by Martha Rosenberg / November 8th, 2008 ()
Orthodox Jews and Latinos are clashing in Postville, IA. Somalis and Latinos are clashing in Shelbyville TN. Somalis, Latinos and Sudanese are clashing in Grand Island, NE. And you’d think it has nothing to do with slaughterhouses.
It’s about prayer breaks during Ramadan, paid holidays, cultural clashes and “assimilation into the American melting pot,” say news reports. Not the $8 an hour knocker, sticker, bleeder, tail ripper, flanker, gutter, sawer, and plate boner slaughterhouse jobs that even Americans prisoners on work release won’t do.
Since US immigration officials began plucking 2,000 illegal Latino workers from meat packing plants in …
by Andrew Bosworth / November 8th, 2008 ()
In a nation originally founded on personal liberty, almost two and a half million Americans are behind bars. No doubt, violent criminals should be in jail, but most Americans are not aware that well over half of the inmates are jailed for non-violent offenses, many of which are extremely petty: possession of marijuana, public intoxication, street hustling, prostitution, loitering, bouncing checks, failure to produce identification, and even writing graffiti.
Consider this fact: The United States has less than 4 percent of the world’s population but almost 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Amazingly, the US has a higher incarceration rate than …
by Beth Sherouse / November 8th, 2008 ()
Ok, so I know that the passage of Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in California and the recently de-gaying of Grey’s Anatomy may seem like small potatoes next to the election of our nation’s first black president, but I’m having a glass-is-half-empty week.
I was an Obama supporter from the beginning, from the first time I saw him speak, I knew he had my vote. He inspired me and made me believe that this country could be something great, that he could lead us to be a nation that I could be proud to claim as my own. When he won …
by Christopher Parsons / November 8th, 2008 ()
There are plans to deploy ‘black boxes’ in UK ISPs’ networking hubs so that the government can capture and record every website that UK citizens visit. A similar operation is in full swing in the United States, where the NSA has hooked up their own ‘black boxes’ to American Internet Service Providers’ (ISPs) networks to capture ‘questionable content’ passing through these networks. Unlike the Americans, who only examine questionable content, the UK government is planning to develop a database to hold the contents of all messages passing along their nations’ telecommunications networks.
While this issue has recently been sensationalized in the …
by Stephen Lendman / November 7th, 2008 ()
“Reaping the whirlwind” for money manager and market strategist Jeremy Grantham in his latest no-nonsense commentary. Worlds different from most in the mainstream. Cheerleaders in upturns. Downplaying risks. Soft-pedaling reversals and still many in denial about the severity of today’s crisis. The virtual certainty of a deep and protracted recession. The likely emergence of a changed world order at its end - for better or worse. The result of what Grantham calls “the poisonous wind we all sowed,” and went on to explain it with his customary thoughtful analysis. Calling it like he sees it as one of the …
by Pablo Ouziel / November 7th, 2008 ()
Contrary to popular believe, the big change in America’s society stemming from the recent presidential elections, was not the election of the first black president. The most important event has taken place in the intellectual community, in which a paradigm shift has taken place and few have noticed.
The new era of voting for the lesser of the two evils has penetrated the core of America’s critical intellectual community, and some of the biggest voices for change have endorsed Obama. In effect, what has taken place is the union between those opposed to imperial ideology and those endorsing it. …
by David Kendall / November 7th, 2008 ()
For those of you who like to slant the story to your own liking when you report it to friends and family, here is the transcript of the today’s Fox News interview with Ralph Nader. Try reading what Nader actually said rather than hearing what Fox News wanted you to hear:
Fox News: Guess who’s here? The Independent party candidate, Ralph Nader. This is his second run for the Presidency since he played spoiler in the close 2000 contest. This year he was on the ballot in 45 states plus D.C. This year he was polling about 1-percent. Ralph, you …
by Gary Corseri / November 7th, 2008 ()
Here’s how it is, God/Lord/Goddess/Ineffable Holy Spirit: I spent all my money on drugs trying to reach a higher consciousness. This was during the Vietnam War when I couldn’t figure out why in God’s name—I mean, Your name, Your Holiness!—my beloved country was killing 3 million people in Vietnam and unleashing Pol Pot’s killing fields (4 million dead) in Cambodia-Kampuchea. So I smoked until my lungs hurt, made love until my pecker drooped, and listened to “Abbey Road.” I tried ‘shrooms and coke (not cola!), read “Howl” and “On the Road,” marched against the war and racism …
by Max Kantar / November 7th, 2008 ()
Over the past two months, the United States has quietly extended its illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Syria and Pakistan. The attacks, according to the official U.S. legal definition, constitute “international terrorism” and unlawful “acts of war.”
But despite there being no dispute or debate about the U.S. responsibility in the attacks, the White house and Pentagon have refused to comment on them. Instead, they have been consistently leaking information to unnamed “senior U.S. officials” who relay the bipartisan party line to the outlets of mass media for regurgitation and reiteration.
I think that Washington’s political reaction to …
by E.R. Bills / November 7th, 2008 ()
A few weeks back, a 7th grader who hangs around the neighborhood told my kids that Obama was a stupid Muslim terrorist and that if that “nigger” got elected he and his family were moving to Canada.
A week ago, my 10-year-old daughter related the new joke going around her elementary school: What’s the difference between Obama and Simba? Simba is an African lion and Obama is a lyin’ African.
And the day after the election, in a high school lunch-line, a kid standing behind my 15-year-old son appeared to be sulking. A teenage girl asked him what was wrong. …
by Adam Engel / November 7th, 2008 ()
Maybe we can — but why bother?
Personally, I viewed the whole thing like a boxing match (CNN or FOX or whatever even had an advertisement for election coverage featuring McInsane and Bareback Obama faced off in profile, like fighters). Say, Holyfield versus Tyson (the re-match, after Holyfield’s ear was sewed back on). Ignored the hype qua hype, but once the “bout” began, consciously or unconsciously “took sides.” Just like I wanted Holyfield to give Tyson his “come-uppance” (and just as I wanted the similar thing when Clinton took away the 12 year Reign of Terror by Reagan/Bush I for the …
by Bruce Dixon / November 6th, 2008 ()
Election night 2008 was over by 11 PM eastern time. Only two hours after the polls closed on the west coast, pundits called it for Barack Obama. Now that we know a black boy can indeed grow up to be president, it’s time to get over ourselves, over our wonder and amazed self-congratulation about how far we’ve come, time to look around to see where we really are.
The First Black President carries with him into the Oval Office the hopes and dreams and aspirations of many people he will never meet, but who imagine they know his heart and …
by Joshua Frank / November 6th, 2008 ()
Tuesday’s celebration hangovers have finally started to wear off, and the pieces are beginning to fall into place. Change will be coming to Washington in January, but it is difficult to decipher what form it will take. Early clues, however, suggest that Barack Obama’s administration will prove unlikely to alter the fundamental political machinery that has led us into war and economic turmoil. Below is a brief summary of Obama’s potential choices for a few key roles in his administration.
Chief of Staff
Obama’s key White House position will go to Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois. While Emanuel knows his way around …
by John Chuckman / November 6th, 2008 ()
Already in the press there have been stories of plans to dampen the public’s expectations of Obama. The expectations are undoubtedly beyond being satisfied by any human being.
Obama’s bright face, a keen intelligence at work in every expression, represents the greatest hope for change in America since Franklin Roosevelt. Even Kennedy, with all his gifts, did not come close. After all, Kennedy was a harsh Cold Warrior, a wild risk-taker, and he was connected to some of the most unsavory subcultures in America.
But Obama is the inheritor of one of the bleakest legacies ever in a modern state: …
by David A.G. Fischer / November 5th, 2008 ()
The Real News executive editor and host Paul Jay moderated a productive and informative dialog between Ralph Nader, Tom Morris, and Bill Fletcher on election night. While millions of young activists around the nation cast their ballots for Obama’s convincing rhetoric of change, these four men analyzed the socio-political climate and what a potential Obama victory will bring.
For those readers who admire the relentless tenacity and dedication of Ralph Nader at the grassroots level, you will likely be in approval of what he discusses in this forum, as his words are the focus of this review.
After campaigning with people …
by Michael Dawson / November 5th, 2008 ()
I’m a sociology teacher, a member of the Pacific Green Party of Oregon, an almost-pacifist, and a libertarian socialist. My intellectual heroes are people like Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, C. Wright Mills, and Noam Chomsky. I believe democracy is much more in the streets than in the halls, and that Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. are the great icons of successful modern leadership. I consider my life’s calling to be to raise my son well and to do as much as I can to help expose and publicize the dangers of corporate capitalism and market totalitarianism.
For all …
Obama’s Initial Message to the World
by Gary Leupp / November 5th, 2008 ()
From Obama’s victory oration in Chicago last night:
“And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.”
In other words: Don’t worry, world. The bad old days of George Bush are over.
“To those — to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you.”
In other words: Under my administration we Americans will continue to simplistically conceptualize the existence of an enemy …
Is Being Black Enough?
by Kim Petersen / November 4th, 2008 ()
Greg Palast advocates a questionable electoral stance. He says, “We must vote for Barack Obama because he’s Black.”
He bases his stance on the sordid United States history of slavery, racism, segregation, and assorted crimes against the Blacks.
US history is steeped in the exploitation of Blacks. This is undeniable, unredressed, and shameful that it has persisted to this day.
But Palast is touting a silly electoral posture that is readily exposed.
First, since voting Black is the basis of Palast’s electoral strategy, then if John McCain had been Black and Obama White, Palast would, presumably, have been advocating a vote for …
by Greg Palast / November 4th, 2008 ()
It’s November 5 and the nation is in shock. Media blame it on the “Bradley effect”: Americans supposedly turned into Klansmen inside the voting booth, and Barack Obama turned up with 6 million votes less than calculated from the exit polls. Florida came in for McCain and so did Indiana. Colorado, despite the Democrats’ Rocky Mountain high after the Denver convention, stayed surprisingly Red. New Mexico, a state where Anglos are a minority, went McCain by 300 votes, as did Virginia.
That’s the nightmare. Here’s the cold reality.
Swing state Colorado. Before this election, two Republican secretaries of state purged 19.4 percent …
Between Hope and Reality
by Ralph Nader / November 4th, 2008 ()
Dear Senator Obama:
In your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words “hope and change,” “change and hope” have been your trademark declarations. Yet there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not “hope and change” but the continuation of the power-entrenched status quo.
Far more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys. Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart. Why, apart from your unconditional vote for …
