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Calling All CounterPunchers!
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Today's Stories November 10, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Kim Nicolini Cpt. Paul Watson November 7 / 9, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Vijay Prashad Tariq Ali Jean Bricmont John V. Whitbeck Saul Landau Peter Morici Lawrence Velvel Karyn Strickler Nativo V. Lopez Christopher Fons Alan Farago David Yearsley Christopher Brauchli Samah Sabawi Dave Lindorff Deepak Tripathi Beth Sherouse Patrick Irelan Stephen Martin Richard Rhames J. Murray Lorenzo Wolff Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Day
November 6, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez John Chuckman P. Sainath Joshua Frank Edna Canetti John Ross Norman Solomon Fawzia Afzal-Khan Robert Weissman Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day
November 5, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Chuck Spinney Ishmael Reed Chris Floyd Binoy Kampmark Michael Donnelly David Macaray Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. William Willers Website of the Day November 4, 2008 Kathleen Christison James Ridgeway Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Conn Hallinan Holly M. Barker Ashley Smith Andy Worthington Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Doug Lummis Carlos Fierro Website of the Day November 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn John Kennedy O'Hara Peter Montague Steve Conn Andrew Gebhardt Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader Niranjan Ramakrishnan Uri Avnery Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner DC Larson David Michael Green Val Strange Tuli Kupferberg / Website of the Day
October 31 , 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Douglas Valentine Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Dr. Ignacy Nowopolski Alan Maass William P. O’Connor Patrick Irelan Brian Cloughley Mats Svensson Binoy Kampmark Steve Conn Alan Farago Morton Skorodin Robert Bryce Wajahat Ali David Yearsley Dennis Loo Pam Martens Stephen Martin Richard Rhames Ramzy Baroud Missy Beattie Howard Lisnoff Richard Neville Saul Landau / Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Stanley Heller William Loren Katz Joshua Frank James McEnteer Felice Pace Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
October 29, 2008 Arno J. Mayer Eric Toussaint Matt Gonzalez Steven Conn Jonathan Cook Patrick Bond Ramzi Kysia Douglas Valentine Stephen Martin Margaret Dooley-Sammuli Amee Chew Website of the Day
October 28, 2008 James G. Abourezk Andy Worthington Gary Leupp Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Gregory V. Button Ralph Nader P. Sainath Martha Rosenberg Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 27, 2008 Michael Hudson Barbara Rose Johnston John Dinges Mike Whitney Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power Alan Farago David Michael Green Andy Worthington George Wuerthner Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day October 24 / 26, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Don Santina Scott Boehm Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Linn Washington Jr. Nicole Colson Bernard Chazelle Brian Jones Christopher Brauchli Benjamin Dangl Val Strange Steve Early David Macaray Allison Kilkenny Richard Rhames Jim Bell Kris De Welde Barry Clemson Adam Engel Mark Scaramella Tuli Kupferberg Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 23, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Todd Chretien John Ross Peter Morici Mats Svensson Marlene Martin Robert Jensen / Margaret Kimberley Deepak Tripathi David Morris Website of the Day October 22, 2008 Brian Cloughley Heather Gray Jeff Birkenstein Ralph Nader DC Larson David Swanson Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth Larry Everest Robert Fantina Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Website of the Day October 21, 2008 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Corey D. B. Walker Steve Breyman Eric Toussaint Wajahat Ali Robert Weitzel Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing Patrick B. Barr Omar Barghouti Website of the Day October 20, 2008 Michael Hudson Anthony DiMaggio Tariq Ali Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Ben Rosenfeld David Michael Green William S. Lind Chris Genovali Stephen Martin Howard Lisnoff David Yearsley Website of the Day October 17 / 19, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whtney Michael D. Yates Suzanne Smith Carl Boggs Ralph Nader Fidel Castro Dave Marsh Saul Landau Jo Guldi Kevin Zeese Larry Everest Steve Early David Macaray Ben Terrall Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Helen Redmond Dan Bacher Wajahat Ali Farzana Versey Vladimir Frolov Kim Nicolini Poets Basement Website of the Day
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November 10, 2008 The Telescoping of African-AmericansAnd We Are Not SavedBy COREY D. B. WALKER
With the election of Senator Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, the nation and the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. The reign of the rogue Bush-Cheney regime brought about a heightened awareness of the utter destructiveness of American Empire both at home and abroad. Coupled with a crippling crisis in global capitalism, the American electorate decided to entrust presidential power in the Illinois senator whose keen political sensitivity, adept media savvy, and boundless oratorical skill swayed a majority of voters to view his candidacy as the best chance for a return to some semblance of political normalcy. The historic nature of Senator Obama’s campaign and election has been justly hailed as a signal event in American politics. Indeed, given the peculiar – to put it gently – history and character of Majoritarian Democracy in the United States coupled with the deep symbolic investments in the Office of the President, Senator Obama’s ascendancy to the nation’s highest political office will rightly be the subject of conversation and debate for many years to come. But the election of Senator Obama raises anew the complex tensions between the American experiment with democracy and a just democratic politics. Such a tension is particularly evident in recent assessments of Senator Obama’s election. Instead of an acute focus on the over two decades long evolution of a new black political class from the lower ranks to the higher echelons of major party politics and formal political power – from the late Ron Brown to Donna Brazile to Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice – there has been a pronounced tendency to follow one dominant narrative that telescopes all of African American life, thought, and history into the ascent of President-elect Obama. These first drafts of history collapse the multiple and varied African American freedom struggles to the narrow terrain of electoral politics and make them absolutely commensurate with the politics of American statecraft. Such pronouncements not only diminish the significant ways in which African Americans have sought to fundamentally challenge the imperial and inegalitarian configurations of American power, but they also work to erase the more foundational challenge issued by these multitudes and movements in seeking to inaugurate new and more egalitarian social, political, and economic orders – locally, nationally, and globally. Perhaps this narrative line says more about the class character and ideological hegemony of the chattering classes in their equation of power with justice and privilege with equality. To be sure, political parties and electoral campaigns do not exhaust politics – particularly a just democratic politics. Furthermore, for all of their symbolic value, elections do not in and of themselves signal the beginning or end of radical and fundamental change. It can justifiably be argued that in a culturally and politically conservative democracy, such as the United States, elections serve as a channel to discipline the unruly dreams and radical political imaginations of the people. While the election of Senator Obama to the American presidency is a pivotal event in American cultural and political history, it also serves as a prescient reminder that the work of politics is not solely funneled through the office of the President, but rather, through the critical consciousness of a people intent on creating a just social and political order. As a new nationalism – one that replaces the violence of the bellicose nationalism of the Bush-Cheney regime with an equally violent one that narrates centuries of racialized chattel slavery, state sanctioned and enforced racial discrimination, and structural injustice and inequality as unfortunate but necessary preconditions for the election of Senator Obama – sweeps across the land, the work of a genuine and just democratic politics begins again. Although there are those who seek to maintain the political status quo albeit with new actors, such as the Brookings based Hamilton Project which boldly states that “the most pressing need now is not new ideas, but greater political will and a bipartisan political process,” the work of a just democratic politics taps the creative energies of everyday citizens in expanding the terrain of freedom and equality while rejecting the sophomoric rhetoric of “bipartisanship” in its myopic focus on process instead of people. As the nation and world transitions to the administration and policies of President-elect Obama, there must be an intensification and deepening of a just democratic politics that does not confuse political style with substantive change and soaring rhetoric with the hard work of doing right. Such a politics must focus on cultivating informed and responsible citizens and not a periodically awakened and mobilized electorate. Along with a fundamental challenge and transformation of the formal mechanisms of politics – from a domestic policy that leaves citizens unprotected in the face of mounting economic devastation to an ideologically driven economic policy that privileges the wealthy over the needy to a foreign policy that fundamentally reinforces the dictates of empire to a virtually nonexistent environmental policy in the face of a planetary ecological crisis that threatens all of existence – there must be an equally dramatic reconfiguration of power between the American state and the American people. Thus, while the nation and world breathes a justified sigh of relief, the searing words of Martin Luther King, Jr. serve as a forceful reminder that the work of a just democratic politics has only just begun: “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” Corey D. B. Walker is an assistant professor of Africana studies at Brown University and the author of A Noble Fight: African American Freemasons and the Struggle for Democracy in America.
New in the Print Edition of CounterPunch For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederic Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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New in the CP Print Edition! For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederic Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; and Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Waiting for Lightning
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