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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 19, 2008 Deepak Tripathi August 18, 2008 Tariq Ali Gary Leupp Uri Avnery John Ross Farooq Sulehria Luis Rodriguez Manuel Garcia, Jr. Noah Baker Merrill Charles Thomson Website of the Day August 16 / 17, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Deepak Tripathi Conn Hallinan Mike Whitney Robert Fantina Ray McGovern Nicole Colson Fatima Bhutto Jean-Luis Rocca David Michael Green Ramzi Kysia Dave Lindorff Lisa Martinovic Richard Rhames Don Santina Rannie Amiri Ramzy Baroud John Stanton Howard Lisnoff Ron Jacobs Seth Sandronsky Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
August 15, 2008 Steve Niva David Remington Michael Winship Paul Craig Roberts Farzana Versey Harvey Wasserman Felice Pace Julian Critchley Website of the Day August 14, 2008 Saul Landau / Conn Hallinan Mike Whitney Reza Fiyouzat Ralph Nader Christopher Brauchli The Cheerleader in China Jack Bradigan Spula Patrick Irelan John Walsh Dan Bacher Website of the Day
August 13, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts David Remington Brian Cloughley Glen Ford Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Tom Lewis Stan Cox Alan Farago Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day August 12, 2008 Uri Avnery Anthony DiMaggio Bill Christison Eric Walberg Kate Connolly Diane Farsetta Peter Morici Thom Rutledge Lee Patton Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day August 11, 2008 Ishmael Reed Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Douglas Kammen William Willers Greg Moses Jeff Leys Cynthia McKinney Alan Farago Website of the Day August 9 / 10, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Bruce Jackson Kevin Young Chris Floyd Joshua Frank Robert Fantina Brendan Cooney Mark Almond Lois Gibbs Rev. William Alberts Kathy Kelly John Ross David Michael Green Bill Moyers / Ron Jacobs Richard Rhames David Yearsley Lee Sustar Brenda Norrell Ben Terrall Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 8, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Manuel Garcia, Jr. M. Shahid Alam Andy Worthington Lawrence J. Korb David Model Alan Farago Diop Olugbala Firmin DeBrabander Website of the Day 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 Ace 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
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August 19, 2008 Cuba, Baseball and the EmbargoBaseball Diplomacy or Just Baseball?By SAUL LANDAU In March 1998, the Baltimore Orioles flew to Cuba to play its national team in Havana. In a well-pitched game the O’s won 3-2, in the 13th inning. Two months later, the Cubans routed the birds in Baltimore. During the games, talent agents from various teams from both leagues took detailed notes about the Cuban players. Indeed, such careful studying, if practiced by US diplomats in Havana, might actually teach Washington policy makers something about the nature of Cuba. This may happen when fish learn to sing opera. The games did not, as we know, lead to Washington’s lifting of its embargo or travel ban. Baseball diplomacy did, however, lead to the defection in 2002 of Cuba’s star pitcher, Jose Contreras, who had held the Orioles to two runs in nine innings. He signed with the New York Yankees for millions of dollars. Even in the 21st Century, Dollar diplomacy still functions. The Orioles’ owner Peter Angelos, according to an accompanying sports writer, “was pissed. He wanted Contreras, but didn’t bid high enough. Why else would he force his team to fly to Cuba for a day?” The banal explanation unfortunately made sense. Angelos had not shown himself to care deeply about social issues, other than those affecting his fortune. For major league baseball, the visit marked the first time a pro team played in Cuba since Havana was dropped from the AAA international League in 1960. Let’s face it, sports fans, baseball, like most of the great cultural institutions of our country, is a major multi billion dollar business. Matters of state take a very second place. Before the crowds filled Havana’s stadium, however, teams of kids from the Baltimore-Washington area played their Havana counterparts through Cuba’s capital city. Parents and kids of the Cubans and Americans met each other and talked. The baseball excuse for a visit – okayed by the Clinton Administration – also fostered dialogue between Cuban and US baseball nuts. Fidel, in his box seat, cheered for his team. The Cuban crowd and the handful of US visitors who got tickets behaved politely. I noticed neither heavy drinking nor Santeria spells being cast on the visiting Orioles – normal practices in Cuban league games. Four years later, in 2002, the Bush Administration imposed draconian limits on travel to the island: threatening jail and raising fines for unlicensed travelers and limiting the amount Cubans in the United States could send their relatives on the island. Since then, no hints of sports diplomacy have wafted through Washington’s muggy air – until July 8, that is. When Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) learned about a scheduled trip of 11 and 12 year old kids from Vermont and New Hampshire to Havana, he suffered a near panic attack. He then demanded an emergency meeting with officials from the State Department and Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The obedient executive branch agency of course obeyed and scheduled the session. Diaz Balart and his brother Mario, who also represents a south Florida district filled with Cuban exiles, get their knickers in a twist whenever they learn of any event that might even slightly dent the harsh rules of embargo and travel ban that they along with the other members of the Hate-Castro industry (not quite in the multi billion dollars range yet). For the Diaz Balart brothers, and Ileana Ros Lehtinen, their female souoth Florida counterpart, limiting travel to Cuba ranks far higher on the priority scale than the banal issues facing their constituents –unemployment, foreclosures, school drop outs and lack of health care. Ros Lehtinen and the Diaz Balart brothers help guide the small but influential – with the Bush family -- Cuba Democracy Caucus on Capital Hill. On July 10, this bastion of Castro haters invited all Members to an “important” meeting with Bisa Williams, Coordinator for the State Department's Office of Cuban Affairs, and Barbara Hammerle, Deputy Director of OFAC. At the meeting, according to the invitation, Diaz Balart planned “to discuss the very troubling granting of a Treasury/OFAC license to a little league team to travel to Cuba in August. I have included links to two newspaper articles that provide details on the issue.” (Al Kamen, Washington Post, July 30) The Diaz Balarts and Ros Lehtinen have pressured the Bush Administration to convert OFAC into a Cuba monitoring agency. Some naïve Members may have thought OFAC actually looked into Al Qaeda money transactions, but an AP story reported that OFAC, supposedly responsible for “blocking terrorists’ financial sources,” confessed in a letter to Congress that only four of its full-time employees investigated Osama bin Laden’s fortune. But 25 OFAC officials monitored US citizens traveling to Cuba and other supposed violations of the embargo and travel ban. Montana Democratic Senator Max Baucus noted that instead of the agency playing a key role in the war on terrorism, it interferes with Americans touring Cuba on bicycles. From 1990 to 2003, OFAC monitors held 93 investigations into terrorism, and since 1994, have collected just $9,425 in fines related to violations of regulations against the funding of such activity. During that period, however, they opened 10,683 investigations related to Cuba and collected more than $8 million in fines, mostly from individuals who traveled to Cuba without licenses or from Cubans who sent more remittances to their families than the regulations permitted. (John Solomon, AP, April 29, 2004) To emphasize how OFAC operates as an arm of the anti-Castro industry, Ted Levin, a coach for the Vermont team said it took him “20 months and three rejections before OFAC approved the trip in April.” Lincoln Diaz Balart offers the rationale of “punishing” Castro by denying money to Cuba. Vermont’s Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie scoffed at such notions because he believes the trip “will lead to a better and more secure world and I believe it’s through grass-roots connections of people-to-people and baseball teams playing one another that we expand our understanding and that's consistent with the objectives of our initial trips to Cuba.” (Rutland Herald July 31) Vermont’s two Senators, Democrat Patrick Leahy and Independent Bernard Sanders, also backed the informal mini baseball diplomacy trip as did New Hampshire Republican Senators Judd Gregg and John Sununu as well as the House Members, democrats Paul Hodes (NH) and Peter Welch (VT). Major league baseball mavens seem unconcerned since talent scouts didn’t get invited and thus no serious recruitment could get done. OFAC issued travel licenses for only 14 players and a few coaches. But Leahy didn’t “like the idea of the government telling ordinary Americans, let alone Little Leaguers, where and when they can travel. If the president can go to China at taxpayers’ expense, these kids ought to be able to go on a privately paid trip to Cuba to play some baseball.” The Diaz Balarts and Ros Lehtinen seem to share bicameral minds, as sociologist Nelson Valdes puts it. From one mind chamber comes statements about Cuba being a dangerous terrorist state and therefore meriting isolation; in another, they call for the assassination of Fidel Castro. (Ros Lehtinen in 638 Ways to Kill Castro). All three have championed the causes of self-proclaimed bombers Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch – responsible for downing a Cubana airliner and killing all 73 aboard. Now, along with Senator “Holy Joe” Lieberman (I-CT), they demand a pardon for Eduardo Arocena, who was convicted of assassinating a Cuban diplomat in New York City and attempting to bomb Cuban UN ambassador Raul Roa in 1980 and nine other bombings. He’s not a terrorist, according to those requesting Bush to free him, he’s a freedom fighter. Indeed, he has fought freedom very dramatically. That the power of such morally bipolar legislators has captured the Bush administration’s Cuba policy should in itself be frightening. Imagine when the Diaz Balart brothers and Ros Lehtinen read the August 5 AP dispatch and learn that OFAC has granted licenses to the University of Alabama baseball team! Beyond mood disorders, such news could case a serious attack of hemroids, giving new meaning to the term Crimson Tide. Meanwhile, these bastions of the anti-Castro industry continue to push hard to free imprisoned anti-Castro industry terrorists. Ah, the fanatics! Some government officials might see a baseball game as a means to refocus their Cuba energy, toward athletic competition and away from puerile vengeance. Play Ball! In Saul Landau’s 1968 Fidel film, Castro plays baseball. Available on dvd http://roundworldproductions.com Read his book, A BUSH ANMD BOTOX WORLD (Counterpunch A/K)
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