|
|
home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq
|
|
Today's Stories March 26, 2007 Patrick Cockburn March 24 / 25, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St.
Clair David Rosen Ron Jacobs Robert Fantina Alan Maass Atul Gawande Marianne McDonald China Hand Kaz Dziamka Andrew Wimmer Don Monkerud Anthony Papa Matthew Provonsha Missy Beattie Stephen Fleischman Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend Song of the Weekend
March 23, 2007 Saul Landau Patrick Cockburn Greg Moses Rep. Ron Paul Franklin Lamb Stephen Gowans Roger Burbach Dave Lindorff William S. Lind Alan Mammoser Russell Hoffman Website of
the Day
March 22, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Robin Blackburn Michael Donnelly Uzma Aslam
Khan Lee Sustar Robert D. Skeels Rev. William Alberts Anne McElroy
Dachel Mickey Z. Website of
the Day
Tao Ruspoli James Petras Fred Gardner Corporate Crime
Reporter Faisal Kutty Robert Fantina Isabella Kenfield and Roger
Burbach Lucinda Marshall Winslow Wheeler Website of
the Day
March 20, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Winslow T.
Wheeler Sharon Smith Uri Avnery Stan Cox Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Alan Farago Richard W.
Behan Juan Antonio Montecino Latin America Has Moved On David Krieger Peter Rost, MD Mickey Z. Website of
the Day Webclip of
the Day
March 19, 2007 Paul Craig
Roberts Patrick Cockburn Stauber / Rampton Werther Noam Chomsky Jeff Leys Richard May Ron Jacobs Mike Whitney Website of
the Day
March 17 / 18, 2007 Alexander Cockburn John Scagliotti Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig
Roberts Greg Moses Harry Clark Brian Cloughley Mehran Ghassemi William Loren Katz John Ross Ralph Nader Walter Brasch Samer Assad Dave Zirin Ron Jacobs Missy Beattie Don Santina Sami Adwan Dr. Susan Block Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
March 16, 2007 R. T. Naylor Paul Craig
Roberts Joshua Frank Diane Farsetta Tom Barry Stephen Lendman Al Krebs Jackie Corr Ramzy Baroud Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
March 15, 2007 Alison Weir Patrick Cockburn Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity Franklin Spinney Standard Schaefer Conn Hallinan Maureen Webb Sonja Karkar Margaret Kimberly Anthony Papa Katherine Hancy Wheeler Bush's Latin American Tour: Good Will Lost Video of the Day Website of
the Day
March 14, 2007 Tao Ruspoli Philip Agee Bruce Dixon John Walsh Sunsara Taylor William Johnson Richard Thieme Jeffrey Klein Nicola Nasser Dave Lindorff Website of
the Day
March 13, 2007 Catherine Wilkerson,
M.D. Jonathan Cook Robert Bryce Corporate Crime
Reporter Pierre Rimbert Dave Lindorff Elizabeth Schulte Norman Solomon Kevin Zeese Jeff Conant Website of the Day
March 12, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Col. Dan Smith Paul Craig Roberts Ingmar Lee Fred Gardner Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader John Ross Stephen Fleischman Eva Carazo Vargas Website of
the Day
March 9 / 11, 2007 Sameer Dossani Jeffrey St.
Clair Dave Marsh Patrick Cockburn Jennifer Van Bergen James P. Stevenson Arthur J. Versluis Corporate Crime
Reporter Missy Beattie Michael Simmons Kevin Zeese David Swanson John A. Murphy Dave Lindorff Nikolas Kozloff Christopher
Fons Mike Roselle Mike Mejia Susie Day Michael Donnelly Tao Ruspoli Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
March 8, 2007 Elaine Cassel Yifat Susskind Corporate Crime Reporter Col. Dan Smith William S. Lind Mark Engler Roger Burbach Dana Cloud Isabella Kenfield Lucinda Marshall Tao Ruspoli Website of
the Day
Christopher Ketcham Christopher
Ketcham Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey
St. Clair Winslow T.
Wheeler Sean Donahue Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Tao Ruspoli Website of the Day
March 6, 2007 Gary Leupp Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Corporate Crime Reporter Ron Jacobs Mike Roselle P. Sainath Joshua Frank Aniket Alam Dave Zirin Website of
the Day
March 5, 2007 Greg Moses Patrick Cockburn James Petras Frida Berrigan Marjorie Cohn Douglas Kammen
and S.W. Hayati Sen. Barack Obama Michael Young Dave Lindorff Sonja Karkar Website of the Day
March 3 / 4, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Corporate Crime
Reporter Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader M. Shahid Alam Gilad Atzmon Fred Gardner George Ciccariello-Maher Rock &
Rap Confidential Gillian Russom Michael McPhearson Kevin Zeese Sunsara Taylor Wendy Thompson Kenneth Rexroth Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Tina Louise Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
March 2, 2007 Roger Morris Phil Gasper Mike Roselle Robert Bryce John V. Walsh Sherwood Ross China Hand David Rosen Chris Genovali Peter Harley Website of the Day
March 1, 2007 Laura Carlsen Paul Craig
Roberts Ray McGovern Christopher
Brauchli Najum Mustaq Brent Bowden Tina Richards Ethan Nadelman Mike Stark Wadner Pierre
/ Jeb Sprague Mike Whitney Website of
the Day
February 28, 2007 Peter Linebaugh Tao Ruspoli China Hand Marjorie Cohn Sarah Olson Susan Van Haitsma Nicole Colson Harvey Wasserman William S. Lind Nicola Nasser Website of the Day
February 27, 2007 Tariq Ali Tom Barry Uri Avnery Antonia Juhasz / Raed Jarrar Jeff Nygaard Hugh O'Shaughnessy Mitchell Kaidy Carl Finamore Anne McElroy
Dachel Ramzy Baroud Andrew Rouse Website of the Day
February 26, 2007 Franklin Lamb Bill Quigley Greg Moses Col. Dan Smith Ralph Nader Paul Buchheit Jeff Leys Dave Zirin Mike Whitney Michael Dickinson Website of the Day
February 24 / 25, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair R. T. Naylor Gary Leupp Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Jeffrey Blankfort Chris Sands Gary Freeman Larry Portis P. Sainath Lee Sustar Kevin Wehr Ken Couesbouc Soffiyah Elijah Kathlyn Stone Dave Lindorff Jason Kunin Kevin Zeese Remi Kanazi Missy Beattie Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
February 23, 2007 Franklin Spinney Jonathan Cook Patrick Cockburn Kathy Kelly Chris Dols Evelyn Pringle Stephen Pearcy Dan Brook Yifat Susskind Website of
the Day
February 22, 2007 Robert Fantina Tariq Ali Michael Shank John Ross Christopher Brauchli Cindy Litman Niranjan Ramakrishnan Kevin Zeese Aseem Shrivastava Reza Fiyouzat Illinois Students Against the
War Website of
the Day
February 21, 2007 Maass / St.
Clair Sharon Smith Greg Moses Margaret Kimberly Ralph Nader Nicola Nasser Mike Whitney Tao Ruspoli Byeong Jeongpil Corporate Crime
Reporter Josh Mahan Website of
the Day
February 20, 2007 Sgt. Martin
Smith Werther Corporate Crime Reporter Carl G. Estabrook China Hand Joshua Frank Megan Boler John Feffer Daryll E. Ray Alan Gregory Website of the Day
February 19, 2007 Paul Craig
Roberts Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Michael F.
Brown Robert Jensen Roger Burbach Monica Benderman Sonja Karkar John Walsh Talli Nauman Website of the Day
Feburary 17 / 18, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Tao Ruspoli Gary Leupp Jeffrey St.
Clair Roger Morris Uri Avnery James Brooks Sen. Russell
Feingold Linn Washington, Jr. Michele Brand Fred Gardner Mitchel Cohen Mike Ferner David Swanson P. Sainath Mike Stark Missy Beattie Jonathan Franklin Website of the Weekend
Marc Levy Andrew Cockburn Glen Ford Greg Moses Ron Jacobs John W. Farley James Marc Leas Tim Rinne Albert Wan Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Stephen Lendman Evelyn Pringle Michael Simmons Kevin Zeese Dave Lindorff Pete Shanks Peter Rost Lenni Brenner
/ Gilad Atzmon Website of the Day
February 14, 2007 Tao Ruspoli Dick J. Reavis Margaret Kimberly Christopher Brauchli Paul Craig
Roberts John Ross Michael F.
Brown Dave Lindorff J.L. Chestunut,
Jr. Don Fitz Michael Donnelly Dr. Susan Block Website of
the Day
February 13, 2007 Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Marjorie Cohn Col. Dan Smith Col. Douglas
MacGreagor Thomas Power Nicola Nasser David Swanson Columbia Coalition
Against the War Website of the Day
February 12, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts John Walsh Dr. John Carroll,
MD Greg Moses Nicole Colson Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Doug Giebel David Swanson Website of the Day
Subscribe Online
|
March 26, 2007 Yosserian, Where Are You When We Need You?A Plague of Big ShotsBy BILL HATCH Big Shots are found everywhere in American society. So, viewing them from the San Joaquin Valley of California, once a great agricultural area now mindlessly converting itself as fast as violation of environmental law and regulation and common sense permits to another Western slurb, is as good a place as any to observe Big Shots. American society is plagued with Big Shots, people that have gotten to some position of power through an excess of aggression, which they use to bully others. The rest of us all too often take the bullying in stride, hoping for a better day or, under the relentless onslaught, cave and grow permanently afraid. All Big Shots have some self-righteous ideology, fundamentalism or doctrine to shout down at the rest of us from their positions, just a little above us one way or another. The self-justification can be anything from "good work habits" to "the war against global terrorism." All of it is a smoke screen for big-mouthed little cowards playing authoritarian games, throughout the sick institutional structure of this nation from the orchard and tomato field to the packing shed to the city council to the school to the development corporation and the oil company to the White House. We sit and read and hope somehow the "We the People" of the high-school texts will miraculously manifest that mythical unity We are said to possess to get the Big Shots off our backs, without risking anything. But, there is too much power, too much money floating around America, too many weapons in obedient hands and way too little human dignity left to stop this imperial cannibalism that is devouring millions of people in our imperial way the toll rising, unabated by weak political resistance within the empire's "homeland." Americans now confuse order and government in the "homeland" with bullying and being bullied. We elect a majority of Democrats in Congress to stop the war and their "leadership" blows us off in favor of the military contractors, the oil companies and the Israel lobby. But, will the public stand up to them? Call them by their name: hypocrites, sanctimonious bribe-takers, hacks and buffoons? Sue them? Prosecute them? Call their propaganda by its name? America is a frightened, ruthless, unjust and ugly society full of denial and a guilt growing too large to measure, let alone accept. More than 600,000 Iraqis are dead because of a 30-year political "vacation" taken by the citizens of the USA, culminating in this atrocity. Our health care system is broken because America does not care about its people's health. Top American political leadership is sociopathic because it serves at the pleasure of transnational corporations with no commitment to anything but their profits and the destruction of government regulation rather than the people and law. But the people are too besotted with corporate propaganda to know their rights, their interests and how to defend either. Yet, the US is losing "the war against terrorism" for the same reason it long ago lost the "war on drugs": the Big Shots are too corrupt to win a war or stop the carnage of this one. Or rebuild New Orleans. Or save our environment. Or even put a dent in global warming. Big Shots dominate our federal, state and local legislatures and our media corporations. The political situation in America is, in fact, much more critical than most Americans can imagine. There are entire institutions, vital to a functional society that have dropped off the map of the civilized world because they have been so rotted out by the greed of special interests, bribery and corruption. A small example, that will be familiar only to the very few remaining candid souls living in rural America, will be this year's Farm Bill, which will demonstrate again that the Department of Agriculture is so corrupt it cannot identify national interest or even farmers' interests. Likewise with the Food and Drug Agency, that has made unwitting guinea pigs of the entire American society and any foreign markets for our crops too stupid or oppressed to avoid it for the free, unregulated experimentation of the health effects of genetically modified organisms. Resource agencies charged with enforcing environmental law and regulation are daily corrupted by development corporations. Agency-by-agency, institution-by-institution, where can we find one that is working for the People? As glad as we may be made by tidings of churches, with congregations 10,000 strong, doing incredible feats of community outreach and care, can they replace a government that is supposed to serve 300 million people and is not supposed to be owned by transnational corporations? American universities promote those character traits of sycophantic aggression prized by the corrupt corporate power elites that fund research for private profit rather than public benefit. High school dropouts, unlike the PhDs that staff the nation's national laboratories, are not recorded to have produced American weapons of mass destruction that menace the world. These weapons aren't the products of education; they are from its simulacrum, the university/corporate technology/military complex. To these must be added the "independent experts" whose regular gigs are at the brothel think tanks. As ever, on the cutting edge of military technology, the Pentagon now conducts war by hurling immeasurable (at least by its accounting) tons of pork at the enemy, possibly hoping to crush him under the sheer weight ham and bacon. While the Pentagon appears to have crushed our side, the insurgents have long ago gone on to their own civil war.
I mention Big Shots only because there might be lingering in the American collective unconscious that immense psychic ocean of all that is suppressed and ignored some residual folk memory of resentment against Big Shots. Perhaps a residual sense of the political taste that caused people to fight to the death against the British so many years ago. However, it is probable that Americans, after 30 years of corporate propaganda, have been so overwhelmingly persuaded of their unique brilliance, success and that Beautiful Freedom we all enjoy, that they all conceive of themselves as Big Shots, entitled citizens, above the masses. In our area, the masses are imagined by our fictitious Big Shots to be foreigners, Mexicans and Asians and such. Casual observation suggests, however, that when Americans, convinced of their Big Shot status, are muscled by the equally convinced, the former group rather than getting down to political realities tends instead to develop a severe case of the vapors. "How dare they!" etc. Generally, their croquet balls are carefully aimed and demurely stroked at a non-lethal local official, in no position to help or to harm, simply one more minor Big Shot on his or her way up or down the ladder to Big Shot Heaven. Missing the target amounts to an alliance with one's own gravedigger, but if one doesn't know that, there is not point in bringing it up. "Use it or lose it," voter registrars used to mutter in front of supermarket doors at the feckless passers-by. They didn't use it and they did lose it. Everyman the Big Shot, on his way into WalMart, was above mere voting. The proper American hero of today is Yossarian, the terrified WWII bombardier of Catch-22. When you tell the truth to power, power will fire back. Yossarian wasn't crazy. Fighting fascism is dangerous work. But, having allowed this unaccountable, authoritarian power to take root on the ground, it must be defeated even though it fights back. That would take courage and spirit, and probably fewer vacations. But, of course, Catch-22 was just a funny novel written 50 years ago, which said some rather off-message things about the "greatest generation." Our local McClatchy Chain corporate outlet is a Big Shot with barrels of ink that is never off-message. The Chain is part of the immense advertising/public relations empire in charge of controlling our taste, distorting all issues with one aim the destruction of a truly public perspective in favor of the very private, "special" perspective of the private profits of their paymasters and their social equals in the Club de Big Shots. In the San Joaquin Valley, the McClatchy Chain relentlessly attacks the San Joaquin River Settlement Agreement, reached between local, state and national environmental groups and farmers and local, state and federal water agencies. The idea of accord between agriculture and environmental groups is an abomination to McClatchy advertisers principally real estate development, finance and insurance and they cannot allow this agreement to live, which would put Sierra snow melt back into the state's second-longest river all the way to the Delta. To this destructive end, the Chain has taken to quoting every inane utterance of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, a bullyboy for corporate agribusiness welfare. The Big Shots the Chain does not name, who are bankrolling Nunes' attack on the settlement, are smoother and worse. The Big Shots intend to protect their power and their wealth. That's all they have to say now, and all they ever had to say, millions of barrels of ink ago. Where's the "Progress"? What did agribusiness, built on federal water, crop subsidies and low wages, really accomplish? Where is the quality in those islands of wealth surrounded by poverty and economic anxiety? What was the ideal served? Where is the happiness? Do we live to buy what we don't need to keep corporate CEOs in the style to which they have become accustomed, averaging 300 times higher compensation than the median income of their employees? Do we live for the fame of having invaded and destroyed already crippled nations to plunder their resources? Do we live to support and applaud or suffer in fearful silence the fraud and corruption of predatory plutocrats? Were we born to become the generation that forgot the difference between news and advertising? Is our purpose in life here in the San Joaquin Valley and elsewhere to stand at attention and sing hymns of praise to the destroyers of the Public Trust and the builders of grotesque slurbs just because Big Shots have the "freedom" to do it? Is this nation's destiny freedom for Big Shots and the shaft for the rest of us? "Of course not, of course not," I hear you saying. I end in communion with the great Dodge City lawman, Bat Masterson, who went on to a distinguished career as a New York City sports writer. He wrote: "There are many in this old world of ours who hold that things break about even for all of us. I have observed, for example, that we all get the same amount of ice. The rich get it in the summertime and the poor get it in the winter." Bill Hatch can be reached at: wmmhatch@sbcglobal.net
|
The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn         CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed       Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
