Today's Stories

December 1, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
From Baghdad to Mumbai, by Way of Pakistan

November 28-30, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
In Time of Trouble

Mike Whitney
The Obama "Dream Team": Rubin Clones and Other Fakers

Ted Honderich
What is the Meaning of Obama's Election?

Tom Kerr
Preserving Filthy Lucre (Or Becoming My Dad)

Mike Ely
The Conquest of New England

David Yearsley
Hymns of the Conquest

Deepak Tripathi
Uproar in Police-State Britain

Sonja Karkar
Gaza's Death Throes

Ramzy Baroud
Salvation in a News Broadcast

Robert Weitzel
Israel's Settlement on Capitol Hill

Robert Roth
Can We Create a Movement for Change?

Carlos Fierro
Obama and the End of Racism?

David Macaray
How to Kill a Union

David Rosen
A New Sexual Agenda

James Cockcroft
Indigenous People Rising

Stan Cox
The Most Disappointing Gift

Steve Conn
Talking Turkey About College Basketball

Stephen Martin
The Electromagnetic Pulse and Economic Warfare

Richard Rhames
Busty Bimbettes, Bombs and Brand Obama

Kim Nicolini
Women as Products and Cannibalistic Achievers

Lorenzo Wolff
A Battle Cry for the Confused and Vulnerable

Poets' Basement
Woods, Harrison and Corseri

November 27, 2008

Tariq Ali
The Assault on Mumbai

Steve Hendricks
Thanksgiving We Can Believe In: Justice in Indian Country

Ralph Nader
Open Up Those Corporate Tax Returns

John Walsh
The Root Cause of the Crisis of 2008

Dave Lindorff
The Department of Homeland Lunacy

Christopher Brauchli
Thanks A Lot, Mr. Meese: How Alberto Gonzales Learned to Get You to Pay for His Legal Bills

Matthew Koehler
Giving Thanks for Burned Forests

Website of the Day
John Trudell: "Crazy Horse We Hear What You Say"

November 26, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Obama Letdown

Alan Farago
Bailouts and the New Math

Stanley Heller
Don't Bail Them Out, Take Them Over

Kevin Zeese
The Real Cost of the Bailout

Steve Conn
Now It Can Be Told (Except in North Carolina)

Ray McGovern
Kafka and Uighurs at Guantánamo

Ron Jacobs
King George is Gone: Now It's Time to Organize

Eric Walberg
Obama's Odious Entourage

Martha Rosenberg
Pay No Attention to That Turkey Being Slaughtered (Or How Sarah Palin Created a Whole New Generation of Vegetarians)

Matt Siegfried
Back to the Future With Barack

Website of the Day
"Every Time I've Compromised, I've Lost"

November 25, 2008

James Abourezk
Of Arrogance, Bailouts and the Big Three

Ralph Nader
Don't Suppress Carter

Patrick Irelan
PBS Reports for Big Oil on Venezuela

John Ross
Obama in Bedlam

Fred Gardner
Dr. Goodwin and the Infinite Con

Dan LaBotz
The Auto Crisis: a Big Caravan to Washington?

Tom Barry
Napolitano and Immigration Policy

Norman Solomon
The Ideology of No Ideology

Richard Morse
Memo From Haiti: Where the Culture of Corruption Meets the Corruption of Culture

Chris Strohm
The Missing Rules of Engagement in Cyberwar

Website of the Day
Green vs. Green?

November 24, 2008

Mike Whitney
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

Pam Martens
The Rise and Fall of Citigroup

Laray Polk
Bush's Library: the Kurds, Oil and Missing Records

David Ker Thomson
American Friends: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Canadians?

Uri Avnery
Likud Rising

Joe Mowrey
Deprivation and Desperation in Gaza

Ramzi Kysia
An Administration in Search of a Progressive: the Team Obama Should Have Picked

Kevin Zeese
The Causes of the Auto Crisis

Dave Lindorff
Rescuing the Blob: Idiots and Bailouts

David Macaray
Seven Reasons You Should Join a Union

Howard Lisnoff
Inaugurations Past and Present

Website of the Day
I Hate the Beatles

November 21 / 23, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Honeymoon is Looking a Bit Wan

Michael Hudson
Paulson's Cascade of Lies

Mike Whitney
Time to Move to Plan B ... If There is One

Barbara Rose Johnston /
Holly M. Barker
Cautionary Tales From a Nuclear War Zone

Serge Halimi
The Gloom of Empire: Downhill All the Way

Alan Farago
The Suburbs March On

Ralph Nader
Changing With Retreads: the Third Clinton Administration

Saul Landau
When Old Axioms Don't Apply

Robert Bryce
From LBJ to Obama: the End of Texas Dominance

Shannon May
Ecological Crisis and Eco-Villages in China

Binoy Kampmark
The End of the Yugo

Jack Ely
The Fate of the West's Wild Horses

Ramzy Baroud
The Rights of Women in War Zones

Missy Beattie
Why Vote, Anyway?

Larry Portis
Women Soldiers Serving in (and Barely Surviving) the Israeli Army

James McEnteer
Colombia's Laboratory of Failure

Christopher Brauchli
A Tale of Two Whales

David Yearsley
Real Swords, Fire and Don Giovanni

Adam Engel
Power Down

Ron Jacobs
The Continuing Saga of the White Album

Lorenzo Wolff
Honky Tonk Heroes: When Country Got Real

Poets' Basement
Raza Ali Hasan

Website of the Weekend
Lips and Fingers

November 20, 2008

P. Sainath
The Jurassic Auto and Idea Park

Brian McKenna
How Dow Chemical Defies Homeland Security and Risks Another 9/11

Paul Craig Roberts
What Uncle Sam Has to Say to His Creditors

Andy Worthington
How Guanántamo Can be Closed

Peter Lee
India Doubles Down in Afghanistan ... Maybe

Dr. Eyad al-Serraj
At the Erez Crossing

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Bush Pardons

Lance Selfa
Who Made the New Deal?

Ray McGovern
Keeping Gates

Benjamin G. Davis
Ending Torture; Prosecuting the Torturers

Tracy McLellan
Obama's Crony Democracy: the Return of Tom Daschle

Website of the Day
Finally, a Victory for Palestinians

November 19, 2008

M. Shahid Alam
Obama and the Politics of Race and Religion in America

Mario A. Murillo
Holder, Chiquita and Colombian Death Squads

Martine Boulard
Escaping the Dollar's Shadow

Robin D. G. Kelley
Will Obama be the First "Freedom" Democrat?

Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Obama and the Iron Cage

Jonathan Cook
Who Will Stop the Settlers?

Steve Conn
Spare Change or No Change at All

George Wuerthner
The NYT and the Beetles of Mass Destruction

Michael Winship
This Just in From Middle Earth

Stephen Martin
The Other Side of the Pleasure-Dome

Website of the Day
An Important Holiday Message From Kristen Johnston

November 18, 2008

Chellis Glendinning
Cheering for Morgan Stanley

George C. Wilson
Perils of Pakistan: Will It Prove to be Obama's Cambodia?

Franklin Lamb
Who Will Evict Israel from Lebanon: Hezbollah or the UN?

Bill and Kathleen Christison
The Irresponsibility of Appointing Hillary Clinton Secretary of State

Roger Burbach
Orchestrating a Civic Coup in Bolivia: How Bush Tried to Bring Down Morales

John Ross
Drilling vs. Direct Democracy in Mexico

Wajahat Ali
Is Obama the Muslim World's Superman?

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
What Really Happened in Washington? The G20 and the Inconsistent Script

Marc Gardner
When Mooning is a Sex Crime

Eric Walberg
Courting the Bear: a New Era for Russian/Western Relations?

Wendy Williams
The Bottled Water Con

Website of the Day
Where's Zappa When We Need Him?

November 17, 2008

Michael Hudson
Bankers Shake Down Congress and the G-20

Paul Craig Roberts
When It's a Clear Day and You Can't See GM

Mike Whitney
Busted in Washington

Steve Conn
Where is Nader Country 2008? Mapping the Nader Votes

Andy Worthington
Closing Guantánamo: Advice for Obama

Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Blockade of Gaza: "They Are All Hamas"

Rannie Amiri
Dual Loyalties Will Doom Obama

David Macaray
Bailing Out the Automakers

David Michael Green
Twelve Victories

Charles Modiano
Sports Illustrated and Sexism: Tokenism or a New Day?

Website of the Day
The South Sea Bubble

November 14 / 16, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Heading for the First Hundred Days

Jeffrey St. Clair
How Bill Clinton Doomed the Spotted Owl: a Cautionary Tale for Greens in the Age of Obama

Mike Whitney
Paulson the Bungler

Sasan Fayazmanesh
RIP: the Experts, 1929-2008

Moshe Adler
Keynes: China's Greatest Export?

Anthony DiMaggio
Transcending Race?

Jean Bricmont
Cats, Dogs and Creationism

Sheldon Rampton
The Eisenstadt Hoax: a Real Life Example of a "Fake Fake"

Douglas Valentine
Let the Trials Begin!

Joseph Nevins /
Timothy Dunn
Barricading the Border

Tom Barry
Rahm Emanuel's Political Pragmatism on Immigration

Ron Jacobs
Che Guevara Meets Trashman: the Genius of Spain Rodriguez

Larry Portis
The State of the Israeli State

Mary Lynn Cramer Obama's Brain Trust: Seems Like Old Times

Sherry Wolf
The Myth of the Black/Gay Divide

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi
Secretary of Greed: How Larry Summers Championed Wall Street by Impoverishing the Mexican People

Jacob Hornberger
The Conservative Malaise: Hey, Brother, Can You Spare Some Habeas Corpus?

Lance Selfa
The Center-Right Nation Con

Benjamin Dangl
Vermont Against General Dynamics

Seth Sandronsky
Lifelines in Hard Times

Russell Mokhiber
Time to Give the Friends of Big Coal the Boot

Allan Stellar
Nuke a Gay Whale for the Navy

Kelly Overton
Get Thee to a Shelter: the Obamas and the Million-Mutt March

Martha Rosenberg
Why Mink are Cheering the Economic Crisis

Richard Rhames
Palling Around with Ray the Plumber

David Yearsley
How I Played Hooky from "High School Musical 3"

Lorenzo Wolff
Zach is Back: Songs of Hurt, Rage and Resistance

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Ford and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Eyes Have It

November 13, 2008

Pam Martens
The Two Trillion DollarBlack Hole

Vijay Prashad
Guilt by Participation: Sonal Shah's Membership Has Expired

Patrick Cockburn
Who is Paying for the Iraqi National Intelligence Service?

Jonathan Cook
The Withering Palestinian Economy

Ralph Nader
Obama and the Rogue Regime

Bill Quigley
McCain Owes America an Apology

Lee Sustar
Bailing Out the Big Three

Omar Barghouti
Boycotting Israeli Settlement Products

Steve Conn
More Alaska Fun

Howard Lisnoff
The Last Bastion of Hate

Jeff Cohen
What Indy Media Heroes Can Teach Us

Website of the Day
Who are the Obamagelicals?

November 12, 2008

Johanna Berrigan
Scattered Families: the Iraq Refugee Crisis

Steve Conn
The Big Mystery Election in Alaska

Patrick Bond
Against Volcker

Bokar Ture /
Dedrick Muhammad
Remembering a Black Radical in a Barack Obama America

Alan Farago
The Hispanic Vote in South Florida: Not Dyed Blue Yet

Dave Lindorff
Rescuing Joe Lieberman

Karl Grossman
Break Up Big Oil: Tyranny in the Tank

David Macaray
An Obama Litmus Test: Will Labor Have a Seat at the Table?

George Wuerthner
Act Now to Save America's Public Forests

Susie Day
Heavy Weather

Website of the Day
Does the Planet Have a Future? an Interview with Derrick Jensen

December 1, 2008

The Meltdown and the Complicit Press

The Unlikely Martyrdom of Free Market Jihad

By P. SAINATH

“Wall Street is run for the benefit of Wall Street … In truth, there is no substitute for regulation … It is time to end the failed experiment with radical deregulation."

-- The American Conservative, October 2008.

When words like these appear in a bastion of United States conservative thought, you know something is on. More so when The American Conservative graces that article with this blurb about rescuing the U.S. economy: "Goldman Sachs alums aren't the men for the job."

The piece by Eamonn Fingleton goes on to say why: "Both Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and his key adviser Neel Kashkari, formerly held top jobs at Goldman Sachs, and it seems clear that their highly controversial and, to economic historians, bafflingly unorthodox bailout plan serves Wall Street's interests — particularly those of their former employer — far more than the American public's." There's a start, with the recognition that Wall Street and corporate interest (and even "leaving it to the market") can be very different from public interest.

The first part of October, said the New York Times, "represents the most sweeping government moves into the nation's financial markets since The Great depression and perhaps ever, according to economists and finance experts." That month saw government after government sworn to 'free markets' and deregulation announced they were acquiring ownership stakes in banks and declared they would prop up dying private institutions with billions in public funds, and guarantee bank debt. Whether in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain or the United States, massive state intervention is the order of the day. Across the world, governments are in one way or the other in profoundly interventionist mode.

How profound? Estimates by the United Nations and like bodies suggest that with $60-80 billion a year additional spending, major issues in education, water, sanitation, or health could be well addressed worldwide.

Governments have long pleaded that this money simply didn't exist. Yet, a handful of them discovered they could find over a trillion dollars to bail out mostly private corporations.

In its amazing fervor for privatization, India's post-1991 elite never once admits why quite a few industries had been nationalized in the first place. Their private owners had run them into the ground — with huge amounts of public money. As one top official put it at the time: the sicker the industries get, the healthier the owners get. That's when governments stepped in to save thousands of jobs. Once nationalized, these looted, "sick units" were quickly dubbed as symbols of "public sector inefficiency."

Now it's happening across the world. In the United States, too, the public will pay the bills of the decades-long frenzy at the corporate feeding trough. But here, the bailout cannot be called nationalization, though often, that is what it is about or could well be about. That would be "communistic." In some cases, companies are being bailed with amounts of public funds greater than their current market value. (The $25 billion bailout the auto makers seek is worth even more than that of Citigroup — till late the 800-pound gorilla of American finance.)

The right wing slogan of "not with my tax dollars" now chokes its authors. Investors and shareholders were, on the one hand, sacred (or supposed to be) in corporate theology. In the larger economy, on the other, you had to cut any public spending you could. Now, when you're spending billions of public tax dollars on these behemoths — shouldn't that make the public their owners? Their main shareholder? Till now, there is not even a semblance of accountability to the public on the billions so far doled out to the oligarchs.

Market fundamentalism is in bad shape. Shrine attendance has fallen. Its televangelists are subdued, their psalm book is lost and the singers have laryngitis. Market jihadis scour other subjects to crusade about. Remember the editorials urging India’s governing coalition after the Left's walkout to "push ahead with financial liberalisation" since "the cancer" was gone? There’s no official recanting — but a more subdued mood for sure. The government itself takes credit for "insulating the economy" against the global meltdown. In short: credit for non-liberalization. That the insulation arose from the restraint imposed on it by the Left and public opinion is hotly denied.

In the U.S., words are now being bandied that were unheard on air in decades. 'Socialism for the rich.' 'Deficiencies of the Free Market.' This shift is more important than it seems. For three decades, markets were raised from a tool — one amongst many — to being a tyranny. There was nothing 'The Market' could not solve. Thomas Frank summed up the mindset very sharply in his book One Market Under God. "Markets enjoyed some mystic organic connection to the people, while governments were fundamentally illegitimate … markets expressed the popular will more articulately and meaningfully than did mere elections … markets are where we are most fully human; markets are where we show that we have a soul." The market was not merely inseparable from democracy. It was democracy.

In India, as late as this June during the food price crisis, there were ideologues who saw hunger as essentially a function of anti-market systems. (One editorial argued that if the markets were allowed to do their job, food would rush to the places where demand was highest.) What about health, education or agriculture? Just leave it all to The Market.

Of course, The American Conservative does not take an anti-market position. Nor does it plead for intervention as a rule, even in vital sectors. It singles out finance as unique. "Finance simply cannot be left to its own notoriously conflicted devices," it declares. It then calls for the regulation of that sector, quoting from Market Fundamentalist scripture to show that such exemptions were implicit in the words or silence of True Prophets such as Milton Friedman. This is one of the more thoughtful journals of its spectrum.

Market Jihad is mortal, martyred but not dead. It has merely gone underground, or is catching its breath. The meltdown has devastated its storm troopers. The IMF soldiers on bravely, though, presenting an ideological volte face as business as usual. As Professor Jayati Ghosh points out, its prescriptions for rich countries in crisis contradict its fatwas for developing ones. When in financial crisis, the latter have to cut spending, reduce their deficits (and turn them into surpluses — no matter how painful it is to their poor.) But rich countries,  says the IMF — like the U.S. which brought on this crisis — can provide 'financial stimulus' to their economies, and support economic activity, even if they run up large deficits. In short, they are exempt from the rules. But then we know which of these worlds the IMF represents. As Prof. Ghosh points out: "The tiny countries of Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg, with a total population of less than 28 million, have more votes in the IMF than China, Brazil or India."

But while on the meltdown, consider one sector that has not had the scrutiny it deserves. The media — particularly financial journalism. Still each night and day we suffer the same "experts" who know exactly what went wrong. Precisely how to save your money (a bit hard if that money is already gone). Sure, there have been some fine stories on the stable after the horses have bolted. Not a word of introspection. How could this expensive edifice of financial journalism fail its audiences across the world at every critical stage? Remember Enron?

Or a dozen other episodes where their 'expertise' ought to have kicked in and saved millions from being cheated of billions? Far more alarms have been rung by government officials and regulators than by a completely corporate-captive media. But they are never called to account. Not even those who dismissed talk of a housing bubble only months ago. Or who just a month before the meltdown assured the world that no 1980s-type crisis was to be expected! Market jihad may have lost its best shock troops. But its propaganda pundits are still around.

P. Sainath is the rural affairs editor of The Hindu, where this piece appears, and is the author of Everybody Loves a Good Drought. This fall he is giving a course at UC Berkeley. He can be reached at: psainath@vsnl.com.

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