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Today's
Stories
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
Dan LaBotz
The Auto Crisis: a Big Caravan to Washington?
Chris Strohm
The Missing Rules of Engagement in Cyberwar
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
November 11, 2008
James G. Abourezk
How to Vote Against Your Own Interests
Allan J. Lichtman
What Obama Can Learn From FDR
Eric Toussaint
Financing the Bailout: a Holy Union for a Deuce of a Swindle
Ron Jacobs
Moving Beyond Hope: a Leftist Looks at the Near Future
Peter Montague
Green Coal?
Corporate Crime Reporter
BP's Big Spill on the North Slope
Laura Carlsen
Latin America Sends Obama a Piece of Its Mind
Col. Dan Smith
A New Unifying Paradigm?
Morton Skorodin
The Machine Grinds On
David Michael Green
My Michelle Moment
Charles R. Larson
Ask Your Doctor for a Free Sample
Website of the Day
Will Old Faithful Be Sucked Dry?
November 10, 2008
David Roediger
Obama's Victory and the Future of Race in the United States
Paul Craig Roberts
Conned Again?
Peter Lee
Obama's Man in Afghanistan
Corey D. B. Walker
And We Are Not Saved
Jeff Halper
A Bone in America's Throat
Bill Hatch
Look on the Bright Side, Dammit!
Andy Worthington
Guilty By Torture
Bill Quigley
Anger and Hope: Haitian Families Furious Over School Collapse
Peter Morici
Paulson's Folly
Anthony Olszewski
The Advent of a New Black Politician
Kim Nicolini
Exile and Displacement on Bunker Hill
Cpt. Paul Watson
Farley Mowat's Last Book? Maybe Not
Website of the Day
Boondocks, Another Banned Episode
November 7 / 9, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Hail to the Chief of Staff
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Fire
Vijay Prashad
Obama's Indian: the Many Faces of Sonal Shah
Tariq Ali
Great Expectations
Jean Bricmont
Our Obama Problem
John V. Whitbeck
Obama, Emanuel and Israel
Saul Landau
Politics Among the Ruins:
Obama Faces an Economic Disaster
Peter Morici
Gone, Baby, Gone: Another 240,000 Jobs Lost
Lawrence Velvel
Obama and Afghanistan: the Return of Clintonia?
Karyn Strickler
Don't Govern From the Middle
Nativo V. Lopez
Banking on Obama with Open Eyes: Latinos and Obama
Christopher Fons
A Generational Moment: From Jackson to Obama
Alan Farago
Sarah Palin's Limited Engagement
David Yearsley
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
Christopher Brauchli
Pardoning Industry: Bush's Latest Executive Orders
Samah Sabawi
Gaza's New Cemetery
Dave Lindorff
Getting the Change We've Earned
Deepak Tripathi
A Revolution to Remember
Beth Sherouse
In the Wake of Lost Initiatives:
the Gay Glass is Half Empty
Patrick Irelan
La Belle Dame Sans Regrets: Back to Alaska
Stephen Martin
Barack and the Temple
Richard Rhames
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
J. Murray
White Cherokee Mythology
Lorenzo Wolff
Anthems for the Average Kid
Kim Nicolini
Exile and Displacement on Bunker Hill: Art Meets Realism in "The Exiles"
Poets' Basement
Farrelly, Fleming and Browne
Website of the Day
Take Who Takes You (For the New Big O)
November 6, 2008
Frank J. Menetrez
Now What?
John Chuckman
The Big Leap: From Hope to Change
P. Sainath
A Magic Moment (But Still Behind the Global Curve)
Joshua Frank
A Look Under the Hood of an Obama Administration
Edna Canetti
Come, Obama, Change My Life: a Plea from Israel
John Ross
Brad Will is Still Dead
Norman Solomon
Sorry Joe: a Mandate for Spreading the Wealth
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Morning After: Pakistan and Its New Bedfellow
Robert Weissman
Mordor Brightens: Obama's Challenge--and Our Own
Harvey Wasserman
A Blow to Nuclear Power in Chicago
Website of the Day
Pot Wins Big
November 5, 2008
Cockburn / St. Clair
Why McCain Lost
Chuck Spinney
How Obama Won
Ishmael Reed
Morning in Obamerica: the Promised Land?
Chris Floyd
A Prism for the New Paradigm: "What If Bush Did It?"
Binoy Kampmark
Obama's Victory: a Nation Divided
Michael Donnelly
The Rebooting of America, 2008
David Macaray
Who Should be Secretary of Labor?
Peter Morici
Obama's First Moves on the Economy
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
What Real Change Should Bring
William Willers
Will We be Forced to Sell Off the Public Lands?
Website of the Day
The Killing Fields of South Africa
November 4, 2008
Kathleen Christison
McCain, Obama and Khalidi
James Ridgeway
A New World?
Winslow T. Wheeler
Cleaning Out the Pentagon Pig Sty
Mike Whitney
Obama's Little Red Book
Conn Hallinan
A New Foreign Policy
Holly M. Barker
The Inequities of Climate Change and the Small Island Experience
Ashley Smith
Where is the Occupation of Iraq Heading?
Andy Worthington
Guilty Verdict Fails to Justify Gitmo Trials
Martha Rosenberg
AIG: Too Big to Play Fair
Stephen Martin
Breakdown of the Globalisation Agenda
Doug Lummis
Full Moon Over Okinawa
Carlos Fierro
An Anarchist View of Elections
Website of the Day
La Pequeña as Sarah Palin
November 3, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Friends Like These
John Kennedy O'Hara
Voter Lockdown: Prosecuting Voters
Peter Montague
Is Nuclear Power Green?
Steve Conn
Nader and the Youth Vote
Andrew Gebhardt
How Much Do the Differences Between Obama, McCain and Bush Really Matter?
Ron Jacobs
Bombing Syria: Borders are for Sissies
Ralph Nader
Between Hope and Reality: an Open Letter to Senator Obama
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Cleaning Up After Bush
Uri Avnery
Obama and the Order of the Optimists
Dave Lindorff
Studs and Me
Fred Gardner
Adieu, Rimonabant
DC Larson
You Are How You Vote
David Michael Green
McCain Finally Gets Tough
Val Strange
Hopeless Hoi Polloi or Step in the Right Direction?
Tuli Kupferberg /
Jeffrey Lewis
Wailing Wall Street:
Bring Spare Money!
Website of the Day
Pranking Palin (the Uncut Version)
October 31 , 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Change You Can See
Jeffrey St. Clair
Killing Leroy Jackson: the Indian Wars Have Never Ended
Douglas Valentine
Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy: McCain's 14th Amendment Problem
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The Great Bailout Fraud: Misrepresenting the Financial Crisis
Dr. Ignacy Nowopolski
Is the Global Economy a Mistake? an Interview with Paul Craig Roberts
Alan Maass
What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Spreading the Wealth?
William P. O’Connor
Reflections of an Average Joe
Patrick Irelan
Johnny's Tantrums: McCain the "Gook Hater"
Brian Cloughley
Out of Control: Memo From Islamabad
Mats Svensson
The Last Dance in Ramallah
Binoy Kampmark
Into Syria We Went
Steve Conn
The Future of Ted and Sarah
Alan Farago
The Division of Florida: the Politics of Growth
Morton Skorodin
The Bush-Obama-McCain Administration
Robert Bryce
Not McCain
Wajahat Ali
Dear John McCain, Please Stop...
David Yearsley
Palin's Flute, Obama's Voice
Dennis Loo
What to Do with Bush and Cheney?
Pam Martens
Why 2008 Feels Like 1932
Stephen Martin
Defense Strategies in Economic Warfare
Richard Rhames
Nothing for Something: the Doomed Rustic's Lament
Ramzy Baroud
A Third Palestinian Intifada
Missy Beattie
I'm Sick of Their Voices
Howard Lisnoff
Burning Reason: More From the Religious Right
Richard Neville
Pickled Heads: First the Revelation, Then the Revolution
Saul Landau /
Farrah Hassan
Bush Ultra Lite: Oliver Stone's Oedipal Problem
Kim Nicolini
Max Payne: Vigilante Violence as Sex Story
Lorenzo Wolff
Dance to the Music--or Else!
Poets' Basement
Four Poems from the Japanese Trans. by Rexroth
Website of the Weekend
Art Against Empire
October 30, 2008
Cockburn / St. Clair
McCain's Women Problems
Vijay Prashad
Smearing Rashid Khalidi
Paul Craig Roberts
World Tires of Rule by Dollar
Glen Ford
Turning the Tide of Ethnic Cleansing in America's Cities
Stanley Heller
Wall Street Bonus Madness
William Loren Katz
"Kill Him!:" a Political Chronicle
Joshua Frank
Memo to Progressives for Obama: What Happens After the Election?
James McEnteer
The Year of Unreliable Witnesses
Felice Pace
The Big Change: Can "Civic Unreasonableness" Save the Earth?
Jonathan Cook
The Executions at Kafr Qassem
Reza Fiyouzat
Boycott the Elections!
Website of the Day
An Open Letter to Whole Foods
October 29, 2008
Arno J. Mayer
The US Empire will Survive Bush
Eric Toussaint
How the Food and Financial Crises are Interconnected
Matt Gonzalez
What Do They Have to Do to Lose Your Vote?
Steven Conn
Obama and the Camp Followers
Jonathan Cook
Israel Bars Visit to a Father's Grave
Patrick Bond
Strauss-Kahn Strikes Again!
Ramzi Kysia
A Freedom Rider in Gaza City
Douglas Valentine
A Glimpse Inside the Head of Joe the Plumber
Stephen Martin
What America is Owed
Margaret Dooley-Sammuli
Alternatives to Incarceration
Amee Chew
Support Obama, Vote McKinney?
Website of the Day
N-Word Chant Doesn't Phase Palin
October 28, 2008
James G. Abourezk
How to Bail Out the Taxpayers
Andy Worthington
The Empty Chair at Guantánamo
Gary Leupp
The Specter of the Sixties: Palin v. Ayers
Paul Craig Roberts
The End of the American Road
Mike Whitney
Meet the World's New Currency
Gregory V. Button
What the Next President Must Do to Save FEMA
Ralph Nader
Share the Sacrifices, Share the Benefits
P. Sainath
Haunted by Socialism
Martha Rosenberg
Melting Pot in Hell
Charles R. Larson
Palin/Wurzelbacher 2012!
Website of the Day
Why You Can't See Across the Grand Canyon
October 27, 2008
Michael Hudson
Scenes From the Global Class War
Barbara Rose Johnston
The Clean, Green Nuclear Machine?
John Dinges
Palling Around with Dictators: McCain and Pinochet
Mike Whitney
Chickenhawks and the Horrors of War
Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power
Alan Farago
Origins of the Fall
David Michael Green
Remind Me Again: Who Won the Cold War?
Andy Worthington
The Collapse of Omar Khadr's Guantánamo Trial
George Wuerthner
Is Ranching Sustainable? The Story of Bob the Rancher
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Obamanations of Barack
Website of the Day
Heartland of Darkness
October 24 / 26, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Waiting for the Curtain to Rise
Ishmael Reed
Boogiemen: How Lee Atwater Perfected the G.O.P.'s Appeal to Racism
Mike Whitney
Down for the Count
Don Santina
How Maria Fell: Death in the Central Valley
Scott Boehm
Manufacturing Sympathy: Palin, Special Needs and Identity Politics
Saul Landau
Faith-Based Surge: Whining About Winning in Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Iraq and the Arrogance of Washington
Binoy Kampmark
Afghanistan the Un-Winnable
Linn Washington Jr.
The Great Vote Fraud Hoax
Nicole Colson
Mocking Our Rights: McCain's Disdain for Women's Health
Bernard Chazelle
The Humorology of Power
Brian Jones
Campaign by Codeword
Christopher Brauchli
Down the Drain with
McCain's Vetters
Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Rejects Neoliberalism
Val Strange
The Fraternity of John McCain: Scenes from North Carolina
Joe Mowrey
Name That Candidate: He Supports Petraeus, the Death Penalty, the Bailout, Nuclear Power, the Occupation...
Steve Early
SEIU Learns the Meaning of "No"
David Macaray
Patriotism and the Labor Movement
Allison Kilkenny
You Have the Right to Airport Harassment
Richard Rhames
Open Season
Jim Bell
Nuclear Power's Big Con
Kris De Welde
Domestic Violence and Financial Stress
Barry Clemson
John Wayne Syndrome
Adam Engel
Last Exit to Disneyland
Mark Scaramella
The World's Weirdest Pipe Organ?
Tuli Kupferberg
Nobody for President: the Original Version (Annotated)
Lorenzo Wolff
A Frustrated, Broken-Hearted Joy from Kidnapkin
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Swartzfager and Payne
Website of the Weekend
Patrick Cockburn Dismantles the Surge
October 23, 2008
Allan J. Lichtman
What Voter Fraud?
Todd Chretien
Why I'm Not Voting for Obama
John Ross
No Child Left Behind, Mexican-Style
Peter Morici
Strategies to End the Crisis
Mats Svensson
Short Film Clips at a Checkpoint
Marlene Martin
Don't Let Them Execute an Innocent Man
Robert Jensen /
Pat Youngblood
Looking Beyond the Election and Beyond Elections
Margaret Kimberley
Rightwing Obama Love
Deepak Tripathi
Post-Bush Scenarios
David Morris
Why Joe the Plumber is a Socialist (And You Are, Too)
Website of the Day
Voting While Black in North Carolina
October 22, 2008
Brian Cloughley
Kid Killers are Barbarians
Heather Gray
Raising Hell in the South:
the Legacy of J. L. Chestnut, Jr.
Jeff Birkenstein
McCain's Disdain for Spain
Ralph Nader
The Song Remains the Same: Convergence and Avoidance in the Presidential Election
DC Larson
The Growing of a Heartland Nader Raider
David Swanson
Colin Powell, Not Qualified for Government Service
Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth
Larry Everest
9/11 and the Imperial Adventure in Afghanistan
Robert Fantina
Anything to Win
Martha Rosenberg
The Financier's Playbook
Stephen Martin
Giving It Up to the Combine
Website of the Day
Brokers with Hands on Their Faces
October 21, 2008
Vijay Prashad
Wealth's Apostles
Paul Craig Roberts
How Inflation Works: Why I Can't Buy an Old Ferrari
Corey D. B. Walker
Empire and White Supremacy
Steve Breyman
How to "Win" in Afghanistan
Eric Toussaint
The Economic Crisis and Latin America: Time to Delink
Wajahat Ali
Boo Radley Comes Out to Play: the Emerging Muslim-American Electorate
Robert Weitzel
Wasting a Vote for Lincoln's Radical Ideal (Or Why I'm Voting for Nader)
Brendan Cooney
Palinoscopy: an Exploration of Why Liberals are So Obsessed with Sarah Palin
Dave Lindorff
Cuba's Oil Reserves: a Game-Changer?
Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing
When You're a Black Candidate There's No Such Thing as a Safe Lead
Patrick B. Barr
Socialist, Socialist, SOCIALIST!
Omar Barghouti
The Boycott and Palestinian Groups: Countering the Critics
Website of the Day
How to Dismantle a US War Plane (and Get Away With It)
October 20, 2008
Michael Hudson
The ABCs of Paulson's Bailout
Anthony DiMaggio
The Scandal That Never Was: ACORN, Rightwing Media and Election "Fraud"
Tariq Ali
Zardari Bans My Books
Uri Avnery
Is Akko Burning?
Bill Quigley
Hammered by the Swedes
Ben Rosenfeld
The Politics of St. Joe, Martyr to a Lie
David Michael Green
Payback's a Bitch: McCain on the Ash Heap
William S. Lind
The Afghanistan Advantage
Chris Genovali
Drill, Baby, Drill (Wink, Wink)
Stephen Martin
The Last Man in America
Howard Lisnoff
Bad News for War Resisters
David Yearsley
Organ Meat
Website of the Day
Our Brother is Sick: the Steve Ferguson Cancer Fund
October 17 / 19, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Blow Ups and Bombers
Jeffrey St. Clair
Inside Hanford: a Trip to America's Most Toxic Place
Pam Martens
How the Banksters are Making a Killing Off the Bailout
Paul Craig Roberts
Government of Thieves
Mike Whtney
No More Investment Banks
Michael D. Yates
Bowling Alley Blues: Racism Dies Hard in Johnstown, PA
Suzanne Smith
The Energy-War Connection: McCain Said It, Why Don't We?
Carl Boggs
Prosecuting Bush
Ralph Nader
Closing the Courthouse Doors
Fidel Castro
The Global Crash
Dave Marsh
The Great Levi Stubbs
Saul Landau
Denial, the Election Musical Comedy
Jo Guldi
The Floods of Heaven
Kevin Zeese
Now the Cost of War Really Matters
Larry Everest
Afghanistan, Not a Good War Gone Bad
Steve Early
Stop, in the Name of Joe!
David Macaray
Hey, Joe
Ben Terrall
When Ike Hit Haiti
Missy Beattie
Palin and God's Children
Don Monkerud
American Exceptionalism
Helen Redmond
Health Care Now's Big Con
Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision: Canals and Dams to Bail Out Big Ag
Wajahat Ali
Bush Gets Stoned
Farzana Versey
The White Tiger's Stripes and Gripes
Vladimir Frolov
Medvedev to Obama: We Come Not to Bury America, But to Buy It
Kim Nicolini
Frozen River: At Last, a Great Movie That's Neither Hip Nor Cool
Poets Basement
Gibbons, Corsale, Davis and Fleming
Website of the Day
The Real Sarah Palin?
|
November 25, 2008
"Don't Pee on Me and Tell Me It's Raining..."
The Ideology of No Ideology
By NORMAN SOLOMON
On Friday, columnist David Brooks informed readers that Barack Obama’s picks “are not ideological.” The incoming president’s key economic advisers “are moderate and thoughtful Democrats,” while Hillary Clinton’s foreign-policy views “are hardheaded and pragmatic.”
On Saturday, the New York Times front page reported that the president-elect’s choices for secretaries of State and Treasury “suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues.”
On Monday, hours before Obama’s formal announcement of his economic team, USA Today explained that he is forming a Cabinet with “records that display more pragmatism than ideology.”
The ideology of no ideology is nifty. No matter how tilted in favor of powerful interests, it can be a deft way to keep touting policy agendas as common-sense pragmatism -- virtuous enough to draw opposition only from ideologues.
Meanwhile, the end of ideology among policymakers is about as imminent as the end of history.
But -- in sync with the ideology of no ideology -- deference to corporate power isn’t ideological. And belief in the U.S. government’s prerogative to use military force anywhere in the world is a matter of credibility, not ideology.
Ideological assumptions gain power as they seem to disappear into the prevailing political scenery. So, for instance, reliably non-ideological ideological journalists sit at the studio table every Friday night on the PBS “Washington Week” program, which is currently funded by similarly non-ideological outfits including Boeing, the National Mining Association and Constellation Energy (“the nation’s largest supplier of competitive electricity to large commercial and industrial customers,” with revenues of $21 billion last year).
Along the way, the ideology of no ideology can corral even normally incisive commentators. So, over the weekend, as news broke about the nominations of Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers to top economic posts, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote an article praising “the members of Obama’s new economic team.” Reich declared: “All are pragmatists. Some media have dubbed them ‘centrists’ or ‘center-right,’ but in truth they’re remarkably free of ideological preconception. ... They are not visionaries but we don’t need visionaries when the economic perils are clear and immediate. We need competence. Obama could not appoint a more competent group.”
Competence can be very good. But “free of ideological preconception”? I want to meet these guys. If they really don’t have any ideological preconceptions, they belong in the book of Guinness World Records.
As for competence, it seems that claims of non-ideology often go hand-in-hand with overblown claims of economic mastery. “Geithner and Summers are credited with expertise in crisis management,” economist Mark Weisbrot pointed out on Monday, “but we better hope they don’t manage the current crisis like they did in East Asia, Russia, Argentina or any of the other countries that Treasury was involved in during the 1990s with their help. They helped bring on the East Asian crisis in 1997 by pressuring the governments in the region to de-regulate international financial flows, which was the main cause of the crisis. Then they insisted that all bailout money go through the IMF, and delayed aid until most of the damage was done. Then they attached damaging conditions” to the aid.
After all is said and done, the ideology of no ideology is just like any other ideology that’s apt to be much better at promoting itself than living up to its pretenses. No amount of flowery rhetoric or claims of transcendent non-ideology should deter tough scrutiny. And Judge Judy’s injunction should apply to the ideology of no ideology as much as to any ideology that owns up to being one: “Don’t pee on me and tell me it’s raining.”
Norman Solomon is the author of "War Made Easy."
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