The Death Knell of Conservatism, Episodes 943 and 944

Conservative editor and windbag William Kristol. I think they gave him nitrous oxide before the shoot to keep that shit eating grin on his face the whole 7 minutes.

Felipe Calderón tries to open Mexican oil to privatization

This is a big deal. It seems the the Mexican government is attempting to use the world financial crisis and the inefficient(read: massively corrupt) Mexican national oil company, PEMEX, to erode the President Lazaro Cardenas' 1938's nationalization of the nation's oil in 1938. A longer post is on the way.

Like Kweli Said...

don't ask me what i'd say to a dead cop's wife
cops kill my people everday that's life

Tony Cliff on Lenin and the Party

A useful discussion of Lenin's theory of the party and what it means for organizers. Also, for those of us with ADD, funny cartoons.

Halloween: Capitalist Horrorshow edition of the International Socialist Review

It's spooky.

REPORTS AND ANALYSIS

LANCE SELFA: A new political landscape

LEE SUSTAR: An Economic system on the edge

EDUARDO LUCITA: A crisis of capital

Battle at Boeing

FEATURES

Racial scapegoats for the crash
Conservatives are blaming the economic crisis on affirmative action, Phil Gasper writes in “Critical Thinking”

Capitalism’s worst crisis since the 1930s
Joel Geier

Beyond the surge in Iraq
Ashley Smith looks behind the hype about success in Iraq

Afghanistan: The new quagmire
Christian Parenti, interviewed by Helen Scott

Bolivia after the referendum
Jeffery Webber and Tom Lewis

Charter schools and the attack on public education
Sarah Knopp

Hothouse Earth: capitalism and climate change
First of two articles by Chris Williams

The echo effect of 1968
Mexican author Paco Ignacio Taibo II, interviewed by Todd Chretien

Energy imperialism
Lance Selfa reviews new books by Michael T. Klare and Andrew J. Bacevich

A life spent in struggle
Todd Chretien remembers Peter Miguel Camejo, 1939–2008

REVIEWS

What to read about Afghanistan
Charles T. Peterson reviews five recent books

PLUS: Hooked on prescription drugs; Deadly lines on the map; Overblowing the risks of terror attack

How Bill Clinton helped to (nearly) murder Troy Davis

In understanding why, in light of all the evidence for a retrial, Troy Davis has nearly been murdered by the state of Georgia three times, it is essential to look at Bill Clinton's Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Marlene Martin does just that.

Palling around with Pinochet

John Dingus, eminent NSA archive spelunker, has recently uncovered a series of previously classified embassy cables describing one Congressman John McCain's meeting with Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, in 1985. If McCain/Palin's claims that Obama's association with ex-Weather Underground member Bill Ayers spoke ill of his dedication to defending America, McCain's ties to the contras, pro-fascist groups, and now mass murderer/torturer Pinochet leaves no doubt as to who has the real terrorist connections.

Video of Police horse trampling veteran: Ghost of Bonus Army Past

Disclaimer: this is brutal.

I'd like to repeat: not a peep out of outrage or compassion from Obama and McCain.

Military opens $15 million hospital for dogs wounded in war

Are you shitting me? While Long Island cops use horses to brutalize HUMAN veterans, not a peep is raised from either side of the aisle or either candidate. What kind of message might this be sending to vets who have seen the VA budget slashed time and time again and skyrocketing suicide rates?

The human cost of economic meltdown

Most of us would welcome Paulson, Bernanke and CO. throwing themselves from buildings. Unlike most of their precursors during the Great Depression, however, the bankers and other capitalists who helped cause the current economic meltdown seem to be floating pretty with the help of golden parachutes. On the other hand, the brunt of the violence caused by this crisis is faced by the millions of Americans suffering eviction, job loss, continued unemployment and bankruptcy. As a recent article from TomDispatch shows, Addie Polk is not the only one driven to the most desperate of actions. Suicides and violent confrontations with the police are taking place across the country and receiving no coverage from the media. This article gives a sobering view of the inhumanity of the crisis never mentioned by Obama, McCain and the rest who support bail outs to Wall Street and nothing for the rest of us.

The Death Knell of conservatism, episode 276

National Review, the most important conservative intellectual magazine in the country, faced with Obama's inevitable victory, has adopted the editorial tone of a petulant teenager.

Obama's Terrorist Friends

RIP Levi Stubbs

Not that political of a post, but Levi Stubbs' passing deserves homage where homage is due, especially since the Four Tops are one of my favorite Motown acts.





Hopefully there will be a better obituary out than CNN's. I'll post it when I find it.

Update: Here's the New York Times obit. It's much more informative.

Brecht

As we're constantly reminded, the collapse of the market means that we need financial experts now more than ever. Despite the infantile protestations of a demagogic populace rejecting its betters, it's painfully apparent to the educated classes that expertise is crucial at this conjuncture. Bertolt Brecht wrestled with a similar situation in the 1930s, and I thought a poem of his might help us illuminate our current position.

Difficulty of Governing

1
Ministers are always telling the people
How difficult it is to govern. Without the ministers
Corn would grow into the ground, not upward.
Not a lump of coal would leave the mine if
The Chancellor weren't so clever. Without the Minister of
Propaganda
No girl would ever agree to get pregnant. Without the
Minister of War
There'd never be a war. Indeed, whether the sun would rise
in the morning
Without the Fuhrer's permission
Is very doubtful, and if it did, it would be
In the wrong place.

2
It's just as difficult, so they tell us
To run a factory. Without the owner
The walls would fall in and the machines rust, so they say.
Even if a plough could get made somewhere
It would never reach a field without the
Cunning words the factory owners writers the peasants: who
Could otherwise tell them that the plough exists? And what
Would become of an estate without the landlord? Surely
They'd be sowing rye where they had set the potatoes.

3
If governing were easy
There'd be no need for such inspired minds as the Fuhrer's.
If the worker knew how to run his machine and
The peasant could tell his factory from a pastryboard
There'd be no need of factory owner or landlord.
It's only because they are all so stupid
That a few are needed who are clever.

4
Could it be that
Governing is so difficult only
Because swindling and exploitation take some learning?

Oh How They Love Each Other

Joe Biden: "I don't think there's a prejudiced bone in John McCain's body."
John McCain: "I hate the gooks," McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live."

McCain Tries to Put Out a Fire He Started

Poetry by W.D. Ehrhart

W.D. Ehrhart is a Vietnam veteran who became involved with Vietnam Veterans Against the War when he returned home. His work features prominently in a course on the Vietnam war I'm currently helping teach.


To Those Who Have Gone Home Tired

After the streets fall silent
After the bruises and the tear-gassed eyes are healed
After the consensus has returned
After the memories of Kent and My Lai and Hiroshima
lose their power
and their connections with each other
and the sweaters labeled Made in Taiwan
After the last American dies in Canada
and the last Korean in prison
and the last Indian at Pine Ridge
After the last whale is emptied from the sea
and the last leopard emptied from its skin
and the last drop of blood refined by Exxon
After the last iron door clangs shut
behind the last conscience
and the last loaf of bread is hammered into bullets
and the bullets
scattered among the hungry

What answers will you find
What armor will protect you
when your children ask you

Why?

Making the Children Behave

Do they think of me now
in those strange Asian villages
where nothing ever seemed
quite human
bu myself
and my few grim friends
moving through them
hunched
in lines?

When they tell stories to their children
of the evil
that awaits misbehavior,
is it me they conjure?

For Mrs. Na

I always told myself,
if I ever got the chance to go back,
I'd never say "I'm sorry"
to anyone. Christ,

those guys I saw on television once:
sitting in Hanoi, the cameras rolling,
crying, blubbering
all over the place. Sure,

I'm sorry. I never meant to do the things I did.
But that was nearly twenty years ago:
enough's enough.

If I ever go back
I always told myself,
I'll hold steady
and look them in the eye.

But here I am at last-
and here you are.
And you lost five sons in the war.
And you haven't any left.

And I'm staring at my hands
and eating tears,
trying to think of something else to say
besides "I'm sorry."

Sarah Palin: why women should bear their rapists' babies

September Sees Biggest Job Loss Since 2003

And this survey was taken before Wall Street went belly-up.