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Today's Stories March 20, 2008 Millet / Toussaint The Triple Falling of the Big Private Banks Mike Whitney Winding Up Bear 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 Why Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face Robin Blackburn Question for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the 'Right War'? Saul Landau The Stupid Economy Binoy Kampmark When Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats Chris Floyd Crushing the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire Andy Worthington Spanish Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo Britons Will Potter Before the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word March 6, 2008   March 6, 2008 Vincent Navarro The Next Failure of Health Reform Forrest Hylton High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President Peter Morici Why the Dollar is So Cheap George Ciccariello-Maher Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats John Ross Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars Jacob Hornberger No Standing to Lecture on Justice Paul Watson Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers Dan Bacher Off the Deep End Website of the Day A Katrina Reader Online   March 5, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair A Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader) Joanne Mariner After Guantanamo Fidel Castro The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa Christopher Brauchli The Turkish Invasions Steven Sherman Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left Dave Lindorff Busting Bush & Co. in New England James Murren Bombing Somalia Adam Engel Necropolis Now Website of Day Remember Song   March 4, 2008 Wajahat Ali Mumbo Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed William Blum How Could Hillary Have Known? Bill Quigley The Cleansing of New Orleans Ralph Nader The Prince Harry Solution Patrick Irelan Oil and Health in Venezuela James J. Brittain / R. James Sacouman Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America Norman Solomon The War Election Jacob Hornberger Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the European Parliament Mike Averko Kosovo and the Press Website of the Day Tex-Mex Primary   March 3, 2008 Jennifer Loewenstein Gazan Holocaust Alan Farago American Politics and the Faltering Economy Richard Gott Colombian Deaths in Ecuador Wajahat Ali Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup Poll with John Esposito Paul Craig Roberts The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution Robert Weissman When Multinationals Say Adieu Uri Avnery Good Morning, Hamas Martha Rosenberg When Your Meat is a Downer Eva Liddell Leave the Next Dance for Bill Michael Donnelly Will Ferrell Does Flint Website of the Day Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues   March 1 / 2, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Race Card Paul Craig Roberts The Political Trial of Don Siegelman Kathleen and Bill Christison Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism Nelson P. Valdés Cuba After Fidel Christopher Brauchli Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick Ron Jacobs Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge John Ross The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico Robert Fantina Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins Robert Weissman Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy Mohammed Omer Fear in Gaza Remi Kanazi Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia Bob Jackson Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd? Richard Rhames Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury Franklin Lamb Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole Rannie Amiri Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon David Michael Green The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam Conn Hallinan Notes from the Southern Cone Faheem Hussain Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy Poets' Basement Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford Website of the Weekend The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!     February 29, 2008 Matt Gonzalez The Obama Craze Jonathan Cook Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel Joshua Frank Obama and Israel Anthony DiMaggio The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback of American Law Linn Washington, Jr. Cop Abuse in America Binoy Kampmark Hubris and Nemesis Robert Bryce Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy Use Sonja Karkar Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel Dave Lindorff A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush? Website of the Day Olduvai George   February 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn "Iraq" Falls Apart Fred Gardner The Birth of NAFTA Michael Levitin The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning William S. Lind The Fake State of Kosovo David Macaray A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor Stephen Fleischman Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod? George Wuerthner The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron Laura Carlsen The North American Union Farce Carl Finamore Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off Michael Dickinson The Day I Bombed the House of Commons Website of the Day Plane Stupid   February 27, 2008 David Rosen Playing the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political Dirty Tricks Vijay Prashad Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War Harvey Wasserman Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink? Andy Worthington Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns, Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense Wajahat Ali Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's Military Economy Peter Morici The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal Stephen Philion Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement Michael Donnelly Obama by Unanimous Decision Erica Rosenberg / Janine Blaeloch After the Land Deals: Will There be Any Wilderness Left to Protect? Website of the Day Dress Blues   February 26, 2008 Debbie Nathan Confessions of a Gitmo Guard Alan Dershowitz v. Frank Menetrez On Finkelstein Harvey Wasserman How Ohio Got Nuked Michael Colby Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals Gary Leupp Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade David Orchard The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan Martha Rosenberg The Big HRT Fran Shor The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow Serge Halimi The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan for the French Left Global Balkans Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans: an Interview with Tariq Ali Website of the Day Texistentialism   February 25, 2008 Roger Morris A Death in Damascus Anthony DiMaggio Military Bases, the Media and the Democrats Ralph Nader Why I'm Running Patrick Cockburn Iraq Broils Paul Craig Roberts Kosovo and the Empire Crazies Peter Morici Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms Dave Lindorff General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That Minot Nuke Incident Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film Heather Gray James Orange, Civil Rights Legend Robert Weitzel Accomodating Torture John Halle Kucinich Goes Down Website of the Day Do the Trunk Monkey! February 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain Paul Craig Roberts Obama and Global Trade Wajahat Ali Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon on the 9/11 Commission Ralph Nader Neutering the FDA Jürgen Vsych "What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?" Fidel Castro Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo David Macaray Unions Under Assault Jeremy Scahill The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence David Krieger Stanley Sheinbaum Caging the Cold War Monster Ron Jacobs Building for the Future Michael Garrity The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies Brian McKenna Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down Missy Beattie Over the Hill with John McCain Fred Gardner American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly) Boris Kagarlitsky The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement Mike Ferner Kick That Barrel Dan Bacher On the Trail with the Border Angels Christopher Ketcham Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread Poets' Basement Davies and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Obama Mariachi   February 22, 2008 Mike Whitney The Bonfire of Capital Jason Hribal Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet Liaquat Ali Khan Arresting Musharraf Joshua Frank That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child Dave Lindorff Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for Her! Liliana Segura When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion Robert Fantina Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen? Yifat Susskind The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women Norm Kent Pushing 60 with Pot Website of the Day Bush Gets Down in Liberia February 21, 2008 Saul Landau Fidel Steps Aside Elizabeth Schulte Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed Helen Redmond Health Care as a Human Right Benjamin Dangl Undermining Bolivia Michael Levitin Kosovo's Dilemma Liam Leonard Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle Patrick Irelan Land and Food in Venezuela Linn Cohen-Cole Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto Michael Simmons Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music CounterPunch News Service A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs Website of the Day Cop Abuse in Shreveport             Subscribe Online

March 20, 2008 When Reality is Too Much Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr. A truly good man is not aware of his goodness, And is therefore good. A foolish man tries to be be good, And is therefore not good. A truly good man does nothing, Yet leaves nothing undone. A foolish man is always doing, Yet much remains to be done. When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone. When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be done. When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds, He rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order. Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is kindness. When kindness is lost, there is justice. When justice is lost, there is ritual. Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion. Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of Tao. It is the beginning of folly. Therefore the truly great man dwells on what is real and not what is on the surface, On the fruit and not the flower. Therefore accept the one and reject the other. Lao Tsu (6th century B. C.), #38, Tao Te Ching (translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English; Vintage, 1972)   Barack Obama has delivered a speech on race in the United States that was both anxiously anticipated and now widely proclaimed as a major event not just of the current presidential campaign season, but of American politics generally and thus presumably of American history. The tactical purpose of the speech was to distance Obama from Pastor Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which Obama has attended. Pastor Wright had made comments in the past, which were recorded, about Black history and Black sentiments about this history. These homilies were unvarnished and factually accurate, hence unflattering about the role of White society in Black history. Naturally, the political opponents of Barack Obama fanned the racist flames of White fear by publicizing these supposedly intemperate rantings of an angry Black man (note my use of triggering code words) in an effort to discredit Obama in the eyes of his potential White voters; guilt by association. As an aside on a point of logic, note how political dirty tricksters rush (race?) to insult the intelligence of their target audience as an integral part of their underhanded methodology to woo them. Tim Wise at Counter Punch and Glen Ford at Black Agenda Report each wrote clearly about the essential reality of this incident. What follows is a gloss on these articles, written as a response to correspondence from a Black brother of mine overseas. The only thing Bill Clinton ever got right was stolen from Marx: "It's the economy, stupid." And so it is with the Great White Religion, the racism is part and parcel of an exclusionary economic policy. Israel mirrors this with its supposedly Jewish-only, Jewish-first policies as masks for its naked genocide of Palestinians. My definition of genocide is the attempted permanent removal of a victimized racially-labeled population from real estate being stolen by an aggressor of different racial-label identification. We might be close to this in post-Katrina New Orleans. It is always a real estate swindle masked as 'culturicide.' I find many Blacks to be so resentful (with complete justification) of our joint history, that they are not always clear and rational about the nature of the existing situation. Yes, there is White-on-Black racism (along with many other forms), but its root is not primarily simple emotional hatred, rather it is both fear (of two kinds: xenophobia and the historical guilt over slavery that Thomas Jefferson admitted to) and greed. The mania for control is driven by greed, and the essential fear is the anxiety over the loss of that control. Ascribing White-on-Black racism to simple emotional hatred is the most comfortable overt explanation, as is clear from its prominence in the depictions of racism in popular culture (e.g., movies). The dominant culture finds it comforting to imagine that racism is confined to people with ungovernable hatreds and undisciplined minds. This relieves the majority who are comfortable with inequitable economic arrangements from any responsibility for the inevitable consequences of those arrangements; and even from any reproach in the eyes of recognized public opinion. Racism is an instinctive tool to capture resources and deny them to competitor "species." This is why Obama is backed by the Wall Street bankers. To them, he is a tool to safeguard their fortunes against the rising tide of public resentment. They are excellent psychologists, and psychic abusers of the popular Black mind. They know, through their experts in PR (advertising and the management of the public mind), how the popular Black mind pines for symbols of "hope," for action heros on basketball courts and on the big screen -- Will Smith saving the fantasy worlds Hollywood conjures with smoke and mirrors. Any hero in any arena can be produced to distract and quell the masses, so long as it is not an actual hero in any arena of actual power. Look at our Black "symbols" in those real arenas today: Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell; they've done precious little for Blacks in America, and have cashed in handsomely for precisely that reason. Most blacks are "supporting" (deluding themselves over) Obama for the same reason that older spoiled whiney white women are "supporting" Hillary: identification, they want what they see in the mirror to be honored, to be loved, to get attention, to be in control. Obama may have some decent intentions beyond his blatant careerism, but clearly the careerism is primary, and for that he must reassure his sponsors that he can quell the public. The job he is applying for is to keep public affairs calm enough so the same select businesses and the same select gamesters can continue to make the same government-backed mega-profits. In business circles, this is called "maintaining a stable business environment." Obama says "change" but his sponsors know this to mean "stability." "Change" is what we'll get from the billions we are forced to pay into taxes and inflated prices that profit all too few. Populations that have histories of being oppressed are easily duped, because they are so desperate for "relief," for "salvation." This is why I labeled the PR machinery behind White power, including the White power with the Obama nameplate, as "abusers." They are preying on Black prayers, they are hooking many desperate fish with baitless flashy lures. Someone like Wright states the plain facts, and it messes up the con-job of the PR hucksters luring the wanting masses. It also messes up the pleasurable delusions of those self-same wanting masses, having psychic orgasms they don't want stopped and which are based on the swallowing of political placebos. Reality can be too much for many people, especially when they have gaping holes of unfulfilled wants leaking psychological vitality and robust rationality out of their psyches. For every type of victim there is a highly specialized predator, especially when the prey form in vast herds. So it is in America, which worships in the faith of mega-profits from mono-culture, at the Church of Ford, as Aldous Huxley penned for Brave New World, where the continent-wide herds of the wanting are vaster than ever were those of the buffalo, and where the profits to be gained by directing this herd are vaster than the dreams of Croesus. Who better than Barack Obama to galvanize that attention of the wanting public mind? The genius of the American psychological predation industry is that it herds its prey in as a mass rather then chasing it down individually. Our Croesusian aristocrats will probably discipline themselves sufficiently to give the public the lure it has favored because he resonates and reflects so many of its fondest fantasies. The people have spoken, and our gods will guide us accordingly. True believers in the Obama campaign may find this analysis repellant, because those gripped by an irrational faith do not like to see the dissection of their fantasies. Obama, they might say, is better than McCain, and we should back Obama to overturn Bush-Cheney-McCainist control of the Empire. But if so, we still have the Empire, and Obama has come to prominence precisely because of a demonstrated loyalty to that Empire, not because of a revolutionary fervor to topple it. The lesser evil is still no good for far too many people and, empire being intrinsically racist, it will disproportionately injure disfavored minorities. So Obama is "change," Obama is "hope" when we shrink-wrap our minds with elastic and impenetrable delusions. Obama is not Thurgood Marshall, nor Martin Luther King, Jr., nor Malcolm X, which is why you see him in our televised Pantheon. This is also why Jeremiah Wright must be dispatched with contempt from public consideration, and why Barack Obama must elevate himself stratospherically from his once upon a time pastor, and once upon a time flock. I think commentary on racism is most incisive when it keeps its focus on the economic dimension -- which I believe is central -- rather than the emotionalism about "hate" wallowed in to excess by infotainment for the unthinking. It is better to focus on the intent and the purposes of the racism, which are to create and maintain economic disparities. From such focal points, one can advance policy and law enforcement arguments to eliminate these imbalances. Then, you are speaking about the here and now in a clear, unvarnished and rational manner. This can be extremely hard-hitting without being pitiful and cloying. This is in the spirit of Malcolm X and Frantz Fanon, and that is momentum, that is self-respect, that is pride. If we got enough of this, it might also be revolution. Manuel Garcia, Jr. retired from a nuclear weapons and physics job, and is writing an engineering textbook about solar energy. His email is mango@idiom.com.

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