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Calling All CounterPunchers!
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Today's Stories November 11, 2008 James G. Abourezk Allan J. Lichtman Laura Carlsen Col. Dan Smith Morton Skorodin November 10, 2008 David Roediger Paul Craig Roberts Peter Lee Corey D. B. Walker Jeff Halper Bill Hatch Andy Worthington Bill Quigley Peter Morici Anthony Olszewski Kim Nicolini Cpt. Paul Watson Website of the Day November 7 / 9, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Vijay Prashad Tariq Ali Jean Bricmont John V. Whitbeck Saul Landau Peter Morici Lawrence Velvel Karyn Strickler Nativo V. Lopez Christopher Fons Alan Farago David Yearsley Christopher Brauchli Samah Sabawi Dave Lindorff Deepak Tripathi Beth Sherouse Patrick Irelan Stephen Martin Richard Rhames J. Murray Lorenzo Wolff Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Day
November 6, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez John Chuckman P. Sainath Joshua Frank Edna Canetti John Ross Norman Solomon Fawzia Afzal-Khan Robert Weissman Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day
November 5, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Chuck Spinney Ishmael Reed Chris Floyd Binoy Kampmark Michael Donnelly David Macaray Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. William Willers Website of the Day November 4, 2008 Kathleen Christison James Ridgeway Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Conn Hallinan Holly M. Barker Ashley Smith Andy Worthington Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Doug Lummis Carlos Fierro Website of the Day November 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn John Kennedy O'Hara Peter Montague Steve Conn Andrew Gebhardt Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader Niranjan Ramakrishnan Uri Avnery Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner DC Larson David Michael Green Val Strange Tuli Kupferberg / Website of the Day
October 31 , 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Douglas Valentine Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Dr. Ignacy Nowopolski Alan Maass William P. O’Connor Patrick Irelan Brian Cloughley Mats Svensson Binoy Kampmark Steve Conn Alan Farago Morton Skorodin Robert Bryce Wajahat Ali David Yearsley Dennis Loo Pam Martens Stephen Martin Richard Rhames Ramzy Baroud Missy Beattie Howard Lisnoff Richard Neville Saul Landau / Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Stanley Heller William Loren Katz Joshua Frank James McEnteer Felice Pace Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
October 29, 2008 Arno J. Mayer Eric Toussaint Matt Gonzalez Steven Conn Jonathan Cook Patrick Bond Ramzi Kysia Douglas Valentine Stephen Martin Margaret Dooley-Sammuli Amee Chew Website of the Day
October 28, 2008 James G. Abourezk Andy Worthington Gary Leupp Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Gregory V. Button Ralph Nader P. Sainath Martha Rosenberg Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 27, 2008 Michael Hudson Barbara Rose Johnston John Dinges Mike Whitney Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power Alan Farago David Michael Green Andy Worthington George Wuerthner Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day October 24 / 26, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Don Santina Scott Boehm Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Linn Washington Jr. Nicole Colson Bernard Chazelle Brian Jones Christopher Brauchli Benjamin Dangl Val Strange Steve Early David Macaray Allison Kilkenny Richard Rhames Jim Bell Kris De Welde Barry Clemson Adam Engel Mark Scaramella Tuli Kupferberg Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 23, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Todd Chretien John Ross Peter Morici Mats Svensson Marlene Martin Robert Jensen / Margaret Kimberley Deepak Tripathi David Morris Website of the Day October 22, 2008 Brian Cloughley Heather Gray Jeff Birkenstein Ralph Nader DC Larson David Swanson Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth Larry Everest Robert Fantina Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Website of the Day October 21, 2008 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Corey D. B. Walker Steve Breyman Eric Toussaint Wajahat Ali Robert Weitzel Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing Patrick B. Barr Omar Barghouti Website of the Day October 20, 2008 Michael Hudson Anthony DiMaggio Tariq Ali Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Ben Rosenfeld David Michael Green William S. Lind Chris Genovali Stephen Martin Howard Lisnoff David Yearsley Website of the Day October 17 / 19, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whtney Michael D. Yates Suzanne Smith Carl Boggs Ralph Nader Fidel Castro Dave Marsh Saul Landau Jo Guldi Kevin Zeese Larry Everest Steve Early David Macaray Ben Terrall Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Helen Redmond Dan Bacher Wajahat Ali Farzana Versey Vladimir Frolov Kim Nicolini Poets Basement Website of the Day
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November 11, 2008 A Leftist Looks at the Near FutureMoving Beyond HopeBy RON JACOBS I can't deny the exhilaration I felt on Tuesday, November 4th when the presidential election was called for Barack Obama. When people in my working class multiethnic neighborhood started setting off firecrackers and shouting out their windows, my housemate's daughter joined them. The feelings most of us felt on knowing that the reactionary Bush regime was on its last legs were genuine emotions of hope and relief. Our job now is to turn the critical support that Obama received from many on the left into a movement that strives to return the focus of the movement away from the man and his victory and towards ending the war/occupations, etc. To do this, we must engage the issues. The most important issues are the issues of imperial war and capitalist failure. We should understand the difference between the symbolism of a black man winning the presidency of the United States and the reality of a moderate liberal free marketeer who believes that there is a war on terror and that it can be won by killing Afghanis and other people whose religion and culture are used to define them as the enemy. We need to learn from history. For starters, this means push for and support any left leaning reforms proposed by Obama and oppose his reactionary efforts to continue, expand and intensify the war on the world and the impoverishment of the nation. As activists, we must resist cynicism and embrace the desire for change. The Obama campaign on the ground reminded me of other bourgeois popular movements that were supported by the national left in those countries--Peoples Power in Philippines comes quickly to mind. This reform movement rid that nation of the Marcos dictatorship, but replaced it with a regime that entrenched itself in the neoliberal economic politics of its day. The Philippines remains a nation that fails to serve a large number of its people. In short, we must keep in mind what we already know--that the defeat of the reactionary Bush regime and the election of Barack Obama is merely the first forward step in a long time in a struggle that is even longer. Even more importantly, the Left must help the larger numbers of antiwarriors and seekers of economic justice understand this as we organize and work to make our most fundamental hopes come true. How then, do we do this? There are two key elements. Politics and organization. Let me discuss the second one first. This is where we can learn from the Obama campaign. As an observer, I was impressed by its grassroots nature, steadiness of message, understanding of its purpose and its relentless yet levelheaded pursuit of its goal. There are a couple elements here that the Left can surely learn from, no matter what the political situation is in the world. We must understand our purpose and maintain a relentless yet levelheaded pursuit of our goals. Opposition to the occupations and wars of Washington must be organized with an understanding that it is imperialism that causes these wars and that understanding must be translated to the grassroots. Resistance to the capitalists' theft of the peoples monies for their aggrandizement must be explained for what it is--the natural workings of monopoly capitalism, not some aberration due to greed and lack of regulation. We know this because we study this. It is necessary that we make this knowledge better understood by many more people. After all, people do want to understand why their world is so screwed up. The election of Obama and his message of change is evidence of that. His presidency is almost certain to prove that the change he is referring to is not going to be enough. Obama's message is one that encourages inclusiveness. We have all heard him say that this nation is not the "blue states of America or the red states of America, but the United States of America." No matter what we think about the red, the blue or the red, white and blue, the fundamental message of this statement is that humanity shares several commonalities and that is what we must emphasize. As leftists, we must naturally go beyond the commonalities of our humanity and address the commonalities shared by those whom we wish to organize--the working class and its allies. There are many organizations on the progressive and left side of the political spectrum here in the US. They are naturally composed of both members of the working class and their allies. A few that come to mind are labor unions, SDS, UFPJ, ANSWER, and even MoveOn and the Green Party. In addition, there are other informal movements and networks organized around death penalty and prisoner issues, immigration and sanctuary issues, women's and TBGLT issues and so on. Add to that the national networks opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on drugs and you come up with a substantial number of folks. This is our potential base. This is who we must debate anti-capitalist politics with. This is who we must enter into coalitions with--coalitions that will rebuild the movement against the war and torture; coalitions that will end the police state actions of the immigration authorities and insure full human rights for those who live in this country without papers; coalitions that will expose Wall Street for the gang of criminals that it is and insure that working people and those without work but looking benefit from any bailouts legislated in Washington; and so on. We have lived under one of the most unabashedly antidemocratic regimes in US history for the past eight years. We have seen principles written into this nation's most important document--the Bill of Rights--openly and gleefully violated and buried. We have seen the richest people, the corporations and banks in this country steal without shame from the national treasury. We have seen authoritarian bigots impose their regressive and racist dogma into the national conversation and law books, sometimes under the pretense of security and other times under the cloak of a religion built on hate. We have seen men and women sent off to kill men, women and children in the name of power and wealth. We have heard the politicians and technocrats in Washington discuss the torture of other human beings as calmly as they touch the switch that lights the national Christmas tree every year. The blatant contempt we have felt has resulted in a despair I haven't seen since the dark days of the early 1970s when Nixon and his secret police were using whatever means they could to destroy the popular movements of the 1960s. The election results on November 4th, 2008 prove to us as much as anybody else that, despite this recent legacy, many residents of this land hope things can change. History has not always been kind to those with hopes such as these. After all, this nation, like all nations, has seen times worse than these past eight years, only to have their hopes picked up by some politician speaking pretty phrases but limited by his determination to resolve the crises he faced while leaving the very system that created the crisis intact. Yet, hope is better than despair. I leave you with a quote from the 19th century anarchist Peter Kropotkin: "Revolutions are born of hope, not despair." Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net
New in the Print Edition of CounterPunch For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederic Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! 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. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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New in the CP Print Edition! For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederic Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; and Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Waiting for Lightning
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