Today's Stories

October 21, 2009

Pam Martens
The Next Financial Crisis Hits Wall Street: Judges Start Nixing Foreclosures

October 20, 2009

Sharon Smith
Et Tu, Codepink?

Tariq Ali
Farce in Kabul, Tragedy in Pakistan

Mark Brenner
Pensions: the Next Casualty of Wall Street

Bouthaina Shaaban
The Adoption of the Goldstone Report: What Does It Mean?

Michael D. Yates
Down in the Valley With Cesar: Power, Paranoia and Purges in the UFW

Dean Baker
Does Citibank Need China?

Dave Lindorff
Depleted Uranium Weapons: Dead Babies in Iraq and Afghanistan are No Joke

John Ross
Chronicle of a Tormenta Electrica, II

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five: a Very Important Liar

Kevin Zeese
Can the Democrats Avoid a Populist Health Care Rebellion?

Gilad Atzmon
Autumn in Shanghai

Website of the Day
A Message From the Gyre

October 19, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Dollar Will Not Crash

Greg Moses
The Cash Cops of Tenaha

John Ross
Chronicle of a Tormenta Electrica

Michael Donnelly
Outside Agitator

Jayne Lyn Stahl
Dick's Fringe Army: Tea Baggers and Birchers?

Eric Walberg
The Battle in Canada

Russell Mokhiber
Pennsylvania, First in the Nation for Single Payer?

Barbara Rose Johnston
War, Peace and the Obamajority

John V. Whitbeck
Zionism: an Anti-Semite's Dream?

Christopher Ketcham
Swine Fools

Website of the Day
Greenspan: Break Up the Big Banks?

October 16-18, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
White House v. Fox News: a War Obama Can Win

Saul Landau
Autumn of the Patriarch

Paul Craig Roberts
The Rich Have Stolen the Economy

Carl Ginsburg
Where $18 an Hour is Too Much

Ralph Nader
Barney Frank the Bankers' Consort

Nikolas Kozloff
Rainforest Beef, Factory Farms and Anthony Bourdain's War on Vegetarians

Carlo Galli
Berlusconi: Still Doing Nothing, Still There

Dave Lindorff
Agent Orange in Vietnam: Ignoring the Crimes Before Our Eyes

Catherine Rottenberg / Neve Gordon
Educating Children in War Zones

Marshall Auerback
Dollar Spasms

Nicola Nasser
The Realistic Way Out of Iraq

Windy Cooler
The Ghost of John Brown

James L. Secor
Why I Miss China

Ron Jacobs
Escalation Unopposed

Wes Jackson
A Way of Knowing

Jesse Lerner-Kinglake
Global Food Fight

David Ker Thomson Against Leaders

Missy Beattie
Dinner With the President

Emily Ratner
Taping Our Mouths Shut to Scream Out Our Dissent

Stephen Martin
The Scorched Earth Mindset of the International Banker

Michael Snedeker
"A Place of Greater Safety"

Charles R. Larson
Cheeta: the Last of the Hollywood High-Rollers

David Yearsley
Judith Leyster's Sensuous Passions

Peter Stone Brown
It's a Bob Christmas for Halloween

Poets' Basement
Keeler, Beatty and Anderson

Website of the Weekend
Elements of Nature

October 15, 2009

Andrew Cockburn
Our Cheap Politicians

Brian M. Downing
Rethinking the Afghan Insurgency

Ramzy Baroud
Abbas and the Goldstone Report: Our Shame is Complete

Danny Weil
A Neo-Liberal Arts Education: Diploma Mills and Debt Peonage

M. Idrees Ahmad
Return to Peshawar: a Journey Home

Margaret Kimberley
Michelle's Family Tree

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five: Which Side Are You On?

Harvey Wasserman
Nuking the Climate Bill

Nirmal Ghosh
A Tale of Two Protocols: How Montreal Could Save Us From the Mire of Kyoto

Charles R. Larson
Sarah Palin Bears It All

Website of the Day
Tortured Law

October 14, 2009

Michael Neumann
Fearsome Words? a Suppressed Talk on the Israel/Palestine Conflict

M. Reza Pirbhai
Fighting the Taliban: What, Exactly, is Being Fought in Afghanistan?

Gareth Porter
Hawks Play Up the Taliban's Ties to Al Qaeda

Paul Craig Roberts
War Criminals Are Becoming Arbiters of the Law

John Strausbaugh Fortress Moon

Ralph Nader
The CBO's Flawed Report on Medical Malpractice

Dean Baker
Won't You Please Come to Chicago to Greet the Bankers?

Charles Modiano
White Silence: Where Does Brett Favre Stand on Rush Limbaugh?

Nadia Hijab
Abandoning "Women and Children"

Walter Brasch
An Extension of Her Motherhood: Sherry Carpenter, Journalist and Animal Care Provider

Website of the Day
Nader: Obama Has a "Concessionary Personality"

October 13, 2009

Peter Linebaugh
Putting the Spine Back in the Commonwealth

Shamus Cooke
What Obama Isn't Telling American Workers

John Ross
War on Mexican Women

Brendan Cooney
Ask Awal Khan About Obama's Prize

Frida Berrigan
Operation Enduring Detentions: Losing the Moral High Ground

Yves Engler
Is Canada More Pro-Israel Than the US?

David Macaray
Why the Government Fears Unions

Dave Lindorff
Democrats: Selling Out, But Still Getting Screwed

Mark Weisbrot
Occupying Afghanistan is Making Things Worse

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
History Repeats Itself

Binoy Kampmark
That Dirty Colonial War

Website of the Day
The Health Insurance Industry's Latest Doublecross

October 12, 2009

Pam Martens
Secret Deal Between Wall Street and Washington Shines a Harsh Light on Federal Housing Agency

Mike Whitney
A Dollar Rout or More Bernanke Trickery?

Martha Rosenberg
Yale Lab Tech Causes Two Problems for Animal Researchers

Jessica Arents
The Price of Peace: Our Arrest at the White House

Eamonn McCann
Massacre in Ireland, Massacre in Iraq

Bill Hatch
Dairy Industry Goes Down the Tubes

Sen. Russell Feingold
Time for a Timetable in Afghanistan

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Siren Song of World Praise

Gideon Levy
Obama's Betrayed Mission in the Middle East

Iyad Burnat
Why Does Obama Get a Prize and Bush Got Shoes?

Alan Cabal
Why Obama Deserves the Nobel

Dan Bacher
The Astroturf Method

Website of the Day
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help

October 9-11, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
War and Peace

James Bovard
Eight Years of Big Lies on Afghanistan

Kathleen and Bill Christison
New Crisis Developing in Palestine

Andy Worthington
Congressional Depravity on Gitmo

Marc Levy
Talking Dirty to the Kids

Tariq Ali
Ahmed Rashid's War

Mike Whitney
The Securitization Boondoggle

Paul Craig Roberts
Warmonger Wins Peace Prize

Alan Nasser
Cockeyed Economics

Jack Z. Bratich
The Twitterest Pill: Policing Dissent in the Information Age

Steve Breyman
Time for a War Tax

David Michael Green
A Hapless Presidency

Dave Lindorff
The WTF Prize

Paul Buchheit
Fear of the Rich

Jim Goodman
Feedlots and E. Coli

Missy Beattie
Theater of the Absurd

Michael Leonardi
Ships of Poison

Nadia Hijab
The Plight of the Right of Return

Mel Packer
The Crackdown on Pittsburgh

David Macaray
The Raiding Game

James T. Phillips
Getting Burned

Charles R. Larson
One Man's Walk Through Hell

Michael Donnelly
Behind the Capitalist Curtain

David Yearsley
The Biggest Blot on Mel Gibson's Rap Sheet

Lorenzo Wolff
Rap That Threatens ... and Endures

Poets' Basement
Heyen, Ames and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Jobs Conference

October 8, 2009

Saul Landau
A Late September Morning With Fidel

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Dark Omens for the US in Afghanistan

Linn Washington, Jr.
Pot and Perversion: Judicial Antics Expose Drug War Insanity

Marshall Auerback
Neo-Classical Economics Misses What Matters

Dave Lindorff
A Nation of Snoops

David Rosen
Bankrupt Morality: the Staying Power of Republican Sinners

Chris Darimont / Misty MacDuffee
The Bear Essentials: New Thinking Needed to Save BC's Salmon and Grizzlies

John V. Walsh
Remembering Hinton's Fanshen

Stewart Lawrence
The Edwards / Hunter Affair Reconsidered

Charles R. Larson
Conservatives in the Sandbox

Website of the Day
Et Tu, Code Pink?

October 7, 2009

Brendan Cooney
Are Republicans Breaking US Law in Honduras?

Paul Craig Roberts
Dead Labor: Marx and Lenin Reconsidered

Dean Baker
Bernanke's Recovery: Unemployment Up, Wages Down (But the Banks Have Been Saved ... Sort Of)

Jonathan Cook
A Third Intifada?

John Stanton
HTS: Congress Rewards Failure, Puts Personnel in Harms Way

Joanne Mariner
Tortured Language

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cherry Blossoms

Stephen Lendman
The Gaza War's Effect on Women

Sen. Russell Feingold
Time to Draw Down in Afghanistan

Mary Lynn Cramer
Doublespeak on Health Care

Website of the Day
How to Bag a Wolf by Aerial Assault

October 6, 2009

Mike Whitney
Dollar Hysteria: Is the Sky Really Falling?

Gareth Porter
The Iranian Rift in the IAEA: Leaked Paper Based on Disputed Intel

Jonathan Cook
How Israel Buried the UN's War Crime Probe

Boris Kagarlitsky
My Hour as Talking Head in Moscow

Iain Boal
The New Crisis at Pacifica

Ron Jacobs
Why Are We in Afghanistan?

John Ross
Wave of Anarchist Bombings Strikes Mexico

Michael Dickinson
Panic in Istanbul: Smoke, Mayhem and the World Bank

Stephen Fleischman
Beware the Predator

Ira Glunts
The Audacity of Nope

Missy Beattie
Outside Looking In

Website of the Day
Round Up the Usual Suspects

October 5, 2009

Pam Martens
Wall Street Titans Use Aliases to Foreclose on Families While Partnering with a Federal Agency

Mike Whitney
Dead Man Walking: Welcome to the US Economy

Paul Craig Roberts
How the Feds Imprison the Innocent

Harry Browne
Ireland Says, "Yes, Please"

Sara Mann
My Little Town: Nothin' But the Dead and Dyin'

Omar Barghouti
Dissolve the Palestinian Authority

Shamus Cooke
A Jobless Recovery?

Brenda Norrell
A Dirty New Low for Peabody Coal

Fred Gardner
Situation NORML: Reconciling Medical Pot Use and Legalization

Binoy Kampmark Copenhagen Blues: McChrystal and the Afghan Trap

Website of the Day
In Goldman Sachs We Trust?

October 2-4, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Geezer Renditions

Saul Landau
News From Raul Castro

Diana Johnstone
After the German Elections: Is Socialism Really Dead in Europe?

Greg Moses
Cramming for the Downside

William Blum
The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Another Cold War Myth

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Nuclear Program: Where's the Proof?

Russell Mokhiber
Welcome Back, Michael Moore

John Ross
Chomsky in Mexico

Ellen Brown
IMF Catapults From Shunned Agency to Global Central Bank

David Ker Thomson
Cop Shocks

David Macaray
The Audacity of Toyota

Gary Engler
Unions in a Rut

Robert Fantina
Meet the New Boss (Same as the Old Boss)

Lisa Stolarski / Naomi Archer
Pittsburgh: Still a (Coal) Company Town

Anthony Papa
Here is Your Chance to Help End the Failed War on Drugs

Joe Allen
The Good Wife: Bad View of a Corrupt System

Harry Browne
Tarantino Scalps His Audience

Ron Jacobs
Collective Fiction

Charles R. Larson
Cultural Warriors: Austrialian Aboriginal Art Triennial

David Yearsley
Hanns Eisler's Great National Anthem for East Germany is Available: Make It America's

Poets' Basement
Taylor, Gardner and Landau

Website of the Weekend
Wrongful Convictions of Youth

October 21, 2009

The Danger of Silence and Understatement

Rush Limbaugh and the NFL

By D. K. WILSON

Now that it's safe for ESPN to discuss Rush Limbaugh at length, we know Dave Checketts has dropped Limbaugh from his investment group seeking to purchase the St. Louis Rams. The fear here is that the players who spoke out against Limbaugh and NFLPA chief DeMaurice Smith will cease being vigilant in ensuring that people who would be detrimental to the NFL are kept from inclusion in the league.

Though MODI (Charles Modiano) asked White NFL players where their voices are, there was no thought here of a White NFL player speaking out against Rush Limbaugh. In a perfect world, or even a world where some of the denizens of America are conscious of the environment in which they live and work, the question is viable.

But, in reality?  Not on your life.

There is no hope for a scenario to arise in which White athletes voices will be heard on an issue like that of Limbaugh-Rams. For these athletes to speak, they must be provided a platform to do so.

Other than the few Black players who did speak via the New York Daily News, who, were the other Black NFL players who voiced their feelings about Rush Limbaugh?

Exactly.

None.

It's not as if the statements made by Mathias Kiwanuka and Bart Scott were prefaced by, "In a letter sent by..." or "In an unsolicited email from..." Writers asked the players the questions, the players responded. Period.
White athletes were almost unanimously not asked to talk about Rush Limbaugh because they live in the portion of America where, "Land of the free," actually has meaning. They live under a Declaration of Independence that states, "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," actually applies to them. The only known non-Black NFL player to be found was Kevin Mawae center for the Tennessee Titans. In a commentary by David Climer of the Tennessean that elucidates the privilege of White privilege more than anything else, a lone sentence read:

Titans center Kevin Mawae, who describes himself as a political conservative, said: "For him to make a statement like that is unacceptable."

In the same commentary, Climers also mentioned that Titans running back LenDale White, who is Black, said he would say "Nay" to Limbaugh's inclusion in the ranks of the NFL.

There is a basic fallacy in asking about White athletes and why they did not speak about Rush Limbaugh relative to the purchase of the St. Louis Rams. That fallacy first lies in the thought that there is some real reason they should feel compelled to speak in the first place and second, even if a White NFL football player felt a want to speak publicly without first being queried by a reporter, he would first be compelled to think of the consequences for his act.

Each professional athlete in team or individual sports, exists as a one-person corporation - a corporation in the truest sense of the word as its present meaning suggests. One act of consciousness might cost an NFL player, not only endorsements while he has an on-field career, but might cost him and his family millions after his time on the field is done.

And after all that is considered, there is the question of what it takes for a person to speak out on such a topic.

For someone, anyone -athletes and writers alike - to make an accurate, fully-realized and contextualized statement about Rush Limbaugh, it takes more than a pithy or snarky sentence or paragraph, followed by the equivalent of, "moving right along in the world of sports...:" It takes something other than the following examples from these writers who did comment on the Limbaugh-Rams issue:

Limbaugh is a pungent bowl of stark raving bigoted lunacy. He'd be a dream to cover. But for the NFL, Limbaugh as an owner would be as comfortable as a colonoscopy with a periscope. It'd be one of the great nightmares for the sport.

The league has made significant strides in putting its horrid racial past behind it. The NFL isn't perfect on the issues of ethnicity but it tries.
Allowing Limbaugh, who plays the song "Barack the Magic Negro" on his radio show, a seat at the owner's table would instantly undermine everything the NFL has worked decades to accomplish.

The NFL is a dominant black league and it's tough to say that a guy who speaks his mind as much as he does with a locker room that's 60% minority would get players' respect. If I were a free agent it would be really hard for me to want to play for him. He'd have to show me that he's a different person. The coach would also have to convince me that this was about football and not politics.

All the players would remember what he said about Donovan McNabb -- what got him fired from ESPN. It's a crazy thing, but it's hard to change what you said once you said it -- hard to get guys to forget and trust again. Sometimes your words speak louder than what you're trying to do.

Rush Limbaugh is an egomaniac who can't help himself when it comes to making conversational statements. There is no way that he would be a "silent" owner.

Limbaugh couldn't last on ESPN for three weeks before offending his co-workers and the league with his comments about the media wanting Donovan McNabb to succeed because he is black.

Is this the person you want to be a face of the franchise?

Even if you believe, like I do, that Limbaugh is just a "blowhard" it doesn't change the fact his comments can be very insensitive to the public as a whole.

[NFL commissioner] Roger Goodell claims that one of his major concerns with the NFL is its image. If that is the case there is no way Rush Limbaugh should be allowed in league.

--------------

"Well, the buck's got to stop here with political ownership and teams. We can't have this. Who's next? Glenn Beck's going to want a team? James Carville's going to want a team? You got to nip this thing in the bud. We can't have Rush Limbaugh in the NFL. He had his chance, and he ruined it." ESPN contributor and Denver Post columnist Woody Paige, however, said Limbaugh would be a good owner because "I want an ultraconservative defense out of St. Louis."

-------------

"Professional blowhard Rush Limbaugh is aiming to become a part-owner of the St. Louis Rams. I guess the team won't be drafting any black quarterbacks from now on. (But at least they'll play pain-free!)"

-------------

"Here's why I don't like the idea: I have my opinion on Rush Limbaugh, and, as we're all about to witness in the comments, everyone else has their opinions on Rush Limbaugh, too. His very presence brings politics into the football discussion. I'd prefer to avoid that, but the man is so polarizing that I don't see any way around it. I couldn't get through the first sentence of this post without a little jab."

-------------

"Los Angeles should be thankful the Rams left for St. Louis 15 years ago. And it has nothing to do with their NFL-worst 14-game losing streak and 5-31 record since 2007. If the Rams' present is dim, the future could be more dismal. Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said in a prepared statement Tuesday that he and St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checketts have made a bid to buy the Rams ... Could Limbaugh's history of racially insensitive comments prove to be an impediment to luring minority free agents to the Rams?"

Each of the writers, or in the case of Kevin Blackistone, columnist and regular television show guest who mentioned Limbaugh's political leanings, either went easy on, or incorrectly labelled the virulent racist. Others averred that Limbaugh's inclusion into the NFL politicizes sports. Still others claimed he is nothing more than an "egomaniac" or "blowhard." Finally, one columnist defended the NFL's horrific racial practices: "The NFL isn't perfect on the issues of ethnicity but it tries."

Like how the NFL took 30 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to acknowledge that they even had a problem with 32 White owners hiring Black head coaches, the NFL is trying. As in the discrepancy between the type of and length of suspensions handed out by Roger Goodell to White and Black NFL players, the NFL is trying.

* * *

While the altruistic whim - White to Black altruism - of thinking White athletes can he held to the flame is laudable, it is based in the allegedly higher-minded search for that thing called "utopia." The concept of utopia is part and parcel of why we continue exist in the racial conditions we do. In essence, when Black people mimic the White search for utopia they-we can do no greater injustice to ourselves and because we will, at some point, interact with other Black people, to each other - which inevitably has a rippling effect that will someday reach the edges of the Black Diaspora.

After all, when you pursue uo topos, or, "no place," you will get uo prayma, or, nothing - or a thing so malleable and easily manipulated by those who hold power that the result is a humanity that resembles rabbits chasing carrots on sticks rather than thinking and humane humans.

And utopia is the perfect "no thing" to urge people to embark on a search for, when what they really want is to be syn topos, or, "some place."
Black people in America, like every White person in the U.S., seek their place in American society. But woefully, black people in America are placed wherever we need to be placed by the White power structure that rules our society. That tenet is how Sean Hannity can have two Black guests - Stephen A. Smith and Michael Meyers - of opposing politics on his show to discuss Rush Limbaugh, have them at times take each other's side in an effort to curry favor with Hannity and Fox producers, show the viewership a photo of NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, while Hannity, never mentioning Goodell, blames Al Sharpton for the NFL team owners decision to exclude Limbaugh from potential ownership of an NFL team.

Meantime, no "progressive" or "liberal" sports writer or columnist even recognized that the true star of the effort to keep Limbaugh out of the NFL show was NFL Player's Association chief, DeMaurice Smith. In an email to the union’s executive committee addressing Limbaugh’s bid to own the Rams, Smith said:

”I’ve spoken to the Commissioner [Roger Goodell] and I understand that this ownership consideration is in the early stages. But sport in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends. Our sport does exactly that when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred.”

“I have asked our players to embrace their roles not only in the game of football but also as players and partners in the business of the NFL,” said Smith in the e-mail. “They risk everything to play this game, they understand that risk and they live with that risk and its consequences for the rest of their life. We also know that there is an ugly part of history and we will not risk going backwards, giving up, giving in or lying down to it.

“Our men are strong and proud sons, fathers, spouses and I am proud when they stand up, understand this is their profession and speak with candor and blunt honesty about how they feel.”

Smith's statement was subtle but pointed. He spoke to the higher values of American and Americans that are, ideally, informed by the national morality established by the men who derived the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. In doing so, Smith summed up the essence of the best side of the image the owners of National Football League seek to extol, defended every Black player in the NFL, massaged the owner's egos on the subject of racism, and removed the specter of the player's "thug image" the sports media so loves to use to generate readership and website hits.

And DeMaurice Smith never mentioned Rush Limbaugh's name. Just as no mainstream sports writer, other than CBSSports.com columnist Ray Ratto, mentioned DeMaurice Smith's name.

But that's fine.

The question is, what happened to all the other journalists? Bryan Burwell and Jason Whitlock are in Missouri, so they are bound by their proximity to the Rams to write something about Limbaugh's bid to purchase the Rams issue. Other columnists have local and national platforms on which they could have made bold pronouncements about Limbaugh, race and sports, race and America. Instead, for all but Whitlock, these writers chose to stir the pot, then go meekly into the night.

Sure, they gave the appearance of following in the great tradition of journalism to move local and national conversation in a way that might push America's citizens toward a new paradigm of thought, as evidenced by Media Matters' aggregation of quotes from sports journalists around the country.

But the statements made were little more than a simulacra of a real effort to stimulate talk in the general populace.

Yet Jason Whitlock chose his national forum as a FoxSports.com columnist, to air his distaste for the neo-fascist Limbaugh. Though Whitlock, when tackling issues dealing with race and sports, can be confounding - maddening, in fact - his goal is to generate the big idea, make the big statement, no matter the side of an issue he chooses. And, unlike the vast majority of his manistream peers, on the issue of Limbaugh, Whitlock dared to err on the side of greatness. In declaring Limbaugh's bid to be part of Dave Checkett's group of investors vying to own the St. Louis Rams a publicity stunt, Fox Sports and Kansas City Star columnist pulled back the covers on Limbaugh's serial media whore personality.

It was a cue for other sports writers to follow and complete the picture of the radio show host and de facto leader of the neo-fascist, anti-gay rights (but often closet homosexual), racist, misogynist, xenophobic, and jingoist sect of the Republican Party. It is believed here that Limbaugh was initially serious in his want to be a part of the NFL owner's fraternity, as the vast majority of NFL franchise ownership shares Limbaugh's far-right political stances.

However, at the first sign of what would be a growing, public anti-Limbaugh sentiment, the media whore in Limbaugh took over. The media personality's throne has been recently challenged primarily by Fox News resident agent provocateur, Glenn Beck. When Beck's visage, tongue poking in his singular and spooky combination childish humor and churlish meanness, adorned the cover of Time magazine, Limbaugh had to comprehend the threat that Rupert Murdoch favorite American television pet - Beck - posed to Limbaugh's place as preeminent American anti-icon, icon. And by stating that his publicly-announced removal from the Checketts group by Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay and Goodell was no less than a battle for ideological primacy in the United States (but blaming that removal on every Black bogeyman from Sharpton to President Obama), Limbaugh once again placed himself - as only a White man can - at the center of all present political firestorms.

Think Limbaugh was "divisive" before this incident? Think again. Nothing compares to his current, and it can be said with certainty, the near future race-dividing verbiage he has already and will spew.

In the mid-to-late 20th century America has witnessed a military and intelligence organizations coup d'etat through the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and ideological coup d'etat through the October Surprise, the Iran-Contra drugging of America, and the establishment of an internment camp for U.S. citizens mindset as spawned by Oliver North's brazen "Rex 84."
Rush Limbaugh is angling to be the catalyst for the first 21st century coup d'etat. It is Limbaugh's wish to preside over a media coup d'etat through heightening base fear and raging - transposed self - hate in the U.S. to the point where we are at the brink of a racial Civil War that will be sometimes deadly physical and always deadly psychologically, due to the election of America's first Black President.

Sports journalists could have acted as catalysts for political writers to continue to run with the conversation they began, placing Limbaugh's ownership effort in the aforementioned, and additional contexts.

But for his efforts, editors at FoxSports.com removed Whitlock's column from its website. It would be easy to tell Whitlock to eat crow, as he has stated for anyone and all to hear that he is of such stature in the world of sports journalism that he can write whatever he chooses without fear of reprisal. But in the case of this particular column and its subject matter, there is no time for turning on Whitlock.

Though Fox can do whatever it wishes as far as maintaining control over the content it disseminates, Whitlock's column had to viewed by an, or many editors, before it was posted to the FoxSports.com website. That the column never should have seen the light of the Internet is an easy call.

The posting and subsequent removal of Whitlock's commentary was a purposeful show of power by Fox and a shot across the bow at every sports writer, mainstream or otherwise, in America.

And as proof that the Fourth Column is a thing of the past or is little more than a quaint concept based solely in a utopia, instead of rising to his defense and facing down Fox Sports for its censorship of Whitlock, sports writers and columnists fell silent on the issue.

We are, today for better or worse, a majority the native sons and daughters of America. It is time we began to seek, find, internalize the values that are common to us all. And we need to begin to shift the conversation in this country away from Rush Limbaugh or from our largely corporate-sponsored government.

We need to form the foundation for a counter coup d'etat - a citizen's coup. One that results in each of us having Some Place and value in and to American society.

And we need to begin now.

D. K. Wilson writes for Sports On My Mind. He can be reached at: mesoanarchy@gmail.com

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