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What You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter JAMES WEBB: IF THE DEMOCRATS WANT A POPULIST, IT'S HIM, FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE JoAnn Wypijewski on how Webb really talks on his home turf in Virginia and on the two faces of populism, dark and lite. The New Yorker helped sell the war in Iraq. Now see how it shills for the drug companies at home. Fred Gardner finds Malcolm Gladwell, at the bottom of the New Yorker's deep barrel. David Petraeus is the favorite general of Bush and the New York Times. Alexander Cockburn on how the salesman of surge sold himself. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year

Today's Stories February 2, 2007 Chris Kutalik The Meanest Industry February 1, 2007 Diane Farsetta An Army Thousands More: How PR Firms and Major Media Military Recruiters Marjorie Cohn Bush Targets Iran: Cruise Missile Diplomacy Mark Scaramella Our Founding War Profiteers Ranni Amiri Senator Prejudice: the Day Joe Biden Threatened to Kick My Ass Christopher Ketcham Die, TV! Winston Warfield Art Panic Hits Boston! Corporate Crime Reporter Jailing the Artists, Not the Executives: the Great Boston Art Panic, Turner Broadcasting and the AG Who Won't Pursue Corporate Crime Thomas P. Healy Adios Molly Ivins: Populist Journalism and Never Dull Website of the Dau The Ordeal of Gary Tyler   January 31, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Waco of Iraq?: US "Victory" Cult Leader was a "Massacre" Jean Bricmont What is the Decisive "Clash" of Our Time? Tao Ruspoli CounterViews: a Conversation with Dr. Susan Block on Sex, Politics and Liberation James T. Phillips Flashbacks de Jour: Photographing War William Johnson Worker Reistance at Smithfield Foods Tim Wilkinson A Hawk in Drag: Dershowitz and the Iraq War Evelyn Pringle The Judge, the Reporter and the Secret Zyprexa Documents Joshua Frank What America Really Needs to Hear Ramzy Baroud Shameless in Gaza Mickey Z. Nader Still in the Crosshairs Website of the Day What's Goin' On? January 30, 2007 Werther Slapstick on Jenkins Hill: DC's Botoxed Golems Kathy Kelly Engagement with War Uri Avnery "If Arafat Were Alive" Franklin Spinney Embedded Without Blending: Humvees and Tactical Madness in Iraq William S. Lind The Real Game in Iraq Pariah An Iron Curtain is Descending--and Most Americans Don't Know Mike Whitney The Mother of All Bubbles Rev. William E. Alberts Hiding America's Surging Militarism Behind Children Fran Shor Shadow of a Resistance: Can the Anti-War Mvt. Dismantle the War Machine? Anthony Arnove The Logic of Withdrawal: There's Nothing Precipitous About It Website of the Day Our Boys in Iraq January 29, 2007 Nurit Peled-Elhanan "We Are All Victims of the Occupation" Patrick Cockburn Raid on the Soldiers of Heaven JoAnn Wypijewski The Demo in DC: Chirpy Slogans, Empty City Ron Jacobs Our Fire, Congress's Feet Dave Lindorff The Missing Word at the Anti-War Demo Kevin Zeese A Republican Peace Candidate?: Chuck Hagel's Challenge to America Reza Fiyouzat Iran, Bush and the Banging of the Ironsmiths Pat Williams Turnout and Same-Day Voting: Did It Sink Conrad Burns? Website of the Day Galloway's Indictment of Blair   January 27 / 28, 2007 Diana Johnstone Do We Really Need an International Criminal Court? Eliza Ernshire Exiled from Palestine Patrick Cockburn Slaughter in Baghdad's Bird Market David Rosen Pay-to-Play: the Double Life of Prostitution in America Greg Moses Children Without a Country: Maryam Ibrahim Remains in a Texas Jail Bernard Chazelle Bush the Empire Slayer Tao Ruspoli CounterViews: a Video Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair, Part Two Hermán Uribe Murdering Journalists in Latin America Ralph Nader Democracy in Crisis Paul Craig Roberts Why Can't Americans See What's Coming? Fred Gardner The Suppression of Collective Joy: Barbara Ehrenreich at the Commonwealth Club Brian Cloughley Dying for Lies James Abourezk The High Cost of Congressional Trips to Israel John V. Whitbeck The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine: Ilan Pappe and the Nakba Deniers Seth Sandronsky Peace-In Politics: Localizing the Anti-War Movement Alan Cabal Mayday from the Circus Tent Pam Martens America's Money Honey Does Davos Website of the Weekend Gil Scott-Heron: Winter in America January 26, 2007 Charlotte Laws Are You the Terrorist Next Door?: AETA and the New Green Scare Mike Ely / Linda Flores The Workers at Smithfield Joe DeRaymond Paying for Health Care and Not Getting It Phil Donahue Get Sarah Olson! Zia Mian The Three US Armies in Iraq: Grunts, Contractors and Laborers Jeb Sprague Haiti Struggles to Defend Justice Evelyn Pringle Eli Lilly, the Habitual Offender Missy Beattie Inside the Criminal Mind of George Bush: He Thinks; Therefore, It is So Martha Rosenberg Cloned Food: From Designer Hens to the Transgenic Omega-3 Pig Website of the Day Save Grand Canyon from Glen Canyon Dam! January 25, 2007 Patrick Cockburn What's Really Going on in Baghdad John Ross Mexico Under Calderon: Fake Left, Rule Right Jeremy Scahill Our Mercenaries: Blackwater, Inc and the Privatization of Bush's War Machine Frida Berrigan "Hearts Ruptured with Sadness:" Protesting Gitmo Paul Craig Roberts Bush's State of Deception Jason Yossef Ben-Meir Iraq Reconstruction Failure Christopher Brauchli Why Bush is Arming Fatah: When in Doubt, Start Another Civil War Holger W. Henke Cuba at the Crossroads? Dave Lindorff Falling Dominos and Failing Presidencies Julia Landau From Your Young Cousin Website of the Day The Mighty Edwards Sisters   January 24, 2007 Tao Ruspoli CounterViews: a Filmed Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig Roberts The Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry Lt. Gen. William Odom What Can be Done in Iraq? Sharon Smith Health Care Reform for the Insurance Industry Brian M. Downing Two Americas: the Grunts and the War Profiteers Heather Gray Surviving War Ron Jacobs SOTUS Quo James Brooks Out of Europe, Out of Time Robert Day Translating Snow Website of the Day Defend Sarah Olsen January 23, 2007 Trish Schuh Lebanon on the Brink of Civil War, Again Robert Bryce The Politics of Cheap Oil Stephen Soldz Aliens in an Alien Land John Blair King Coal's Latest Con Job: Clean Coal is Not Clean Gloria La Riva Miami: a Place of Refuge for Anti-Castro Terrorists Joshua Frank Turning Silence into Gold: Hillary and Israel Lobby Patrick Cockburn In Iraq, All Foreigners are Targets Ralph Nader Questions for Bush on Iraq Dave Lindorff Pelosi and Iraq: Blunder or Treason? Uri Avnery Israel and Apartheid Website of the Day Down By the River   January 22, 2007 Manuel Garcia, Jr. China's New Chip in Space War Poker Jen Marlowe Trapped in Darfur: the Ordeal of Suleiman Jamous George McGovern War of the Belligerent Professors: Get Out of Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Only Impeachment Can Save Us from More War Norman Solomon The Pentagon vs. Press Freedom Amira Hass Life Under Prohibition in Palestine Mike Whitney A Fool's Errand in Baghdad Ramzy Baroud The Things We Take for Granted John Walsh Support Jimmy Carter in Boston! Website of the Day The Hagelian Dialectic   January 20/21 2007 Alexander Cockburn First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran! Gail Dines I Was Ambushed by Paula Zahn Newton Garver Evo Morales' First Year Gilad Atzmon 100 Years of Jewish Solitude Seth Sandronksy New Push For Social Security "Reform" Raphaelle Bail Where Nicaraguans Go to Work Jim Goodman Round Up the Usual Experts: Make Them Live on a Dollar a Day Larry Portis Chouraki's Oh Jerusalem Website of the Weekend Press Poodles Play it Safe January 19, 2007 Jonathan Cook Jimmy Carter Doesn't Tell the Half of It Glen Ford Barack Obama: The Mania and the Mirage Dave Lindorff Bush Blinks on Illegal Spying - Don't let him off the hook Larry Portis Zionism in the Cinema: Part Two Website of the Day For Whistleblowers January 18, 2007 William Peace Protest From a Bad Cripple Virginia Tilley The Steady March to War on Iran: What It Would Take to Stop It Michael Donnelly The Real Reason I Can't Stand Obama B.R. Gowani Democracy: Everywhere and Nowhere Larry Portis Zionism in the Cinema: Part One Jason Hribal A Horse is Worth More than Riches Website of the Day Baghdad Clampdown January 17, 2007 Franklin Spinney Why Time is not on Bush's Side John Ross Oaxaca's Rising: Vibrant as the Paint on the Walls Susan George Can World Trade Ever Be Fair? Back to Keynes! Paul Craig Roberts Attacking Iran: What's In It For Bush Joshua Frank Obama and the Middle East David Lindorff Towards Oil at $200 a Barrel January 16, 2007 Col. Sam Gardiner Escalation Against Iran Marjorie Cohn Stimson's Outrageous Threat Saul Landau Gore Vidal in Havana: Part 2 Ron Jacobs Welcome Back to 1965 Susan Block From Snowjob to Blowjob Ken Couesbouck Year of the Pig Website of the Day Amazon's Hit on Jimmy Carter January 15, 2007 Roger Morris Another War the Voters Hoped to End Paul Craig Roberts Bush Must Go Kathy Kelly Umm Heyder's Story William Blum The Anti-Empire Report Ralph Nader The Class War's New Map Saul Landau Gore Vidal In Havana January 12 / 14, 2007 Patrick Cockburn "21,500 More Troops": Will America Ever Leave Iraq? David Rosen Bush's Domestic Sex Policy: the Teen Abstinence-Only Crusade William S. Lind Less Than Zero Laith al-Saud The Ironies of Bush and Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Surge and Mirrors: What Bush Really Said John Ross Celebrating the "Sum of the World" in Chiapas George Ciccariello-Maher The Case of Venezuela's RCTV: Not About Free Speech Christopher Brauchli How to Avoid an IRS Audit: Become a Millionaire! Robert Buzzanco Rogue State, Redux Evelyn Pringle The Secrets in Eli Lilly's Cabinet Peter Rost, MD. Promises, Promises: Playing Politics with Drug Reimportation Mike Whitney Baghdad Crackdown Yifat Susskind Beyond the Surge: Demanding an End to Bush's Wars Saul Cohen Latin America's Real Mr. Danger: Negroponte's Latest Gig Missy Beattie A Day of Action and Questions Stephen Lendman Holiday Hypocrisy Website of the Weekend Bruegel on Bush War Plan   January 11, 2007 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh The Profits of Escalation Paul Craig Roberts Carter's Inconvenient Truths Kathy Kelly Refugee Dreams Dave Lindorff Blood for Face Jeff Leys The War Widens Richard W. Behan Barrels and Bodies Col. Douglas MacGregor Surging Right Into Al-Sadr's Hands Website of the Day An Explanation from Google Speech of the Day Is There Even One Politician Alive Who Could Give This Speech? January 10, 2007 Peter Linebaugh A Walk in Oaxaca Robert Fantina Punishing Deserters: Prosecution or Persecution? Patrick Cockburn Why Troop Escalation Won't Bring Peace to Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Distracting Congress: Troop Escalation and Iran Col. Dan Smith Why U.S. Policy is Failing Ben Tripp The Politics of Bad Karma Evelyn Pringle How the FDA Protects Big Pharma Ron Jacobs Coalition of the Lunatics: Trying to Create the Next World War Mike Ferner If Not Now, When? Dave Zirin Judgment of the Juiced: Why McGwire Wasn't Elected to the Hall of Fame Website of the Day Revolting Students! Bootleg of the Day Bob Dylan: Live at Scotia Bank Place January 9, 2007 R. T. Naylor The Somalian Labyrinth Jonathan Cook Israel's Purging of Palestinian Christians Mike Ely and Linda Flores The Smithfield Strikers: No Longer Hidden, No Longer Hiding Joshua Frank The Democrats and Iran: More Bellicose Than Bush Norman Solomon The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse Sen. Russell Feingold An Open Letter to President Bush: So Now You Want to Snoop Through Our Mail? Joe Allen Justice for the Omaha Two: Black Power, Racism and COINTELPRO in the Heartland James T. Phillips "Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate": The Hell That is Iraq Brian Concannon Resolutions for Haiti Leonard Peltier When the Truth Doesn't Matter: 30 Years of FBI Harassment and Misconduct Website of the Day Kick Out the Jams, MFers!: Meet the New RRC   January 8, 2007 Werther Why We Fight Jeff Leys The Occupation Project: a Campaign of Civil Disobedience to End Iraq War Funding Paul Craig Roberts Nuking Iran Shulamit Aloni Israeli Apartheid: Sorry, This Road is For Jews Only Dave Lindorff The Party of Invertebrates Reverts to Form Sunsara Taylor The Democrats' First Day: Same As It Ever Was Seth Sandronsky Syndicated Error: George Will and the Minimum Wage Dr. Susan Block Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film Website of the Day Watch CounterPuncher Sunsara Taylor Take on Bill O'Reilly! January 6 / 7, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The War and the NYT Franklin C. Spinney Stalingrad on the Tigris Paul Craig Roberts The Urge to Surge Ralph Nader Democrats in the Spotlight Walden Bello Globalization in Retreat? Marleen Martin The Needle and the Damage Done: Tortured in the Death Chamber Brian Cloughley We Do What We Like: Return Our Rapist or Else ... Uri Avnery The Kiss of Death Saul Landau Fidel Castro in the Fields Ron Jacobs From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act: a Legacy of Torture Joseph Nevins Crimes Against Humanity from Ford to Saddam William S. Lind A State Restored? Somalia and 4GW Gary Leupp Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President! Elisa Salasin Bringing Life to Numbers George Ciccariello-Maher Beyond Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution Stefan Wray Confronting Recruiters: the Story of the Bush Street Raiders Michael Leonardi Toward an International Moratorium: Italy's Crusade Against the Death Penalty Richard Rhames Reality TV: Triumph of the Thugs Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Barbara LaMorticella Two Poems Website of the Weekend FBI Witch Hunts Song of the Weekend End Times: a Soundtrack January 5, 2007 Jorge Mariscal Growing the Military: Who Will Serve? John Walsh Clash of the Elites: Beltway Insiders vs. Neo-Cons! Christopher Brauchli The Great Relaxer: Bush and Federal Regulations Travis Sharpe No More New Nukes, Please Tom Barry Hawk for Hire: Roger Noriega's New Gig Linda Schade / Kevin Zeese Americans Voted for Peace: Has the New Congress Already Let Them Down? Tiffany Ten Eyck Workers' Centers and Unions: a New Alliance Mahmoud El-Yousseph A Challenge to Pelosi Lucinda Marshall 3003 Funerals: "And They're Still Burying Ford!" Website of the Day Van the Man: Warm Love January 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Martyrdom of Saddam Hussein Winslow T. Wheeler A Guide to Earmarks: Will the Democrats' Reforms Do Anything to Curb Pork Barrel Spending? M. Shahid Alam Has Regime Change Boomeranged? Raed Jarrar So This is Plan B? The US Attack on Saleh Al-Mutlaq's Headquarters Bert Sacks Can the US Legally Kill Iraqi Children?: a Challenge to the Supreme Court Kathy Rentenbach Report from Oaxaca Stephen Fleischman The Rain of Riches: Bonuses, Then and Now George Bisharat Carter's Truths Peter Rost, MD Hail the Hangman, Jail the Cameraman! Evelyn Pringle Can Eli Lilly be Held Criminally Liable for Zyprexa? Website of the Day Courage to Resist   January 3, 2007 Kathy Kelly Wrapped Around a Bullet Paul Craig Roberts His Last Hurrah: Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason William Johnson No Worker is Illegal: SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change Its Policy on Immigration Stan Cox Under a Brown Cloud: Money vs. the Monsoon Trita Parsi A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran Declan McKenna Ireland's Slavish Hostility Toward Cuba Joe Bageant Dispatch from the Chinese Landfill Nicola Nasser Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism Missy Beattie Dead Wrong Website of the Day Pharmed Out January 2, 2007 Michael Watts Oil Inferno Amina Mire Return of the Warlords: Death and Destruction for Somalis James Brooks Pushing the Wedge in Palestine Alevtina Rea The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ? Al Krebs Global Food Security: a Call to Action Peter Rost Invitation to a Hanging: the Saddam Hussein Execution Video Niranjan Ramakrishnan A Deadly December John Stanton Appetites for Destruction Website of the Day Out Now: Petition   January 1, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Iron Man, Tin God: the Meaning of Saddam Hussein Uri Avnery What Makes Sammy Run? Joshua Frank Eliot Spitzer's Constitutional Hang Up: Architect of New York's Patriot Act   December 30 / 31, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn 2006, Hard to Call It Vintage, But 2007 Could Finally Be Bobby Byrd's Year Patrick Cockburn Iraq 2006: a Nation Soaked in Blood Tears Itself Apart Paul Wolf Dying for Our Sins: A Lawyer for Saddam Describes How His Execution on the First of Eid May Transform Him Into a Martyr Manuel Garcia, Jr. Executing Saddam, Protecting the Rackets Tariq Ali Saddam at the End of a Rope Paul Craig Roberts The New Dark Age: Official Lies, Dogma and Unaccountable Power Douglas Valentine At the End of My Rope: Hanging With Saddam Brian M. Downing The New Iraq Policy: Escalation Michael Donnelly Injustice in Black and White: the Duke Non-Rape Case Stephen Lendman Did Sharon Order the Assassination of Arafat? The Revelations of Uri Dan Fred Gardner Comes Now the Ghost of "Decrim:" Nixon and Marijuana Bailly / Caudron / Lambert Who Owns Ikea?: the Opaque Legacy of Ingvar Kamprad Ralph Nader The Prospects for Progressive Politics Nick Dearden The War on Terror Hits Africa Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg The Third Degree: an Interview with AC Thompson on the Origins of the CIA's Secret Rendition Flights Missy Beattie In Harm's Way: How Our National Coward Describes War Ron Jacobs Sigh of the Oppressed: Religion and Politics Dan La Botz Defend Illegal Immigrants: Help Them! Harbor Them! Andrew Wimmer An Act of Contrition: the Peace Movement in 2007 Dr. Carol Wolman, MD Psychiatrist: Impeach Bush for Good of Country Martha Rosenberg New Year's Resolutions for Big Pharma Dick J. Reavis News Before It Happens: Bush's 2007 MLK Day Speech Jeffrey St. Clair Listening to James Brown and His Followers Poets' Basement Grima, Curtis, Davies, Orloski and Engel Website of the Weekend Charlie Fowler's Photolog: a Life at Altitude Music Video of the Weekend "We're Winning the War on Drugs!" December 29, 2006 Bill Quigley A Tale of Two Sisters: Why is HUD Spending Tens of Millions in Katrina Money to Bulldoze 4,534 Public Housing Apartments in New Orleans? Norman Finkelstein The Dershowitz Treatment John Borowski Curb Your Environmentalism: Laurie David and Me Abid Mustafa The Re-Talibanization of Afghanistan Greg Moses World Responds to Palestinian Family's Jailing Despite Media Blackout Uri Cohen Stand Up for Herod: a Seasonal Story of Ancient Palestine Bailly / Caudron / Lambert The Secrets in Ikea's Closet Website of the Day Justice for New Orleans   December 28, 2006 Norman Finkelstein The Ludicrous Attacks on Jimmy Carter's Book Anthony Cowell Highway Robbery: Privatizing New Jersey's Toll Roads John Ross Gateway to the Next Mexican Revolution? Hilaria Cruz I'm Going to Stay Right Here: Story of a Oaxacan Prisoner Greg Moses Palestinian Immigrant Jailings in Texas Brittany Bond The Blood Trail of Luis Posada Carriles, Washington's Preferred Terrorist Website of the Day Godfather of Soul and Father of Funk   December 27, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Farewell to Our Greatest President: Adieu, Gerald Ford Faruq Ziada Is There a Sunni Majority in Iraq? Christopher Brauchli Burning EPA's Books: What They Don't Want You to Read Might Save Your Life Michael Ortiz Hill Journey to Vietnam: Dare We Not Say Genocide? Nikolas Kozloff Saving Caracas Mark Schneider Why Hope? Reasons for Optimism December 26, 2006 Peter Stone Brown James Brown: Please Don't Go Tito Tricot Chile: the Ghosts of Torture Gary Leupp Cowboys Differ on Iran Attack: Cheney/Bush vs. the Baker Commission John V. Walsh Dershowitz vs. Carter in Beantown: Peace Movement AWOL, Again Reza Fiyouzat Red Christmas: Why Santa Was Hot in China This Year Ron Jacobs The Golem: a Conversation with Marc Estrin Website of the Day JB: Prisoner of Love December 25, 2006 Saul Landau A Jeep Trip with Fidel Lang / McGovern To Surge or Not to Surge? Michael Dickinson Should Stupid Thoughts Be Crimes?: Deny Santa If You Will, But ... Website of the Day James Brown, RIP December 23 / 24, 2006 Marjorie Cohn What's Going On? Jeffrey L. Gould The Capital of Salvadoran Memory: El Mozote After 25 Years Diane Christian The Rape of Iraq William Loren Katz From the Raid on "Fort Negro" to Iraq: Lessons from the First US Invasion Greg Moses This War Can't be Made Right by Winning M. Shahid Alam An Islamic Civil War: Chaos by Design? Fred Gardner Exposé as Inoculant: HRT, Zyprexa, Lilly and the Press Dave Lindorff Crime of the Century Azmi Bishara Ways of Denial Ralph Nader The BCS: a Monopoly on College Football Seth Sandronsky Fiscally Imperiled Social Security? William Hughes Cop Assaults Activists at Lockheed Protest Ron Jacobs Making Stones Weep Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to on New Year's Eve   December 22, 2006 David Rosen Bush's Foreign Sex Policy: Imperialism's Second Front Christopher Brauchli When the Secret is the Question: Secret Prisons, Top Secret Interrogations John Ross Flashlights in the Tunnel of Hate J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Political Sell-Outs in Black and White Rahul Mahajan Dennis Kucinich: Maverick or Stalking Horse? Arthur Neslen Provoking Civil War in the Occupied Territories Peter Rost, MD The Secrets of His Success: Fired Pfizer CEO Walks Away with $198 Million Website of the Day 10 Ways to Change the World in 2007 December 21, 2006 Rosa Mariam Elizalde An Interview with Gore Vidal: "I am Jealous of Cuba" Arundhati Roy Breaking the News Brian Cloughley Poppies Rising: Afghanistan's Drug Catastrophe Daniel White Jimmy Carter in Austin: Time to Come Clean on the Shoot Down of That Itavia DC-9 John V. Whitbeck On Israel's Right to Exist Sam Smith Still Smearing Ralph Nader for 2000 Paris Reidhead GM Ice Cream: Something's Fishy in Your Good Humor Bar Kevin Wehr Denying Disaster: Katrina and the Case for Impeachment Website of the Day Pesticides and Amphibians: a Vital New Database December 20, 2006 Gabriel Kolko Rumsfeld and the American Way of War Winslow T. Wheeler The Pentagon Measures the Chaos in Iraq Tariq Ali The War is Lost Saree Makdisi Israel, Apartheid and Jimmy Carter Bruce Jackson Saying "Oh!": John Mohawk and the Power to Make Peace Dave Lindorff Democrats Walk Into a Bush Trap on Iraq Leslie Radford The Winter Harvest of the South Central Farmers Dave Jansson Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Secessionists Confront the Empire Johnny Barber Jesus is a Terrorist Website of the Day Is It for Freedom? December 19, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Democrats Prepare to Fund Longer War Jonathan Cook End of the Strongmen Greg Moses Globalized Gulag: Palestinian Refugees and Children Held in Hutto, TX Jail Sean Penn Georgie, There's a Crowd Downstairs Dave Lindorff Innocents Abroad: Cracking Down on Gitmo Detainees Despite Overwhelming Evidence Most Are Not Terrorists Ralph Nader Going Postal Laura Carlsen Latin America's Pink Tide? Carlos Villarreal The Well is Poisoned: Victory Requires an Immediate Pull-Out Website of the Day Chuck Spinney on the Pentagon December 18, 2006 Luis J. Rodriguez En Lak Ech: Chicanos, Mayans and Mel Gibson Norman Solomon Washington Refuses to End the War: Powell, Baker, Hamilton--Thanks for Nothing! Uri Avnery Lebanon: War Without a Plan Ron Jacobs More Troops, More Body Bags Phil Gasper Afghanistan: Bush's Other War Unravels Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi Iran's Elections: The World Isn't Florida and Bush Isn't Its Supreme Leader William Blum The United States of Punishment Jim Goodman So What's the Big Deal If Wal-Mart Makes a Mistake? James Brooks Talking Surge: Let's Kill Some More Before We Go Maria C. Khoury Walking Into the Art World: Designing a Palestinian Academy for the Arts Website of the Day Got Powell December 16 / 17, 2006 Weekend Edition Vijay Prashad A Perilous Way to Socialism Saul Landau Filming Fidel Anthony Arnove The US Occupation of Iraq: Act III of a Tragedy of Many Parts Paul Cantor The Puppet and the Puppeteer: Pinochet and Kissinger Annie Nocenti Baluchistan's Fight: The Khan of Kalat Gathers the Tribes Nicole Colson Hard Times on the Killing Floor: Smithfield's Rotten Record Stephen Gowans Tehran's Holocaust Conference Jordan Flaherty A Catastrophic Failure: Foundations, Nonprofits and the Second Looting of New Orleans Fred Gardner Dustin Costa Faces 15 to Life P. Sainath There's No Such Thing as a Free Cow Seth Sandronsky The Democrats and Social Security: Watch What the Party Says and Does Nadia Hijab An AIPAC Shot Across Baker's Bow? Deb Reich Dear Santa, (Or Someone): Greetings from the Occupied Holy Lands Susie Day Cops Shoot Another Rich White Man! Albert Wan Why Does It Take 50 Bullets? Missy Beattie Will the Next Leader Stand Up? Please! Martha Rosenberg Kicking the Wyeth Habit Saves Women's Lives Lee Ballinger The Devil's Highway: Clinton, Border Checkpoints and the Deaths of the Yuma 14 Michael Dickinson Kingdom of Fear Jeffrey St. Clair Live/Evil: Listening to Miles Davis Poets' Basement Davies, Buknatski and Ford Website of the Weekend "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"   December 15, 2006 Eliza Ernshire Palestinian "Civil War" and the Israeli Chocolate Ration Virginia Tilley What Are You Going to Do Now, Israel? Mike Ferner Roll Call for the Choir: If They Vote for War, Occupy 'Em! John Ross Mad Mel's Mayan Apocalypse Fred Wilhelms The Flip Side of Ahmet Ertegun: Where Did You Get Those Shoes? Kevin Zeese Dennis Kucinich's Strange Mission: Can You Be a Real Anti-War Candidate in a Pro-War Party? David Severn Social Engineering Begins at Home: Jeffrey Skoll, Billionaire Philantropist Dave Lindorff Sen. Tim Johnson Death Watch: Senate Gridlock May Be Best Outcome Sunsara Taylor As American as Shopping and Torture Website of the Day June 2, 2004: When Iraq Was There For The Looting   December 14, 2006 Jonathan Cook The Recognition Trap Riz Khan An Interview with Jimmy Carter Jason Hribal Kasatka, the Sea World Orca Pennick / Gray The Plight of Black Farmers: Racism in the US Farm Program Richard Levins That Embezzled Anti-Castro Money Pat Williams The College Crisis: Universal Access, Student Loan Debts and Pell Grants Peter Rost, MD Simply Irresistible: Do Women Prefer Bad Boys? Website of the Day The Sound of Rummy   December 13, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Iraq is Beyond Repair Greg Moses The Dixie Chicks Come Home to Roost Elizabeth Schulte Hungry for the Holidays Joshua Frank Death By Coke Debra Eschmeyer Corporations Control Your Dinner Leon Hadar Baker's Rescue Mission: Too Little, Too Late Peter Rost, MD I've Been a Very Bad Boy Margaret Knapke Mow bé and Malachi, Presenté! Reza Fiyouzat Are Cows Free? Fred Wilhelms A Last Minute Appeal: If You Know One of These Musicians Let Them Know They Are Owed Money--By Friday! Website of the Day The Crimes of Augusto Pinochet December 12, 2006 Fernando A. Torres The Last Man of the Junta: an Open Letter to Kissinger from One of Pinochet's Political Prisoners Paul Craig Roberts America's Injustice System is Criminal Stephen Soldz Abusive Interrogations Uri Avnery Baker's Cake William S. Lind Knocking Opportunity: From Vulcans to Vultures in Iraq Missy Beattie Convicted for Our Convictions: Trespassing for Truth at the UN Dave Lindorff The 35-Year Long Scream: Torture, Impeachment and a Vietnam Vet's Tears George Pyle Our Perverse Farm Plan: Where Christmas Comes Every Five Years Norman Solomon Is the USA the Center of the World? Website of the Day Citizens' War Tribunal   December 11, 2006 Virginia Tilley Banning Mandela Roger Burbach The Condor Model: the Atrocities of Pinochet and the US Col. Douglas MacGregor There's Only One Option Left: Leave! Fawwas Traboulsi Lebanon on the Brink Ron Jacobs Death of a Pig: Poetic Justice for Pinochet Gideon Levy The Cruel Line into Gaza: Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle Mary McGrane Burning Books at Harvard Law Bernardo Ruiz The Disappeared of Oaxaca: a Message from One of the Actors in Apocalypto Website of the Day La Cancion de la Unidad Video of the Day Killing Castro: Congresswoman as Contract Killer?   December 9 / 10, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn Liberal Consensus for More Troops in Iraq Sen. Gordon Smith Out of Iraq: Cut and Run or Cut and Walk Greg Grandin Jeane Kirkpatrick, Mid-Wife of the Neo-Cons Paul Craig Roberts How Many More Will Die for Bush's Ego? Col. Dan Smith The Vietnamization of Iraq: Inside the Military Training Program Ralph Nader The Man from NAM: John Engler's Trail of Destruction Behrooz Ghamari The Donkey and the Date: Iran's Upcoming Municipal Elections Rev. Willliam Alberts Doing Unto Others: Pastor Haggard and President Bush James T. Phillips The James Gang: "Did You Kill Her?" Bennis / Leaver A Bi-Partisan Occupation Dave Lindorff A Congress of Hucksters and Pipsqueaks Nikolas Kozloff Robert Gates and Venezuela: Another Saber Rattler in Latin America Seth Sandronsky Activating White Racism Lucinda Marshall McKinney and Karpinsky: Silenced for Telling the Truth Mike Whitney Something's Gotta Give: James Baker vs. the Lobby John V. Whitbeck Recommendation No. 80 Faisal Kutty Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Merely a Western Construct? Hugh Sansom Smearing Jimmy Carter: an Open Letter to the New York Times Robert Gold My South American Journey: Impunity in Colombia Boots Riley Crash and Burn: an Urgent Message from The Coup Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Engel & Buknatski Website of the Weekend Alive in Mexico December 8, 2006 Patrick Cockburn The Iraq Study Group's Cautious Appraisal Leutisha Stills Just How Progressive is the Congressional Black Caucus? Norman Finkelstein The Media Lynching of Jimmy Carter Will Youmans Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington: Brookings Hosts an Ethnic Cleanser Peter Rost, MD What Went Wrong at Pfizer? Jonathan Demme My Friend Bruce Langhorne: a Great Musician Needs Your Help! Ray McGovern Senate Democrats Give Gates a Free Pass Lucinda Marshall What She Wore Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn The Lost John Lennon Interview Website of the Day John Lennon's FBI Files   December 7, 2006 Alex Friedman Rev. Phelps' Hate-Fueled Fanatics Find a Home in the Kansas Prison Industry Maureen Webb Risk Scoring and the National Insecurity State Paul Craig Roberts Catastrophe Still Awaits Dave Lindorff Prosecutor Admits: Mumia Abu-Jamal Had "No True Defense" Matt Vidal Drug Pushers, Inc.: Power and Profit in the Legal Drug Trade Yifat Susskind Looking for a Few Good Principles: What Should be Done in Iraq Rodriguez / Jones NYPD's Death Squads: From Diallo to Sean Bell Website of the Day 2006, Remixed December 6, 2006 Robert Bryce Omitting the Obvious with James Baker: From the S&L Crisis to the Iraq Study Group William S. Lind The Boomerang Effect: When Will the First IED Strike Cincy? Zoe Blunt The Clearcut Truth About the Great Bear Rainforest Corporate Crime Reporter The New Conventional Wisdom: Prosecute Individuals, Not Corporations Amira Hass A Regrettable Indifference: Israel's Treatment of Palestinian Prisoners Richard W. Behan The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War Sophie McNeill Why Hezbollah is Broadcasting Sunday Mass December 5, 2006 Virginia Tilley Apartheid Israel: a Beacon of Hope? Sharon Smith The New Washington Consensus: Blame the Victims in Iraq Joe Bageant Somewhere a Banker Smiles Ron Jacobs A War Washington Can't Win Norman Solomon Media Consensus, Stay in Iraq! Mike Whitney Rumsfeld's Final Snowflake: "I Was Just About to Change Everything ... " Derrick O'Keefe Regimes Unchanged: Chavez's Victory Strengthen's Cuba Julian Assange The Road to Hanoi Missy Beattie Bush, the Unhappy Helmsman Website of the Day Lessons of Suez and Iraq   December 4, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Gaza and Darfur George Ciccariello-Maher Tears of the Escualidos: Election Diary, Venezuela Ray McGovern Lame Ducks, Hold That Nomination!: a CIA Insider's Take on Gates John Ross Repression on the Menu in Mexico Walden Bello Hurricane Milton: Friedman, Bayonets and Markets Peter Rost, MD Pfizer's Clueless Executives Stephen Lendman The Withering of the Bush Dynasty Gideon Levy This Ceasefire will Go Up in Flames Website of the Day The "Babes" of Hizbullah?   December 2 / 3, 2006 Weekend Edition Barucha Calamity Peller The Dirty War of Oaxaca Paul Craig Roberts Is Bush Sane?: When Denial Goes Pathological Ralph Nader The Big Boys of Financial Crime Winslow T. Wheeler Committee of Enablers: Is Gates Fit to Serve? Are the Senators? 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February 2, 2007 No Child Left Behind and the Imperial Project Cutting the Schools-to-War Pipeline By RICH GIBSON and E. WAYNE ROSS Any nation promising perpetual war on the world is likely to make peculiar demands on its schools and impositions on its teachers and youth. While it may seem a sideshow to war and exploitation, the sharp pressure from the Bush administration and its liberal allies to re-authorize the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is, in fact, a vital part of the imperial project. The NCLB is the result of nearly three decades of elites' struggles to recapture control over education in the US, lost during the Vietnam era when campuses and high-schools broke into open rebellion and, as a collateral result, critical pedagogy, whole language reading programs, inter-active, investigatory teaching gained a foothold; some kids learned they could understand and act on the world-not good in a world where the Masters need the Slaves to deny their own domination. In de-industrialized America, the centripetal organizing point of most peoples' lives is no longer a factory or the union movement, but rather school. So, securing every aspect of schooling is essential to elites. Twinned with the NCLB, now comes the equally bi-partisan New Commission on the American Workforce report, "Tough Choices for Tough Times". Tough-Tough was authored by such educational experts as the director of the militarized Lockheed-Martin, and university presidents whose incomes are frequently dependant on grants from the military, earmarked for "research." Tough-Tough calls for national curriculum standards as a means of recapturing the witless patriotism necessary to get people to work, and eagerly fight and die, for what is abundantly easy to see are the interests of their own rulers. To resist NCLB at its choke points is to cut the human pipeline for the promise of perpetual war. Teachers and all school workers are uniquely positioned to do that. Washington Post reporter Mike Grunwald outlines three claims made by NCLB supporters: (1) to focus on low-performing kids and schools; (2) to strengthen the federal role in schools via curricula standards and high-stakes tests; and (3) to use "scientific methods" to evaluate the techniques and products of educational work, that is, to apply the apparently timeless scheme of F. W. Taylor's scientific management time and motion studies to evaluate teaching methods and measure the knowledge pumped into kids through intensified surveillance and high-stakes standardized testing. Only the first part, has been trumpeted to the public, though education workers are keenly aware of parts two and three. The primary thesis proclaimed by NCLB supporters is that every child deserves a good education as a leg up in the US meritocracy. The reality is that doing school reform without doing economic and social reform in communities is, as our colleague Professor Jean Anyon says, "like washing the air on one side of a screen door--it won't work." Anyon's comment is so abundantly clear that it seems only the hopelessly obtuse or flatly dishonest would miss the point, but even though five years of NCLB practice proves it out, unless there is significant resistance from parents, kids, and school workers, what many have learned is a project that turns kids into commodities or customers and educators into production workers. Most mainstream liberals support NCLB by cheerleading, especially from Senator Edward Kennedy and California Representative George Miller who dismisses critics by simply not meeting with them. Liberal critics of NCLB ingenuously seek to re-load curricula regimentation and high-stakes testing for their own narrow ends, tweaking the law by, for example, demanding full funding (teacher unions) and modest accommodations for scoring problems (most professional associations). However, key initial proponents of the NCLB project, including curricula regulation and high-stakes exams, make an interesting list, including the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chambers of Commerce, and the leadership of the two huge (combined about 4 million members) teacher unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, who joined together to take out full page ads in the New York Times to demand it. NCLB and its key components (like textbooks, test production, and test tutoring) are more than profitable for some of its backers. According to the American Association of Publishers sales of standardized tests tripled to nearly $600 million since the introduction of NCLB. The testing industry oligarchy of CTB-McGraw Hill, Harcourt, and Houghton Mifflin control 80 percent of the total market, which is valued at over $7 billion. Under NCLB, each state must ensure that all schools and districts make "Adequate Yearly Progress," as measured by math and reading scores. (It should be noted that AYP is fraught with insurmountable technical and political flaws.) If a school fails to improve test scores within three years, a portion of its federal funding is diverted to "parental choice" tutoring programs, which not only weakens the school's ability to improve, but more importantly diverts public money to for-profit education outfits like Educate Inc. owner of Sylvan Learning Centers whose revenues have grew from $180 to $250 million between 2001-2003 and whose profits shot up 250% in 2003. Schools are, after all, huge markets-as a for-profit venture public education represents a market worth over $600 billion dollars. However, only a grasp of the nature of US unionism today, corporate unionism that sees a unity of purpose between labor, government, and business "in the national interest," explains support from union leaders, whose high salaries are drawn directly from the imperial well. Schools serve to train the next generation of workers, from pre-prison schooling in some urban and rural areas, to pre-military schooling, to pre-middle class teacher training, to pre-med or pre-law, to the private school systems of the rich; schooling is divided along razor sharp lines. Schools do skills training, and depending on where a child is, some limited intellectual training. In public schools, the key issues of life: work, production and reproduction, rational knowledge, and freedom, are virtually illegal. It is illegal in California, for example, to teach positive things about the communist movement, and hence nearly impossible to teach about unionism. It is illegal to teach about the joys of sexual pleasure. Rather, discussions about sex must be padded with plenty of fear, and promises of abstinence. It is not possible for most educators to merely say that all gods are myths, and the suspension of critique that is faith is a dangerous move. And, in regard to freedom, anyone who visits a school will quickly see that it is a sheer abstraction in schools, as the entire system of surveillance (both physical and intellectual) is designed to eradicate it. Nevertheless, it is true that schools fashion hope, real or false, and that society's whose hope through school is erased are commonly steeped in rebellion, as in France, 1968. Redesigning what hope is, and tamping down expectations of school workers, parents, and kids, is part of the NCLB project. There has been resistance to high-stakes testing. George Schmidt, editor of the Chicago educator newspaper Substance (http://www.substancenews.com), was fired from a 28 teaching year career for publishing the Chicago CASE test after it was given in 1999. His dismissal upheld by the courts. The Rouge Forum, an organization of about 4,000 school workers, parents, students, community people, has led successful test boycotts and school walkouts in Michigan, New York, and California. There has, however, been little continuity in this work, perhaps reflecting the problems of a poorly funded volunteer group. Rouge Forum leaders have stuck by their insistence that there is a direct line from the systems of capital to imperialist war to the regulation of what people need to know, how they come to know it, and the warped systems of surveillance that inevitably are anti-working class, racist, high-stakes tests. In January 2007, renowned education author Susan Ohanian initiated an online petition calling for the abolition of the NCLB online, through The Educator Roundtable. Her effort was immediately attacked by the leadership of the National Education Association with a letter urging their members not to sign the petition. NEA now calls for some limited reform of NCLB, and demands the imperial bribe: full-funding. NEA plans to spend $1 million lobbying to get it. Other complaints about NCLB have been more off target. The Palm Beach Post of January 11, proclaimed, "The bedrock fantasy is that every child in America will be able to read and do math on grade level by 2014. Everyone knows that can't happen." Setting aside the problem of what "grade level" is, a fully literate population is quite possible with a door to door community based program coupled with a project of social change, as the Cuban literacy success amply demonstrates. In any case, most of the opposition to NCLB accepts the claim that it is: (1) designed to serve all the children of the nation and that the (2) public schools, our schools, must be reformed. We call both pretenses into question. The bi-partisan, united-as-a class, efforts to demolish the welfare system and the social safety net, to deny poor children health care, food, and safe places to live, to close libraries, and used their state power to assist the storm, Katrina, in making a natural disaster a racist assault, should be sufficient to offset the good motives implied by claim one. In regard to claim two, we are skeptical about the truly public nature of a national school system that is absolutely segregated by class and race, where the teaching force itself is an apartheid body (about 85 percent white teaching minority/majority kids), where different content is taught to different students based on their birthright, and where test results are as predictable as income levels within zip codes. These may well be their schools, serving the needs of capital, just as the Ford plant is not ours, but Ford's, is also in question, though both at Ford, and in schools, there is always resistance, as regimented labor and intellectual work both suck. Ford, however, produces machines, and schools produce hope. Other resisters seek to participate in the NCLB process on the grounds that, "If you are not in the room, your voice won't be heard." That sums up the position of liberal historian Gary Nash, the key author of the National History Standards, who wrote them in part because he was concerned that if he did not do it, then the neo-conservatives would. Nash hoped no high-stakes exam would be attached. His standards, which excluded Marxist and feminist interpretations at the outset, were then voted down by a Rush Limbaugh-inspired congress. He re-wrote them and, in our eyes, became what he set out to oppose, his history standards as partisan as could be. And now, as with the Michigan MEAP (long administered by Standard and Poor's) a watered down version of Nash's standards serves as the state's exam. Support for the high-stakes exams which, in every instance, were born from curricula regulations, make appeals like this: "The rationale for standardized testing has always been a matter of common sense: In order to measure how each student is doing academically, there has to be a standard of measure." That remains the publicity claim of the conservative Mackinac Center in Michigan, an appeal to simple reason. We want to focus on high-stakes examinations as a key choke point in public schools and to suggest that, while petitioning to abolish the NCLB and the tests along with it is a fine first step, only direct action in the form of boycotts, matched by outside freedom schooling, can possibly overcome the destruction of reason the tests truly represent, creating a class of counter-curious kids, their level of projected subservience varying with their inheritance. It is equally true that trying to vote troops out of Iraq may be a fine thing, but the direct action of troop refusals, mass disobedience, and throwing military recruiters off campuses, is likely to be the only powerful form of war resistance­creating the kind of self-conscious movement that can be sustained through all the promised imperial adventures. High stakes testing has its roots in the early twentieth century work of Lewis Terman and Robert Yerkes who promoted the IQ test to prove the genetic advantages of races they had already identified as superior, demonstrating the use of bogus science to determine who should be an officer in a segregated military. Their work in the American Eugenics Society (AES) aimed at identifying degenerate races, in order to purify the gene pool. Their work was used to sterilize thousands of women, against their will. During their Nuremburg trials, Nazis routinely pointed to the AES as an inspiration. Carl Brigham worked with Yerkes. He's the key founder of the widely used SAT. Today, the conservative favorite, Charles Murray, co-author of the racist The Bell Curve, which was used as the intellectual basis to demolish the welfare system, published a series of articles in the January 2007 Wall Street Journal suggesting that IQ tests should be used to track youth into specific schools, as "To have an IQ of 100 means that a tough high-school course pushes you about as far as your academic talents will take you." NCLB simply puts Murray into the daily life of schools. However, the geneticist effort is deepened by the Taylorist, "scientific management," aspects of high-stakes tests which not only place educators and students under the constant supervision of those who seek to deem some inferior, but it also meets the key goal of replacing the mind of the worker, in this case a teacher, with the mind of the boss, through strict curricula regulations, eradicating a vital lynchpin of learning anything: freedom. Here is what we think is a reasonable litany of objections to the NCLB, its national curriculum, and the attached noose, high stakes exams. High-stakes standardized tests, an international phenomenon, represent a powerful intrusion into classrooms, often taking up as much as 40% of classroom time in preparation, practice testing, and administration; The tests are flawed in technical adequacy. They invoke a fallible single standard and a single measure, a practice specifically condemned by the Standards on Educational and Psychological Testing; The tests are implemented and used to make high stakes decisions before sufficient validation evidence is obtained and before defensible technical documentation is issued for public scrutiny; The tests are employed without credible independent meta-evaluation; The tests are flawed in accuracy of scoring and reporting, for example in New York in 2000 when thousands of students were unnecessarily ordered to summer school on the grounds of incorrect test results; The tests pretend that one standard fits all, when one standard does not fit all; These tests measure, for the most part, parental income and race, and are therefore instruments that build racism and anti-working class sentiment against the interest of most teachers and their students; These tests deepen the segregation of children within and between school systems, a move that is not in the interests of most people throughout the world; Inner-city families and poor families are promised tests as an avenue to escape the ghetto and poverty, when the tests are designed to fail their children, boosting dropouts, leaving more children trapped in the ghetto and poverty, deepening inequality and all forms of injustice; The tests set up a false employer-employees relationship between teachers and students which damages honest exchanges in the classroom; The tests create an atmosphere that pits students against students and teachers against teachers and school systems against school systems in a mad scramble for financial rewards, and to avoid financial retribution; The tests have been used to unjustly fire and discipline educators throughout the country; The exams represent an assault on academic freedom by forcing their way into the classroom in an attempt to regulate knowledge, what is known and how people come to know it; The tests foment an atmosphere of greed, fear, and hysteria, none of which contributes to learning; The tests destroy inclusion and inquiry-based education; The high-stakes test pretend to neutrality but are deeply partisan in content, reflecting the needs of elites in a world becoming more inequitable, less democratic, promising the youth of the world perpetual war; The tests become commodities for opportunists whose interests are profits, not the best interests of children. We support the rising tide of education worker resistance to the high-stakes exams, as well as student and educator boycotts. We are sharply opposed to those false-flag reformers who seek to do anything but abolish the NCLB, its tests, and its developing national curriculum. Liberal reformers on this bent simply lend credence to a government that stands fully exposed as a weapon of violence for the rich, they disconnect the clear class and race domination in not-so public schooling from the empire's wars, and they mislead people into believing the dishonest motives of prime NCLB proponents. Above all, through their clear opposition to direct action versus the big tests, as in NEA's attack on Ohanian, they simultaneously seek to destroy the leadership of a movement that could actually succeed, and they once again try to teach people that others, usually elites, will solve our problems, a vile diversion from the fact that no one is going to save us but the united action of us. Parents and students have a legal right to opt out of the exams, which are little more than child abuse made respectable. That the school worker force is aware of the abusive nature of this testing, seeing second-graders in tears as a matter of routine, cleaning vomit off test booklets, etc., speaks to the levels of opportunism, fear, and racism in the work force. Nevertheless, many courageous school workers continue to speak out, to call for action, and in some cases to play a leadership role. Practice suggests that boycotts initiate first in wealthy areas, then when people in poor and working class neighborhoods see that succeed, they follow suit. The wealthy, after all, have the power and outlook to shut down the tests from the outset, and they know regimented curricula simply makes their kids stupid, wastes their time. Peers in private schools never have to take a silly MEAP. Test boycotts in wealthy areas of Michigan and California, for example, have been going on for years. Poor and working class parents and students, however, need to learn, probably from teachers, that the tests are not designed to make education equitable, but to track them into meaningless jobs, or the military­fighting and dying against what they are never taught are truly the enemies of their enemies. In addition, they need to learn that their power supersedes boycotts in rich areas, in that it can truly bring the testing to an end and even serve as a foundation for much broader social change for equality and democracy. Ending imperialism is a pedagogical project, involving a mass change of mind that overcomes most, if not all, of the defects built into every birthright of capital. The linkage of education and social action that could come from anti-test boycotts could be part of that change of consciousness so urgently needed now. We are not barbarians seeking to bring down education itself. We recognize the need to link freedom schooling with test boycotts. Freedom schooling could, for example, be conducted in homes, community centers, or churches, for older students addressing the question of why things are as they are, through community power analyses, while youngsters could be treated to the forbidden delights of recess, free play, storytelling, and playmaking. We hope to contribute to the movement to take direct action against the Big Tests. Some beacons of education publications, like Substance News in Chicago, and organizations like the Rouge Forum, leading a March 1 2007 conference in Detroit, deserve support. Rich Gibson is a professor emeritus at San Diego State University. E. Wayne Ross is professor at University of British Columbia. They are co-editors of Neoliberalism and Education Reform to be published by Hampton Press in 2007.

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