Today's Stories

May 22-24, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Swine Flu Fallout

May 21, 2009

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
The Politics of Bait-and-Switch: Obama and the Environment

Paul Craig Roberts
Morphing Dick Cheney

Chris Floyd
In Defense of George W. Bush

Gerald Paoli
Inside Iraqi Kurdistan: Life and Death in the Qandil Mountains

Zach Mason
Something's Gotta Give: Obama and the Hustler

Uri Avnery
A Quarrel on the Titanic

Andy Worthington
Out of Guantánamo

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
India: Two Funerals and a Wedding

Norman Solomon
The Afghanistan Escalation

Dave Lindorff
A Corporate Crime Wave of Labor Law Violations

Website of the Day
Swine Flu: The Panic That Wasn't

May 20, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Toll Booth Economy

Gary Leupp
Courting Hekmatyar: Obama and the Warlord

Michael D. Yates
Work is Hell

Jonathan Cook
Netanyahu Adviser Steps Out of the Shadows

Peter Lee
The World Doesn't Have a Pakistan Nukes Problem ... It Has a David Albright Problem

Binoy Kampmark
The End of the Tamil Tigers?

Peter Zinn
Eulogizing Lawyers

William Loren Katz
Tortured Reasoning; Tortured Results

Gary Lapon
Why Women Need Single Payer

Trudy Bond
Torture, Shrinks and a Groundhog's Day Moment

Website of the Day
Meet the Climate Change Lobby

May 19, 2009

Kristoffer Rehder
Check Point Iraq: a Soldier's Tale

Mike Whitney
The Real Lesson of the Financial Crisis

Ray McGovern
How Colin Powell Got Duped by the CIA

Vijay Prashad
The Indian Elections: a Game Changer?

Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam
Intimidation and Interrogation in Tel Aviv

Mustafa Barghouthi
Is Obama Up to the Challenge of Dealing with Netanyahu?

Andy Worthington
Gitmo: A Prison Built on Lies

Binoy Kampmark
Britain's Speaker Crisis

John Walsh
John Kerry vs. Single-Payer

David Macaray
Alcohol as Metaphor: Zero Tolerance in the Workplace

Website of the Day
So You Think That Veggie Burger is Organic...

May 18, 2009

Dave Lindorff
The US is Using White Phosporous in Afghanistan

Abdul Malik Mujahid
Thirty Years of Tragedy in Afghanistan

Jonathan Cook
How Many Secret Prisons Does Israel Have?

Ben Rosenfeld
Police Violence: How Many Kicks to the Head Does It Take?

Patrick Cockburn
These Killings Will Only Strengthen the Taliban

Ralph Nader
They Want It All: New Tricks From the Old Energy Lobby

Stephen Soldz
Psychologist Bryce Lefever Clarifies Defense of Torture

Eugenia Tsao
On the Devaluation of Labor

Walter Brasch
Cheney's Magical Mystery Media Tour

Roberto Rodriguez
War and Torture

Charlotte Laws
Politics and American Idol

Website of the Day
Disbar the Torture Lawyers

May 15-17, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
King of the Hate Business

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Case of the Missing H-Bomb

David Rosen
Sexual Torture: What is Acknowledged and What Remains Unknown

Mike Whitney
From My Lai to Bala Baluk: Obama Picks Up Where Bush Left Off

Bruce Page
A Real History of Rupert Murdoch

Jeremy Scahill
The Black Shirts of Guantánamo

Fred Gardner
Tortured Reasoning: Judge Bybee Rules Against Brian Epis

Tom Barry
Fighting the Drug War at Homeland Security

Mats Svensson
On the Beach in Tel Aviv

Ramzy Baroud
The Drones Are Coming

Mark Engler
Science Fiction From Below

Mark Weisbrot
Stealth Move by IMF to Get $100 Billion Without Congressional Debate

Farzana Versey
Of Scapegoats and Separatists

Ron Jacobs
It's Up to You to Save Troy Davis

Hannah Wolfe
What to Tell the Children

Cal Winslow
Fresno, the New Ground Zero in the Battle Between the SEIU and NUHW

David Macaray
Labor Needs a Southern Strategy

Christopher Brauchli
Involuntary Baptism

Mark Seth Lender
The Lion Tamer's Story

Robert Fantina
Lapel Pins, Arugula and Mustard

David Ker Thomson
Last Man Walking

Stephen Martin
Lipstick Nightmare for Spin Merchant

Charles R. Larson
Double Exile

Chase Madar
"Angels & Demons" and the Extraordinary Power of Imaginary Heretics

Kim Nicolini
Vaginas From Outer Space! Boldly Sitting Through Star Trek

David Yearsley
Handel's Ghost

Lorenzo Wolff
Killer Virtues

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Jordan and Moser

Website of the Weekend
Catch F-22

May 14, 2009

Michael Hudson
Where Russia Went Wrong

Andy Worthington
The Poisoned Mosaic: Judge Condemns Guantánamo Evidence

Paul Craig Roberts
The Impotent President

Jonathan Cook
The Pope's Pilgrimage: Legitimizing Netanyahu?

Ray McGovern
See No Evil: Ugly Questions for General Myers

Lance Selfa
The Limits of Liberalism

David Green
The Deportation of Demjanjuk

Dave Lindorff
Obama Channels Cheney

Frida Berrigan
Nuclear Options

Sue Udry
The Bybee Question

Website of the Day
Our Bombs: Tracking US Air Strikes

May 13, 2009

Brian M. Downing
The Road Out of Iraq

Gareth Porter
Gen. McChrystal and Afghanistan

Robert Sandels
Obama and Latin America: No Light, All Tunnel

Ricardo Alarcón
Cuba: Measure of a Revolution

Eric Walberg
NATO in Georgia: Fun and Games

Dave Lindorff
The Sinking of GM: When Captains of Industry Don't Go Down with the Ship

Deepak Tripathi
A Culture of Abuse

William S. Lind
Back to the Balkans: Hillary and the Sleeping Dragon

Kevin Zeese
A Populist Health Care Rebellion

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon: From Perdition to Redemption?

Website of the Day
Beth McIntosh: The Wild Ride

May 12, 2009

Gary Leupp
The Bomb Iran Faction

Richard Neville
The AfPak Blues: Corpses of the Kids by the Truckload

Wajahat Ali
Obama Chooses a Reliable Dictatorship

Dean Baker
The Banker Boys Are Alright! Time to End the Bailouts

Franklin Lamb
What Palestinian Refugees Need From Lebanon's Elections

Norman Solomon
A Progressive Challenge to Jane Harman

Paul Craig Roberts
Beware the Hate Crimes Bill

Lisa M. Hamilton
Let's Grow a New Crop of Farmers

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman:
Why Isn't Obama Turning to Credit Unions?

David Macaray
Wading Through the Grassroots

Website of the Day
Electronic Police States

May 11, 2009

Andrea Peacock
No Justice for Libby

Michael Hudson
Gordon Brown Spills the Beans on the IMF

Patrick Cockburn
Who Killed 120 Civilians?

Ralph Nader
The Single-Payer Taboo

John Kelly
Pseudoscience and Wrongful Convictions in the War on Drugs

Saul Landau
Cuba's Biggest "Crime"

Dave Lindorff
Blaming the Dead Victims

David Michael Green
Get Obama

Anthony Papa
Gov. David Paterson Does the Right Thing

Paul Krassner
Jon Stewart and Truman, the War Criminal

Website of the Day
Generational Homelessness

May 8-10, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Dead Souls

Jeffrey St. Clair
Echoes of Amchitka: 40 Years After America's Biggest Nuclear Blast, the Damage Continues

Paul Wolf
Obama's Axis of Obedience

Steve Niva
Iraq: The Return of the Suicide Bombers

Neve Gordon
Jailed for Caring

Mike Whitney
Has Bernanke Pulled the Economy Back From the Brink?

Warren Hinckle
DiFi vs. Marilyn Chambers

Serge Halimi
In Praise of Revolutions

Gareth Porter
The Pakistan Conundrum

Sharon Smith
Something Stinks at Whole Foods

Andy Worthington
Obama's New Gitmo Policy: Back to the Bush Era?

Mark Weisbrot
Hillary and Latin America

Rosa Miriam Elizalde Cyber Command and Cyber Dissident: More of the Same?

David Macaray
Recessions and Labor Unions

Missy Beattie
The Real Housewives of War

Ron Jacobs
Mothers and War

Diane Farsetta
About Face on Pentagon Pundits?

Ramzy Baroud
War Without Context

Phelie Maguire
Living Next to Settlers

Robert Fantina
Party of Rush

Kevin Zeese
A Break From the Past in the Drug War?

Margaret Flowers, MD
The Baucus 8: Why We Risked Arrest for Single-Payer

Dave Lindorff
The Joke's on Us

Richard Rhames
Revenge of the Tundra

Ben Sonnenberg
Let the Right One In: A Vampire Visits a Welfare State

Kim Nicolini
Sin Nombre: Giving Faces to People Who Don't Have Names

Stephen Martin
The Riotous Action of the Complete Banker

Charles R. Larson
The Commencement Address You'll Never Hear

David Yearsley
Jean Ferrard, Organist Extraordinary

Lorenzo Wolff
Death Cab for Cutie: Surprisingly Familiar

Poets' Basement
G.S. Heiligschreib and David Farrelly

Website of the Weekend
Zombie Bank

May 7, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Criminalizing Criticism of Israel

Chris Floyd
A Full-Court Press for Pakistan War

Andy Worthington
Mixed Messages on Torture

Alan Farago
No Place Like Home: a Stress Test for Land Use, Not Just Banks

Ray McGovern
Deux ex Machina on Torture?

Dave Lindorff
Stain Removal: Impeaching the Torture Judge

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
Why is There Rampant Famine in the 21st Century?

Ana M. Malinow, MD
Why We Need a Single-Payer Health Care System

Jeff Armstrong
Freeing Leonard Peltier: What Would Warren Harding Do?

Norman Solomon
A Green New Deal

Website of the Day
The End of Lake Mead?

May 6, 2009

Doug Peacock
The Fate of the Yellowstone Grizzly

Patrick Cockburn
Afghans to Obama: Get Out, Take Karzai With You

Richard Neville
The Torturer's Apprentice

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Power a Nation: Nuclear Bombs or Sunshine?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Of Pork and Baloney: Obama's Defense Budget

Deepak Tripathi
Pakistan in Crisis

Stephen Soldz
A "Natural Reaction": APA Ethics Policy-Maker Endorses Torture

Reuven Kaminer
Nice is Not Enough: Obama vs. Netanyahu and Lieberman

David Macaray
The Chrysler-UAW Deal

Kevin Zeese
Why We Were Arrested at the Senate Finance Committee Hearings

Marjorie Cohn
Stanford Antiwar Alums Call for War Crimes Investigation of Condoleezza Rice

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
Investigate Psychologist and Health Provider Complicity in Torture

Website of the Day
Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?

May 5, 2009

William Blum
Torture and Mr. Obama

Uri Avnery
Netanyahu's Plan

Steven Higgs
Autism and Toxic Pollution

Dean Baker
Why Economists Should Learn Arithmetic

Daniel Wolff
The Education of Rachel Carson

Sibel Edmonds
The Broken Congress

Carole King Klein
A New Chance to Save the Northern Rockies

Fidel Castro
Giving One's All

Belén Fernández
Oil and Aguardiente in the Ecuadoran Elections

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Big Lie About Fish vs. Jobs

Website of the Day
"I Married Isis on the Fifth Day of May"

May 4, 2009

James G. Abourezk
The AIPAC Spy Case

Jeff Leys
Obama's War Budget

Patrick Cockburn
Afghan Ayatollahs Press Marital Rape Law

Andy Worthington
A Start on Guantánamo, But Not Enough

Jaime Avilés
Mexico's Plague-Bringers

David Swanson
An Even Worse Bybee Memo

Paul Craig Roberts
Working with Jack Kemp

P. Sainath
Celeb Crusades and the Death of Politics

Eugenia Tsao
Canada's Obama and the Cult of the Prof

Benjamin Dangl
Protest and Rubber Bullets in Paraquay

Sami Al-Arian
Mourning William Moffitt

Website of the Day
"Soldiers Are Cutting Us Down": Kent State, May 4, 1970

May 1 - 3, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Game-Changers: Specter Jumps, Souter Quits

Gary Leupp
Dropping the AIPAC Spying Case

Peter Linebaugh
The Key to the Bastille

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank:
Half Life of a Toxic War: Iraq's Wrecked Environment

C. G. Estabrook
Minion of the Long War

Patrick Cockburn
Kabul's New Elite

Mike Whitney
Economy on the Ropes

Pierre Sprey /
Winslow Wheeler
What "Sweeping Overhaul" of the Pentagon?

Andy Worthington
Al-Marri's Plea Deal: Dictatorial Powers Unchallenged

Mairead Maguire
Stand Up to Israeli Apartheid: a Letter to Obama From a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Nadia Hijab
The Israel Boycott is Biting

Diane Farsetta
Life, Death and Water Policy

Michael Calderón-Zaks
The Déjà Vu Flu: Why Much of the Discussion About Swine Flu is Racist

Richard Rhames
When Piggies Come Home to Roost: Swine Flu and the Industrial Meat Gulags

Russell Mokhiber
Inside the Beltway Baucus

Ramzy Baroud
Clinton's Unpromising Start

Rannie Amiri
Understanding Lebanon's June Elections

Deb Reich
No Talking, Dammit!

Steven Higgs
Indiana Criminalizes Dissent: Roadblocks on the NAFTA Highway

Brian Cloughley
Malice in Blunderland

David Michael Green
The Party's Over

Farzana Versey
Sex, Swat and Susan Boyle

Jim Goodman
Think Before You Eat: Agriculture and the Environment

Carl Finamore
New Prescription for a Healthy Union Movement

Christopher Brauchli
The Sounds of Silence: the Texas Option

Susie Day
The Real Cause of Unemployment: Employees!

David Yearsley
Nuts Over Beethoven

Lorenzo Wolff
Three Minutes of Perfection

Peter Stone Brown
Dancing with Dylan

Poets' Basement Dominguez, Orloski and Springate

Website of the Weekend
May Day Europe

April 30, 2009

Ellen Cantarow
Obama and "Two States": Seamless Continuity From Bush Time

Dana L. Cloud
The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built

Paul W. Lovinger /
Jeannette Hassberg
A Nation of Laws

Binoy Kampmark
Swine at the Trough: the Business of Pandemics

Brian Downing
The Perils of Modernization in Afghanistan

Frank Snepp
Tortured by the Past

David Swanson
The Wrong Torture Question

Conn Hallinan
The Coming Asian Storm

Ron Jacobs
Not Dead Yet: an Interview with Jerry Gordon on the State of the Antiwar Movement

John Goekler
The Only Path to a Middle East Picnic?

Jasmine L. Tyler /
Anthony Papa
An End to Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity?

Website of the Day
Emergency Petition: Stop Coal Industry Intimidation of Activists

April 29, 2009

Joann Wypijewski
Death at Work in America

Patrick Cockburn
The Taliban's Roads to Kabul

Andy Worthington
Cheney's Twisted World

Chris Floyd
The Specter Diversion

Dave Lindorff
No More Excuses: a Specter is Haunting the Democrats

Jeremy Scahill
The Nuremberg Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Doug Henwood
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor: an Interview with William Robinson

Michael Hudson
Will Iceland be Handed Over to a New Gang of Kleptocrats?

Russell Mokhiber
My Ron Pollack Problem--And Yours

Eric Toussaint
Ecuador at the Crossroads

Website of the Day
An Interview with Leslie and Andrew Cockburn on "American Casino"

April 28, 2009

Uri Avnery
A Little Red Light: On Israeli Fascism

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Iraq: the Picture of Dorian Gray

Dean Baker
The Perfect Gift for Wall Street: a Financial Transactions Tax

Michael D. Yates
At the Factory Gate

Conn Hallinan
Georgian Plots? Saakavili's "Order No. 2"

John Stauber
Beyond MoveOn

Tom Barry
The Failed Border Security Initiative

Harvey Wasserman
Who Pays for America's Chernobyl Roulette?

Jeff Nygaard
Pirates, Profits and Propaganda

Frederico Fuentes
Why the U.S. Still Hates Cuba

Website of the Day
The Man Behind the Hood

April 27, 2009

Pam Martens
The Far Right's Plot to Capture New Hampshire

Patrick Cockburn
Torture? It Probably Killed More Americans Than 9/11

Andrew J. Bacevich Guardian of the Status Quo: Obama's Sins of Omission

Mitu Sengupta
The Bloodbath in Sri Lanka

Franklin Lamb
Hillary Does Beirut: The 165-Minute Swoop-In

Firmin DeBrabander
Crimes of Economic Madness

Dave Lindorff
Wide Open to Pandemic?

Russell Mokhiber
How Corrupt is That?

Mike Whitney
Pinter's Message to Obama

Mark Weisbrot
Overhauling the IMF

Rev. José M. Tirado
Iceland's New Dawn: How the Right Got Trounced

Website of the Day
American Casino

April 24-26, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Putting the Bush Years on Trial

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

Andy Worthington
Who Ordered the Torture of Abu Zubaydah?

Jeremy Scahill
Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?

Chris Floyd
Top of the Heap: the Democrats' Teachable Moment on Torture

Mike Whitney
A Housing Crash Update

Anthony DiMaggio
Obama and the Housing Crisis

Chris Kromm
Democratic Lobbyists Key to Fight Against Employee Free Choice Act

Saul Landau
Seventeen Months in "the Hole:" an Interview with the Leader of the Cuban Five

Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh

Greg Moses
The Debt Looters

Joshua Frank
Calling for a Coal Moratorium: an Interview with Ted Nace

Fred Gardner
Collective Farming and the Lynch Case

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Homework, Testing and Stealth Apartheid in Education

David Michael Green
Of Tea Parties and Teleprompters

Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Spies: a New Front in Gaza's Conflict

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak's Expanding Enemies List

Laura Carlsen
Mr. President, Calderon is Not Mexico

Richard Morse
The Haitian People Need a Lobbyist

Nikolas Kozloff
Protecting the Bald Eagle: a Task Now Falling to ... Hugo Chavez?

Kent Peterson
The Fight to Save Mexico's Mangroves

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General

Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts

Ron Jacobs
Torture is More Than Just "Harsh Tactics"

Richard Rhames
Roman Legends, Book Burning and History's Hunt

Stephen Martin
Wherefore Art Thou American Dream?

David Yearsley
Rodgers, Hammerstein, Michener and Nostalgia's Clammy Embrace

Poets' Basement
Khalil and Mankh

Website of the Weekend
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies and Edward Abbey

April 23, 2009

Eamonn Fingleton
How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years

Ray McGovern
Obama Plays Hamlet on Torture

Michael Ratner
The Torture Commission Trap

Alan Farago
The Quicksand Economy

Rob Larson
Business Gets Carded

Nadia Hijab
The Real Heroes of Durban

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Deconstructing the Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Are Members of Congress Being Blackmailed?

Helen Redmond
Selling Out Single-Payer: the "Public Option" Con

Adam Federman
The Battle Over New York's Marcellus Shale

Website of the Day
An Interactive Map of Vanishing Employment Across the Country

April 22, 2009

Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project

Joanne Mariner
Torture Evidence and Terror Blacklists

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Afghan Plan: Fracturing the Antiwar Movement

Gareth Porter
U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans

Dean Baker
The Tyranny of Bad Economics

Peter Morici
Housing Sales and Fixing the Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminating Bad Pentagon Habits

Barucha Calamity Peller
The Battle to Take Back the New School

Harvey Wasserman
Chernobyl Could Happen Here

Aisha Brown /
Dedrick Muhammad
White Privilege in the Americas

Teo Ballvé
Obama's Feel Good Meeting with Colombia's Uribe

Website of the Day
Ahmedinejad's Durban Speech: What He Actually Said

April 21, 2009

Randy Rowland
Lindy Blake's Great Escape

Dave Lindorff
Jay Bybee's Conspiracy to Torture

Fidel Castro
The Secret Summit

George McGovern
Pull Out of Iraq This Year

Greg Moses
The Unemployment Channel

Benjamin Dangl
Argentina Remembers

Sonia Nettnin
Saving Lives in Gaza

Frank Barat
The Death of Bassem: a Shooting at the Wall in Bil'n

Binoy Kampmark
Legal Purgatory and John Demjanjuk

John V. Walsh
Code Red for Single Payer

David Macaray
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

Website of the Day
Bonus Man: For Executive Assholes Everywhere

April 20, 2009

Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever

Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalisms in Missoula

Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens

Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes

Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers

Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos: Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes

Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East

Dave Lindorff
The Meeting in Trinidad

P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word

Nelson P Valdés
A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama

Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?

Belén Fernández
The FARC Can't Dance

Website of the Day
Dear Mr. Buffett...

Weekend Edition
May 22-24, 2009

One Step Forward, Too Many Backward in the Culture Wars

Porn Wars

By DAVID ROSEN

Craigslist, the most popular Internet listing service, announced recently that it would, in effect, remake its popular “erotic services” category into “adult services.”  It acted under pressure from a number of state attorney generals for allegedly promoting prostitution and in the face of dubious claims as to its role in the actions of a Boston medical student, Philip Markoff, in a murder, armed robbery and kidnapping spree.

Action by Craigslist came at the same time that the Supreme Court ordered the federal Second Circuit court to reconsider its earlier rejection of the FCC’s effort to impose penalties on Fox and NBC for broadcasting “fleeting expletives” (i.e., “fuck” and “shit”) uttered by Cher, Bono and Nicole Richie.  This decision came only weeks before the Court ordered the Third Circuit court to reconsider its ruling throwing out a $550,000 fine against CBS for momentarily displaying Janet Jackson's nipple during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.

Ironically, only days before Obama assumed the presidency in January, the Supreme Court ruled against a last-ditch Bush-administration effort to finally enforce the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), originally enacted by the Clinton administration in 1998.

Now, as the rightwing Christian culture wars are in eclipse, an effort to tighten the nation’s moral code seems underway.  For a quarter-century, personal health, family life, sexual relations, scientific knowledge and popular culture were battlegrounds of the culture wars.  While the 2006 elections marked the end of the Christian right’s momentum, the 2008 election appeared to put the final nail in its coffin.  Americans spoke out against rightwing intolerance, puritanical morality, divisive racism, imperialist foreign misadventures, false patriotism and vicious class polarization. 

Like a legendary vampire, the tired, retrograde legal system holds to the darkness, seeking to deny or put-off as long as possible a forthright consideration of the values remaking American popular culture.   Two fictions are at the heart of the official legal system’s efforts to contain widely accepted notions of sexual values.  The first is the notion that “broadcasting” still exists; the second fiction is the belief that restricting “obscenity” protects childhood innocence.  While most Americans have left these notions in the 20th century, legal opinion, moralistic proclamations and police actions still seek to enforce this retrograde outlook.

Unfortunately, as more conservative aspects of the Obama program become evident, one can only wonder if these recent retrograde legal actions are not in keeping with the administration’s overall tenor.  Obama has aligned with the corporate, militaristic wing of imperialist capital, the centrists around Bush-senior, Robert Rubin and Dr. Brezinsky, Condi’s mentor. 

This alignment is reflected in Obama’s Afghan-Pakistan quagmire strategy, his refusal to release the torture photos, his recourse to military tribunals, his acceptance of prosecutions under Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, his bailout of the banks (and their principal shareholders who directed the current economic crisis) and his impotent effort to help those suffering foreclosure.  The recent legal actions seem to mirror this greater agenda.

* * *

Law enforcement officials throughout the country long railed against Craiglist as the nation’s biggest brothel.  Attorney generals from South Carolina, Illinois, Connecticut, Missouri and New York mounted an apparently coordinated campaign against Craigslist to remove ads they considered promoting illegal sexual services.  They also shared a perception that the site was pornographic. 

The chorus against Craigslist found local voices as well.  For example, Illinois' Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart sought to have its erotic section eliminated and requested a court to award $100,000 to the local police in compensation for its investigate services.  Dart insists that Craigslist facilitates youthful prostitution through placement of false ads by juveniles.

Cries against the website grew in the wake of a series of isolated violent incidents tenuously linked to random Craigslist postings.  The one that garnered the biggest media attention involved Phillip Markoff, dubbed the “Craigslist Killer.”   At the same time, a New York radio reporter, George Weber, was stabbed to death in his Brooklyn home by an underage youth who answered his posting on Craigslist seeking "rough sex" for $60.  In addition, Michael John Anderson, 20, of Savage, MN, was sentenced to life in prison for killing a young woman who answered an ad he posted for a nanny. 

Craigslist rejects these accusations.  Moving to avoid potential legal challenges, Craigslist revised its “erotic services” to “adult services” to cover what it dubs “legal adult service providers.”  To prevent misuse, the website said it would “manually review” each posting before listing it and also increase its posting fee to $10 from $5 per ad to help cut down on dubious postings.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo mocked Craigslist’s actions. “Rather than work with this office to prevent further abuses, in the middle of the night,” he said, “Craigslist took unilateral action which we suspect will prove to be half-baked.”

Prostitution is regulated in parts of Nevada and Rhode Island, and often treated with a wink-and-a-nod acceptance in many places throughout the U.S., especially if it is off-the-street commerce.   It is regulated in Australia, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand; selling sex is not illegal in Canada and Sweden’s 1999 law decriminalized the selling of sex but criminalized the john.  So, when will the attorney generals who went after Craigslist, as well as the others throughout the nation, finally take a fresh look at commercial sex and revise current efforts at criminalization for a more informed regulatory approach?  [see Emily Bazelon, “Why Is Prostitution Illegal?,” Slate, March 10, 2008]

* * *

In similar fashion, the Supreme Court actions against Fox/NBC and CBS over the “broadcasting” of alleged indecent or obscene materials points backwards.  These primetime incidents took place in the early 2000s and the Court’s action seem unaware of the significant changes in technology and popular taste fashioning a very different future. 

The first incident involved the live broadcast of Billboard Music Award show in 2002 at which Cher was to receive an "Artist Achievement Award." In her acceptance speech, she said:

I've had unbelievable support in my life and I've worked really hard. I've had great people to work with.  Oh, yeah, you know what?  I've also had critics for the last 40 years saying that I was on my way out every year.  Right.  So fuck 'em.  I still have a job and they don't.

The following year, two incidents raised the FCC’s moralistic hackles.  First, NBC broadcast the Golden Globe Awards at which Bono uttered, "This is really, really, fucking brilliant.  Really, really great.”  Second, Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton at that year’s Billboard Awards had the following exchange:

Hilton: Now Nicole, remember, this is a live show, watch the bad language.

Richie: Okay, God.

Hilton: It feels so good to be standing here tonight.

Richie: Yeah, instead of standing in mud and [audio blocked]. Why do they even call it “The Simple Life”?  Have you ever tried to get cow shit out of a Prada purse?  It's not so fucking simple.

The FCC’s original case also involved episodes of “NYPD Blue” containing the words "bullshit," "dick" and "dickhead" and a live interview on CBS’ “The Early Show” in which the guest called someone a "bullshitter."  The “NYPD Blue” and CBS incidents were dropped when the case made it to the Second Circuit.  The court rejected the FCC’s argument. 

The FCC appealed to the Supreme Court and in April, in a 5-4 decision, the Court did not rule directly on the case, but ordered the Second Circuit to reconsider its original judgment.  Most troubling, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion, arguing: “Federal law prohibits the broadcasting of ‘any . . . indecent . . . language,’ 18 U. S. C. §1464, which includes expletives referring to sexual or excretory activity or organs, see FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U. S. 726 (1978).” 

This indecency ruling referred to the groundbreaking case in which the community radio network broadcast George Carlin's "seven dirty words" routine.  Most bizarre, Scalia’s opinion refers to the terms at issue in the Fox case as the "S-Word" and the "F-Word."

Obviously missing from Scalia’s argument is any reference to President Bush’s well-publicized comment to Prime Minister Blair that the UN needed to "get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit."  Nor is there mention of Vice President Cheney’s much commented upon verbal slap at Senator Patrick Leahy, "fuck yourself."

Within a few days of its Fox ruling, the Supreme Court followed-up by ordering the Third Circuit court to review its FCC ruling concerning Janet Jackson's famous "wardrobe malfunction" scene at the 2004 Super Bowl.  While the Fox case involved “fleeting expletives,” the CBS case involved fleeting images.  In this case, it was a 9/16th of a second display of Jackson’s nipple.  CBS argued that it had no control over the production of the show and that 85 percent of the complaints about the incident were copycat messages from conservative groups.

The Supreme Court sent back to lower courts for review the issues of fleeting expletives and images.  In the face of both the significant technological and culture changes that have occurred over the last 30 years, the Court holds tightly to the Pacifica decision.  The world has changed, surely should the Court’s assessment of pornography. 

* * *

Over the last quarter-century, American popular media, but especially broadcast television, was transformed.  The once-upon-a-time Big Three networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, became the Big Four, with the addition of Fox.  More important, these broadcasters witnessed a sustained decline in their primetime viewers.  In 1980, the Big Three captured more than 90 percent of these viewers; by 2005, their share shrank to less than one-third (32%).

Making matters worse, the Big Networks’ audience aged.  For the 2007-2008 television season, the median age of the CBS viewer was 54 years old, ABC’s was 50, NBC ‘s was 49 and Fox’s was 44.   The median age of U.S. households is 38 years.   For ’07-’08, the audience for CW and Univision was 34.  The Big Networks are losing the coveted 19-49 age cohort.  [Magna Group, 2009]

The unstated irony at the heart of FCC regulation of “broadcast” television is that fewer and viewer viewers receive broadcast network programming.  Once upon a time, broadcasting referred to the transmission of an analog signal over-the-air from a central transmission antenna to a home TV antenna and set.  And once a network consisted of a group of local affiliate stations that localized and retransmit Big Network programming.

Today, between 13 and 15 million households (about 14%) continue to receive a handful of “broadcast” channels through over-the-air television; these household were recently required to purchase a digital-converter box to continue to receive the signal.  The vast majority of households receive hundred of channels, including broadcast networks, via cable and satellite services and more are turning to the Internet for video streaming programming.   And local affiliates, like local newspapers, are an endangered species.

Nevertheless, like the Hollywood studios, the Big Networks have the financial resources to offer the primetime blockbuster programs like the Billboard Awards and Super Bowl.  And, similar to the studios, the FCC seeks to preserve its version of the “G” rating for blockbuster shows.  The question facing the FCC and the Supreme Court is whether to penalize fleeting expletives and images (especially spontaneous utterances) presented on a broadcast network that are, for most viewers, indistinguishable from cable channels. 

Television has shifted to a digital medium and is projected to increasingly become an Internet streaming service.  Given this, the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Bush-administration effort to enforce the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) suggests how the issue of TV porn might eventually be resolved.

COPA set stiff criminal penalties for Internet distribution of material deemed harmful to minors.  It grew out of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), originally part of Telecommunications Act of 1996, one of the most reactionary laws passed by Clinton.  In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that CDA violated First Amendment provisions.

With regard to COPA, ACLU staff attorney Chris Hansen argued:  “It is not the role of the government to decide what people can see and do on the Internet."  Adding, "Those are personal decisions that should be made by individuals and their families."  In January, the Court sided with the ACLU. [see “Nails in the Coffin: Last Gasps of the Culture Wars?,” CounterPunch, January 30-February 1, 2009]

The FCC and the Supreme Court need to reconcile its current approach regarding “broadcast” television in light of the CDA and COPA rulings.  If Americans want to implement a form of “G” ratings for television content, then new legislation needs to be applied across all digital video media, including cable and the Internet.  In the mean time, the Pacifica decision needs to finally over turned and the words of George Carlin, Allen Ginsburg’s “Howl” and so many others can finally be heard and seen by all Americans.

David Rosen is the author of “Sex Scandal America:  Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming” (Key, 2009); he can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com.

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