Today's Stories

October 24 / 26, 2008

Mike Whitney
Down for the Count

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?

October 16, 2008

Mike Whitney
The End of Friedmanite Economics: an Interview with Robert Pollin

Jonathan Cook
The Acre Riots

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Is Obama Playing to the Gallery? Or Has He Lost the Plot in South Asia?

Alan Maass
A Supreme Injustice: the Death Penalty Case of Troy Davis

Chuck O'Connell
Our Needs Do Not Fit on Their Ballots

Mary Lynn Cramer
Krugman's Prize: Iconoclast, Apologist or Propagandist?

P. Sainath
The Race May be Over, But Race Isn't

Andy Worthington
The Shrinking Case Against Binyam Mohamed: Justice Department Drops "Dirty Bomb Plot" Allegation

Peter Gelderloos
Enric Duran, the Good Thief?

Stephen Martin
The Nourishment of Idleness: Where Has All the Money Gone?

Douglas Valentine
Why I'm Voting for Obama

Website of the Day
The Mormon Worker

October 15, 2008

Steve Conn
The Real Story of Troopergate

William P. O'Connor
The Legend of John McCain

Robert Weissman
The Partial Nationalization of US Banks: Public Ownership, But No Public Control

Jonathan M. Feldman
Before the Second Wave of Crisis: an Alternative to the Triple Failure

Ron Jacobs
The Politics of Race in America: Is a Vote For Obama a Vote Against Racism?

Conn Hallinan
Targeting Unions in Colombia

Justin Podur
The Financial Economy and Real Economy

Karl Grossman
The New Nuclear Navy

Dave Lindorff
Is the Government Really Turning Socialist?

Eric Walberg
The Quiet Russian

Martha Rosenberg
Of Blood and Eggs

Uri Avnery
A Fairy Tale

Monica Benderman
No More

Website of the Day
Contractor Misconduct Database

Weekend Edition
October 24 / 26, 2008

Scenes from North Carolina

The Fraternity of John McCain

By VAL STRANGE

I went to the John McCain a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina last week and I have the autograph to prove it. But like, John McCain, I had to fight for it. I hustled over there after finding out about it an hour before, hoping to penetrate the press gates. But. Had no luck there. I couldn't get inside either, because I didn't hold a ticket, and tickets were sold out, so I stood outside on the front lawn like hundreds of others and watched the speech on a large screen. A paramedic truck was parked up front. Is there one always at these things? I pondered, because of speculations about the senator's health.

The fact that McCain held the rally at Cape Fear Community College rather than more prestigious fare should say something about his character. But the frumpy ladies next to me wearing veteran hats said a whole other. He revisited old rhetoric from his POW days casting himself as the underdog who is the true fighter America needs in its time of crisis. Recently, I'd seen footage of another McCain rally whereby he snatched the microphone back from a woman after she accused Obama of being an Arab.  As if being an Arab is a slur. So I expected the same decency from the senator this time around.

But his methodic speech now pointed a less sympathetic finger. McCain's casual town hall-style appeared less comfortable at the stump as he read points off his speech like a script. Raising his head to deliver pauses for the audience to respond, in that odd, spasmodic, signature-to-McCain nature. One might say it's that odd nature–that unsexiness–for lack of a better word, that has worked for McCain and it was working for this crowd as well. One might even call it one of the ingredients that have helped label him a Maverick.

Suddenly North Carolina is important. And people from all over the state spilled in to Wilmington equally as excited to have their own vis-à-vis with McCain's celebrity, as they were to brandish theirs.
Hell fire and brimstone shall reign upon America if Obama becomes president was the message. He quibbled the all-white audience on the hot-button issue of the day. "My friends," he said, "senator Obama wants to raise taxes for small businesses; and send your jobs overseas!" They crowd filed around him jeered. His maligned attacks went further into drawing parallels between Herbert Hoover and Obama. Railing Obama as The Man with The Plan to lead us into another depression. And they jeered.

He drove home the importance of shedding our dependence on foreign oil. "My friends, we need to drill here and we need to DRILL NOW!" He roused them and they cheered. As the claps waned I couldn't help but stamp my foot. "Tomorrow, I'm sure." A plump woman looked over me discerningly.

One thing is clear. It's open season. Anything goes at the last throws of the campaign trail. People called for him to take the gloves off even as he shrugged to maintain his hawkish points.
"My friends, I know what fear feels like," McCain said. "It's a thief in the night. It robs your strength ... I felt those things before. I will never let them in again." He implored.

There was a stench of desperation in the air. McCain pep-rallied "I will fight for you!" But he didn't look too happy about having to fight for a state known to be a given for republican candidates at this stage of the game. But I think his disdain only served as another ingredient the crowd identified with. They rose to a frenzy shouting, "U-S-A!" The veteran women next to me were charged up with energy that would scare the bejesus out of anyone. Their feet feathered off the ground as they joined along in this terrible chorus.

What an odd cheer. It's exactly this kind of divisible flag-waving, quote-on-quote "patriotic" rhetoric that has gotten us in the mess we're in the first place, isn't it?

The only trace of Elizabeth Dole's support was a crumbled-up sticker with her name on it landing down on the pavement. Two lads campaigning for Pat McCrory bolstered the crowd on in the sprightliness of Sunday service. I knew there was more than meets the eye before I tapped Brian Horton's shoulder. Brian, one of the two lads currently pursuing a master's degree in political science at the University of North Carolina, was more than happy to share his views on the election. Once I asked him where he drew the line between John McCain and George Bush, he fanned me with that unwavering staunchly conservative idealism.

Horton established George Bush as a man with sound policies, Iraq a necessity, and which, he explained simply as "Bush finishing daddy's job" without further need to qualify. He repudiated the question if his vote had anything to do with race before I could finish my sentence. He cited J.C. Watts and Allan Keys as his past choices. Implying that he would be voting for Obama if Obama represented the republican ticket. "I admire McCain's integrity and character and when he missteps he owns up to it," said Horton. And then with unflinching ease he looked over my shoulder. "There's Jon Evans!" his "favorite Fox News anchor," he said, fraternizing with his buddy about their prospect of meeting the anchor in person. This is Brian's third election in a pedigree of fiscal republicans.

The atmosphere at the rally was plain as day with Nobama signs nearby featuring Barack Obama next to Osama Bin Laden. "It's despicable," said, Madison Hipp, a 19 year-old CFCC student who would be voting for the first time. She said her vote is cast for Obama. She looked on peacefully with her colleague, Eric Blizzard, an 18 year-old freshman, also a first-time voter, who was positive now he would vote for John McCain. "He nailed it!" said the freckled teener satisfied with his candidate's performance. When I asked what the deciding factors were, Blizzard replied: "His war experience, it gives him a winning edge over Obama. He's trying to help America, not get votes," he said.
Under an overbearing heat, the channel of communication opened up on the sidelines. In terms of understanding McCain's fan base, I would soon realize, inside was not the place to be, but outside–with the undecided.

The area was soon barricaded with investigation tape and police summoned us with metal-detectors. A train of secret service agents paraded by. I asked the officer scanning me what was going on and by his reluctance to confirm the question I realized that McCain would make an appearance out on the lawn. Star-struck the crowd waited to see him in the flesh. But as for me, I reminisced about the McCain I was introduced to yesteryear. The media had proclaimed him a "dead man" with his campaign bankrupt. But he stepped right up on his straight-talking bus and showed them who's dead in full animation. He was a true underdog, then, with a resilient spirit I could get behind. But now the McCain I saw was a guy trailing in the polls and obsessed with not putting his country first, as his campaign slogan read, but obsessed with only one preoccupation: Winning and winning at any cost.

In the summation of the McCain speech The Fighter theme was carried out in full capacity with Eye of the Tiger ringing out over loud speakers. I began to feel roused, too, with the hairs standing at the back of my neck, until the song started skipping in and out into a resounding gong. Into one shrill master mix grating our ears. Which sounded more indicative of the scene, indeed, before the PA system had to be shut down.

I asked, Mark Rhodes, a software specialist with Copiers Plus if he thought this election is about issues or personality. "I definitely think it's about issues," he said. Even as he confided that as a stalwart republican he was leaning democratic for the first time– before Sarah Palin came in the picture, that is.

"She is pretty, isn't she?" I admitted.

But Rhodes qualified his remark resounding even more adulation for the Alaska governor. But, Rhodes said he doesn't know whom he'll vote for, yet.

"I'm going to let you in on a little secret," Rhodes said, "North Carolina isn't at all as it seems." Alluding to some North Carolinians who may put up a good conservative front of adhering to their deep southern roots. But, who knows which way their fears sway them behind The Curtain.
When the senator finally made his appearance on the lawn he looked rather pale giving his thumbs up. We edged ourselves around the barricades to shake his hand.

"Look, there's Cindy!" Rhodes exclaimed. "She so pretty!"

Anna Clark, also a software specialist, and Rhode's colleague, took one look at my notebook and fumbled with her organizer to find a page ready to get it autographed. To tell you the truth, it hadn't occurred to me, but I was equally excited at the prospect of getting one also.
When my turn came, McCain took one look at me and…he continued onto to the next person. He was already shaking hands with the veteran ladies next to me when I insisted. Several times, actually, before he reluctantly backtracked to grace my notebook with his sharpie.

In a rage of enthusiasm, "I hope you win senator!" Escaped my mouth.

His face softened to thanking me.

Cindy McCain filed by, ignoring me also. But I didn't let her off the hook, either. She eventually, and without looking, spared me her left hand.

I'm willing to guess why McCain skipped over me. I think what he saw when he looked me in my eye was that spark, that inevitable energy that lifts through the malaise weighing it down the last eight years, and radiates through-and-through with an optimism that there's something better out there. And I think John McCain knew I wasn't looking at it.

The south is leery of letting history remind them of who they once were. And Obama is a constant reminder of that. What I learned was, that, there are still some, undecided voters murmuring beneath the surface that hear their conscience speak loud and clear. But can they trust it? That remains to be seen. In the mean time, they'll go on tickled by their newfound celebrity.

Val Strange is a writer/journalist presently journeying these United States and keeping score. In between working on a collection of essays she takes long walks with her two dogs Boy and Lucy.

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