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Today's
Stories
November 27, 2008
Steve Hendricks
Thanksgiving We Can Believe In
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
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 27, 2008
The Impoverishment of the American Worker
The Root Cause of the Crisis of 2008
By JOHN WALSH
“Why have you raised the wages of your workers, Mr. Ford”?
“So that someone can buy my cars.”
Why is the crash and depression of 2008 shrouded in mystery? Why is it not possible to explain the crisis in simple terms that do not involve financial instruments which no one understands – not even their creators? Why have the pundits and economists resorted to little more than a primitive analogy to temperature, that is, the credit market has “frozen up.” Or a psychological one – that this is simply a crisis of confidence. The banks will not lend even though they are being provided heaps of cash by their government; but still there is no lending and no one can or will say why. Is there a real reason why credit is not available and why banks will not lend? Either no one knows, or the answer is unthinkable for the elite and unspeakable for the Commentariat.
There are major factors at work in the economy for decades, which are evident to even the most casual observer; and these, it would appear, are now coming home to roost. Since the 1970s the real wages of American workers have been falling – a decline now lasting over 30 years. Similarly, membership in unions has plummeted as the government has made it harder to organize and employers have become ever more adept at shutting unions out. At the same time, the Democratic Party supposedly the representative of the working class has sold out its base at every turn. Today the wealthiest 400 Americans sit atop a mountain of wealth equal to the wealth of the bottom half of the population, about 150 million Americans. And of course many jobs have been lost to overseas factories, many of them funded by American capital. All of this is a boon to those at the top. And all this means that the purchasing power of the average American has fallen.
At the same time, Americans have systematically been deprived of other means of making purchases. Defined benefit pension plans have all but disappeared, and there are calls for the remaining ones to be dismantled. Social security is not an adequate retirement program, leaving ever more people in poverty or close to it, or working until their dying day. And education is more and more beyond the reach of those who want to “purchase” it, a real mystery, since faculty salary and benefits are in sharp decline. (University CEO’s however are paid ever more handsomely.) Medicare, as a way for seniors to “purchase” health care, is still not comprehensive , and health insurance for all others is non-existent or prohibitively expensive ever less adequate even for those who have it. In previous downturns health care was “counter cyclical” but not this time according to The Wall Street Journal.
So what has been the solution to keep the economy going in this situation? The answer is easy – credit. Since the 1970’s the credit card has emerged as part of our life. Credit has been extended to anyone and everyone. And plastic credit has gradually become an ever more burdensome form of usury, with stinging and often disabling penalties, much to the delight of the creditors who simply find ways to extend more credit and extract more money. Credit has also been extended for mortgages which the creditors, banks and others, are only too happy to lend on the assumption, which no one dared question, that home prices always rise and the borrower can always be made to pay more. An army of real estate agents serves as enforcers for endless property inflation.
One other solution for the plight of the impoverished American is import of goods from overseas. But what can America provide in return? Nothing, is the answer for the long term. For the short term the answer is dollars which others have accepted despite their declining value and because at least fossil fuels can be purchased with them. But the dollar is ever less attractive for this reason. Similarly military Keynsianism has a limited ability to prime the pump in the long term since it is unproductive and there are limits to the ability of the US to force arms sales down the gullet of “allies.”
That such factors are operative is beyond dispute. But why has the crisis hit now? What is the straw that has broken the back of the economy? It would to the war on Iraq and the Muslim world, although it may be simply a coincidence that the economy has crashed as Iraq has burned. In a fairly short time the Iraq war has added another $3-5 trillion dollars of debt to the present and future balance sheets in the US, according to economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes. And with it has come the decline of the dollar, which Paul Craig Roberts has documented so convincingly on CounterPunch.
A simple comparison illustrates the truth of this analysis. Last week the Finance Minister of France was interviewed at length on CPB’s News Hour. She pointed out that France while not growing spectacularly is not in recession! Why? Good pensions, public sector health care insurance, public sector education and no crazy mortgage schemes. And in France a credit card is a rare thing – debit cards yes, credit cards, no. All these things are “counter-cyclical” as they say. Of course it remains to be seen whether France can escape the downward pull of the US economy.
What does recovery for the US economy entail? Certainly not giving more to the banks which have a disappearing class of worthwhile debtors and hence no one to lend to. But that is precisely the strategy which W. and Obama are pursuing. Such a strategy cannot possibly work because there are no credit worthy borrowers – and so far it has not. Quite simply the system has to reverse itself to save itself – and there is little sign of that. The idea that the rich should get poorer and vice versa has no precedent in this society. And Obama shows very little of such tendencies, and his advisers are dead set against it.
So here we are – with a capitalism that has been too successful at extracting wealth and no remedy in sight. Quite simply there are ever fewer people who can afford to buy Mr. Ford’s cars. This is simply a crisis of overproduction – not a new idea, of course, but one that seems to explain the present state of affairs very adequately. Could it be the end of the road for this system? Probably not, because it has still a role to play in the developing world. But it would seem that we are in for a lot of suffering, a lot of turmoil and considerable opening for some radical changes in our way of life – for better or worse.
John Walsh is a professor at U Mass. He is not an a practitioner of the Dismal Science, and he frankly doubts that “economics” as taught in the universities now, as distinguished from political economy, is a valid discipline. He has some knowledge of the physicists and mathematicians who put together the Wall Street “instruments” that have triggered the present crisis. Many of these people knew that they were simply providing their bosses with simulations that proved what the bosses wanted proven. And many of these former academics openly referred to themselves as “whores.” It may be dangerous to let too many physicists go unemployed. He can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com.
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