Today's Stories

September 30, 2008

Pam Martens
What Wall Street Hoped to Win

September 29, 2008

Mike Whitney
Black Monday

Jeff Gibbs
"Just Say No!" to Reverse Robin Hood

Paul Craig Roberts
Why America Should Listen to Ahmadinejad

Peter Morici
The Bailout and the Economy

Tim Wise
Racism as Reflex

John Walsh
Sarah Palin is a Rotten Mom

Uri Avnery
Israeli Fascism: Yes, It Can Happen Here

Alan Farago
Hell to Pay: the Financial Collapse and the Housing Market

Andy Worthington
Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Running the 9/11 Trials?

David Michael Green
Where's the Repudiation?

Carl Finamore
Capitalism on Steroids; Labor on Tranquilizers

Iris Keltz
Postcards from the DNC

Bill Hatch
Take This Shrimp Slayer!

Website of the Day
Tina Fey as Palin, Round Two

September 27 / 28, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
How McCain Blew It

Linn Washington, Jr.
Alaska's Blacks and Palin: a Strained Relationship

Christopher Ketcham
An Israeli Trojan Horse

Mike Whitney
The People vs. the Banksters

Kevin Alexander Gray Race in the Race: Is Obama Shining Us On?

Anthony DiMaggio
The Unspoken War: Pakistan, the Media and Nuclear Weapons

Mary Lynn Cramer
Their Assets; Our Debts: How Economic Crises Are Overcome

Marc Levy /
Susan Erony
War Jokes Wanted: No Laughing Matter

Stan Cox
Livestock of Mass Destruction: Germ Labs in the Heartland

Saul Landau
Election Drizzle

Ali Khan
Meltdown in American Markets: an Islamic Perspective

David Rosen
The Great Fear: the Sexual Politics of Sarah Palin

Todd Alan Price
Bailing Out the Foes of Public Eduction

Matts Svensson
The Red and White Bird in Gaza

Ron Jacobs
Pakistan Through the Eyes of a Native Son

Robert Fantina
McCain and the Economy

Richard Rhames
Hank-ering for a Bailout

David Krieger
The U.S.-India Nuclear Proliferation Deal

Seth Sandronsky
Rethinking Charter Schools

Charles R. Larson
Dear Mrs. Abacha: a Nigerian Email Romance

Kim Nicolini
Sadism in the Desert

Poets' Basement
La Morticella, Holt, Moser and Buknatski

Website of the Day
The Great Schlep

September 26, 2008

Moshe Adler
Bailing Out Wall Street Won't Save Main Street

Bill Quigley
The U.S. War on Unarmed Working Mothers

Jonathan Cook
When Archaeology Becomes a Curse

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Visions of Pinpoint Control: the Romance of Laser Weapons

Madis Senner
Why the Bailout will Fail

Brian Cloughley
US Raids in Pakistan: Violations of Sovereignty

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Oh, Henry!

Joanne Mariner
Passport Fraud and Torture

Dan La Botz
The Financial Crisis: a View from the Left

David Macaray
Ralph's Management Indicted by Federal Grand Jury

Website of the Day
Nader and Obama Girl at the Office

September 25, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Insanity of the $700 Billion Giveaway

Sharon Smith
Democrats and Corporate Bailouts

Ralph Nader
Who Will Show Some Backbone Against the Bailout?

Christopher Ketcham
The Economy of Dead Sperm (or What I Learned From My Race-Car Grandpa Who Had No Bankers)

Eric Toussaint
Is Another Third World Debt Crisis in the Offing?

Robert Weissman
Getting Wall Street Pay Reform Right

David Estabrook
A Better Bailout Plan

Nikolas Kozloff
The Voyage of the SS Peter the Great

Steve Early
The High Price of Purple Dissent

Judith Scherr
Blue Helmets in Haiti

Laray Polk
South Ossetia and Abkhazia: Notes from the Inside

Website of the Day
Letterman Spanks McCain

September 24, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
The Bitter Fruits of Deregulation

Nikolas Kozloff
Palin at the UN: a Tutorial from Uribe

Robert Weissman
The Financial Crisis: How and Why Congress Should Play for Time

Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Trials: Govt. Says Six Years Not Long Enough to Prepare Evidence

Steve Conn
Will Nader's Warning be Acknowledged in the Presidential Debates?

Karyn Strickler
The $700,000,000,000 Power Punch

Diane Farsetta
Stealth Marketers Gone Wild

Dennis Loo
Poisoned Legacy

John Halle
Wealth Tax Now!

Khalil Nakhleh
Palestinians Under the Occupation

Website of the Day
Nader: Debate Crasher

September 23, 2008

Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr.
Bail Out on This Bailout

Michael Hudson
Henry Paulson and the New Yazoo Land Scandal

Tariq Ali
Why was the Marriott Targeted?

Patrick Dyer
A Death Row Visit with Troy A. Davis

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah and the Palestinians

Joshua Frank
Oppose Barack Obama? How Dare Thee!

Alan Farago
Pushing the Referees: How the Financial Crisis Occurred

Dave Lindorff
The Bailout Will Kill the Dollar

Tanya M. Kerssen /
Roger Burbach
Bolivia's Popular Upheaval

Harvey Wasserman
Nuclear Power Liabilities Dwarf Bush's Wall Street Bailout

Website of the Day
Hammered by the Irish: the Video

September 22, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Paulson-Bernanke Bank Bailout Plan: Will the Cure be Worse Than the Crisis?

Mike Whitney
Mushroom Clouds Over Wall Street

Christopher Ketcham
Let It Collapse!

Ron Jacobs
The Predators' Bailout

Anne-Marie McManus
Lost in the Rhetoric of Crisis

Robert Weitzel
The Twin Terrors of the Holy Land: a Sexy Fundamentalist and a White-Haired Zionist

Wajahat Ali
An Interview with Howard Dean

John Ross
A New Cold War Comes to Latin America

Steve Breyman
Does the U.S. Really Need Cluster Bombs?

Patrick Bond
On the Bellies of the Filth

Uri Avnery
Fly, Tzipora, Fly

Carl J. Mayer
An Open Letter to Michael Moore (AKA God's Pen Pal): Whatever Happened to Voting Your Conscience?

Website of the Day
Stop the Execution of Troy Anthony Davis

September 20 / 21, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Is This the Stake Through Neoliberalism's Heart?

Michael Hudson
America's Own Kleptocracy

Pam Martens
The Wall Street Model: Unintelligent Design

Lila Rajiva
Putting Lipstick on an AIG

Mike Whitney
Full-Spectrum Breakdown

Richard Rhames
A Bailout to Nowhere

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
The NY Yankees and the U.S. Economy

Bill and Kathleen Christison
The Making of Recent U.S. Middle East Policies: a New Study of Neocon Influence

Susan Block
Palin as Venus in Furs: the Dominatrix Politics of Drilling and Killing

Robert Fantina
Republicans and Subpoenas: Never the Twain Shall Meet

Heidi Walters
Hung Up on Route 36: an 18-Wheeler and a Nuclear Cask

David Yearsley
Germany's Lost Organs: When Bigger Was Better

Raymond J. Lawrence
The Politics of Tribulation: Sarah Palin and the Rapture

David Rosen
One Billion Pills Later: Viagra at 10

David Michael Green
Living in Sarah Palin's America

Anthony Papa
Imprisoned Voters and the Elections

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Freddie, Fannie, Daddy, Nanny

Howard Lisnoff
When We Notice the Homeless

John Goekler
Leaving Every Child Behind

Missy Beattie
Impalement

Dave Zirin
Leave Josh Howard Alone

Charles R. Larson
Holden Caulfield, Rest in Peace

Tim Matson
Too Big for His Birches: Woodlot Economics

Susie Day
Attack of the Angry Fetus

Poets' Basement
Corseri, Gibbons, Jenkins and Ford

Website of the Weekend
Dylan & Baez: Deportees

September 19, 2008

Steven T. Banko
McCain's Passion Play

Mike Whitney
The Point of No Return

Michael Hudson
The Dow Jones' Wonderfully Cheesy Addition

William Kaufman
Shattering the Glass-Steagall Act: the Bi-Partisan Origins of the Financial Crisis

Brenda Norrell
The Fall of Lehman Bros.: Blowback for Black Mesa?

Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor
The New Rhetoric of Racism: Why Won't Obama Call It Out?

Clifton Ross
Bolivia: Cleaning Up the Bull Ring

Dave Lindorff
Hang On to Your Wallets: the Government's About to Rescue Us!

Cynthia McKinney
Seize the Time!

Susan Hurlich
Storm Survivors: a Dispatch from Cuba

Michael Donnelly
Let's Hand It All Over to the Democrats (They Helped Create This Mess)

Website of the Day
The Crisis Explained

September 18, 2008

Benjamin Dangl
The Machine Gun and the Meeting Table

Harvey Wasserman
The Senate's Drill, Drill, Drill Scam

Susan Abulhawa
The Lobby Has Spoken: Biden and Israel

Robert Weissman
After the Fall: the Financial Re-Regulatory Agenda

Anne-Marie McManus
McCain's Cinderella: the Fetishization of Sarah Palin

Corey D. B. Walker
The Poverty of 21st Century Progressivism

William S. Lind
Senator O'Bush: Why Obama is Wrong on Iran and Afghanistan

Ron Jacobs
Washington's False Logic of Torture

Dave Lindorff
American and China: Joined at the Hip

Binoy Kampmark
How Damien Hirst Got Away With It

Website of the Day
An Invisible Army

September 17, 2008

Stephen Conn
Palin and the Politics of Big Oil

Forrest Hylton
Reactionary Rampage in Bolivia

Patrick Cockburn
Petraeus Leaves Iraq

Gregory Elich
Inside North Korea

Ralph Nader
How the U.S. Auto Industry Wrecked Itself

Franklin Lamb
The Palestinians of Shabra-Shatila

Pam Martens
The Gang's All Here: Bush, McCain and the Old Iran/Contra Team

Dave Lindorff
The End of the Blue Chip Economy

Peter Morici
The Damage Deepens

Stanley Heller
The Killing of Count Folke Bernadotte

Douglas Valentine
Rambling David Foster Wallace

Website of the Day
Free Cindy McCain!

September 16, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
US Economy: Rudderless and Reeling from Direct Hits

Tiphaine Dickson
Citizen Palin: Why Sarah Palin Quoted Westbrook Pegler

Stan Goff
America is Now Rome: an Open Letter to Christian Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

Uri Avnery
Tzipi's Choice

Michael Winship
Lipstick on Polar Bears

Jeff Halper
Warehousing Palestinians

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia Versus the Empire

Oscar Gonzalez
Who's Dumber? Ike's Refugees or Wall Street's?

Binoy Kampmark
Cheney and His Records

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Muslims are at Peace with You

Sen. Russ Feingold
Restoring the Rule of Law

Website of the Day
The Next Great Rock Band?

September 15, 2008

Mike Whitney
The Tumbrils Roll at Dawn

Peter Morici
Toxic Lehman

Patrick Cockburn
Take Another Look at the Surge

Charles R. Larson
The Maverick Has No Clothes

Jonathan Cook
The Expulsion of Palestinians from Jaffa

Nikolas Kozloff
Racist Rhetoric in Bolivia

Roger Burbach
Morales Confronts the Insurrection: Bolivia and the Echoes of Allende

Helen Redmond
Where's the Health Care Bailout?

David Michael Green
The Democrats Do Poland

David Macaray
The Boeing Strike

Ralph Nader
Remembering Peter Camejo

Website of the Day
The Ballad of Sarah Palin

September 30, 2008

Is the Camel's Nose Under the Tent?

Time for a General Strike?

By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr.

Monday the 29th of September 2008, was a memorable day: public sentiment swayed government action.

More precisely, public sentiment against the proposed Wall Street Bailout (WSB) swayed a majority of the members of the US House of Representatives to vote against the measure urged on them by the White House (occupied by a still un-impeached George W. Bush) and the leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties. Declared supporters of the measure include Barack Obama and John McCain, the Democratic and Republican nominees for the US presidency, respectively.

A 67 percent majority of the House Republicans, clearly the most fiscally conservative members, and a 40 percent minority of the House Democrats, obviously the most progressive and independent of their party, voted against the WSB. The vote was 228-205 (with one Republican abstention). This happened because despite the pressure by their partisan superiors to conform to a policy of protecting the underwriters of the two major-party presidential nominees, these representatives felt far greater heat from their constituents, scorching them five weeks before the election. Public sentiment trumped payola, what a day!

Is the camel's nose under the tent? Is it conceivable that public anger could grow, as the "let them eat bailout" aristocracy bulldozes ahead with its bailout plans, which both the Wall Street Journal (newspaper) and Business Week (magazine) described as "delayed" by today legislative reversal?

We can assume that severe arm-twisting is going on right now, to try to blackmail or cajole about 15 House members to switch sides, so the next time they take a vote (for however many times that may be necessary) they finally get a majority. The Senate was bought outright long ago, so it is no problem.

The revulsion to the WSB cuts across all the artificial boundaries placed on the public, by: age, gender, region, ethnicity, occupation, and even economic class, except for the Robber Baron strata. This is the single most unifying issue at play in US national politics at this moment. It pits the mass of the American people, coast-to-coast, against our permanent-insider government aristocracy class (PIGAC). Four days ago, there were street protests against the WSB on the steps of the New York Stock Exchange (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XreAnHG8xu4). Will there be more, as the aristocracy continues to thwart the general sentiment of the nation? Could we actually set in motion the unifying and energizing social dynamic of the General Strike?

What can any individual outside the "inner party" do to reverse the drive to proceed with the WSB? Call their congressional representative? Many have, and some congress-people report their calls run 50-to-1 against the WSB. That's a voter pressure that overcomes the influence of payola, regardless of your party label, "political philosophy" and "principles."

But, not all congress-people feel this pressure, after all 47 percent of them voted for the WSB. Will the anti-WSB public sentiment wane, or will it build? The revulsion to the WSB is precisely the Nader-Gonzalez agenda (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-1Jj6YPYkQ), will this strengthen that campaign? Will the public's resentment shift interest to anti-WSB Republican and Democratic contenders in other electoral campaigns? Today, it does not seem reasonable that the public revulsion to the WSB will dissipate soon, and the efforts of the aristocracy to keep pushing for this bailout of financial parasites seems, inevitably, to stoke that resentment.

Isn't that the gravitational pressure behind most US electoral landslides, resentment? We should assume that astute party propaganda operatives are working out how to fix diversionary targets for the public to shoot its WSB resentment onto. Is it possible the public will arrive at a consensus on where to fix its resentment? Could that resentment mushroom if the PIGAC succeeds in bending the House to its will? Would the resenting public then just give up and keep watching TV, or would this be just one insult and just one theft too many? Would they get off their butts and take to the streets?

Given the size, armaments, and nastiness of the many police forces in the US, we can be sure that few would be willing to revolt too openly. However, massive non-violent walk-outs and demonstrations could be carried out to show public sentiment. What good would that do?, similar demonstrations did not stop the Iraq War. True, but anti-WSB walk-outs would strike greater fear in elected officials because the issue is rooted in the economic survival concerns of the public, which cannot be so easily draped out of view by fearful illusions of enemies abroad. Anti-WSB protests would appeal to a wider swath of the public than the anti-Iraq protests did, and the public is more likely to retain grudges against pro-WSB legislators, when voting.

People resent the ripoffs carried on by the debasement of the currency (a result of recent fiscal policy and inevitably from the WSB), and the rising costs and insecurity of their housing finances. They resent the prospect of seeing higher taxes in the future, with no new services and perhaps even fewer of them, solely to benefit the very industry that has abused so many of them: in little ways with many exorbitant "fees," and in big ways by adjusting them into foreclosure and without a bankruptcy escape hatch.

Yes, we have all heard the newest "social prep" propaganda reminding us of the Great Depression, and how this bogeyman may descend upon us unless we do as the PIGAC deems best. But, much of the public has been numbed to fear by the outworn fear mongering of the Iraq War promoters; and people are less moved by distant fears when they can see their own homes and purses under threat in the here and now. This refreshing resistance to fear was evident among a good fraction of the public who said "let it collapse!" to their House representatives, before the vote today.

So, we may be entering a period of social unity and resentment that is resilient to propaganda attacks based on fear, a pre-next Great Depression protest. If this is so, and if the PIGAC does not produce a substitute FDR (Obama?) and made-to-order social anger management program soon, then we could, indeed, enter a period of spirited public dynamics.

It may help your imagination to read about general strikes, here is a list from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_strike):

1842 - 1842 General Strike
1912 - Brisbane General Strike, Australia
1917 - Australian General Strike
1917 - Spanish General Strike
1919 - Barcelona General Strike, Spain
1919 - Winnipeg General Strike, Canada
1919 - Seattle General Strike, USA
1920 - German Kapp Putsch Strike
1922 - Italian General Strike
1926 - UK General Strike of 1926
1934 - West Coast Longshoremen's Strike, USA
1934 - Toledo Auto-Lite Strike, USA
1934 - Textile Workers Strike, USA
1936 - Palestinian general strike
1936 - Syrian General Strike
1941 - February Strike, Netherlands
1942 - Luxembourgian General Strike
1956 - Finnish General Strike
1968 - French General Strike
1973 - Uruguan General Strike
1974 - Ulster Workers Council Strike, Northern Ireland.
1988 - Spanish General Strike
1992 - Nepalese General Strike
1995 - French Public Sector Strikes
1995 - Days of Action, Canada
2002 - Italian General Strike
2005 - Bolivian Gas Conflict

Notice the interesting entries for 1934, at the depth of the Great Depression. So, if the PIGAC tries scaring you with "Great Depression," to make you cower, acquiesce -- and pay for! -- the Wall Street Bailout, then buck them, scare them back with "General Strike!" Such an event may be a necessary step between the government we have and the government we want.

Manuel Garcia, Jr. is a retired physicist. E-mail = mango@idiom.com

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