is like blaming street corner drug runners for demand. It's like blaming public schools for the diversion of tax dollars to school vouchers. Its like blaming gays for everything else. What newspapers have failed to do is to link the whole bust to systemic corruption and greed wrapping up fiscal and monetary policies of the federal government with local developers who control local government. It is easy enough to see that blame starts with Wall Street bankers and firms like Merrill Lynch, whose debt has just been sold for pennies on the dollar; pennies it had to finance to boot. But the real target of blame should be campaign contributors whose quid pro quo with elected officials was enabling real estate speculation to sound economic policies and fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers. Consider key Bush and McCain fund raiser Al Hoffman, a central cog of the housing bust wheel, whose former company-- WCI Communities-- yesterday declared bankrupcy along with more than 120 subsidiaries; partnerships to aggregate, zone, and subdivide land for production homes for which a real market never existed. It was Hoffman who claimed, in 2003, that suburban sprawl was an unstoppable force. The Herald's penultimate word is given to Robert Parrish, president of the Florida Home Builders Association, who told Governor Charlie Crist at a business round table discussion: "We're not getting any better... We could be getting sicker. We're looking for the doctor." What the Florida builders' spokesman means are further bailouts by taxpayers whose budgets are already stretched to the limit. With friends like Florida's building industry, who needs enemies? Alan Farago writes on politics, the economy and the environment in Coral Gables, Florida. He can be reached at alanfarago@yahoo.com
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