Obama's Big Silence: The Race Question

by Naomi Klein

In the late 50s and early 60s, angry white mobs were reacting to life-changing victories won by the civil rights movement. Today's mobs, on the other hand, are reacting to the symbolic victory of an African American winning the presidency. Yet they are rising up at a time when non-elite blacks and Latinos are losing significant ground, with their homes and jobs slipping away from them at a much higher rate than from whites.
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When the conference arrived in Durban, many delegates were shocked by the angry mood in the streets: tens of thousands of South Africans joined protests outside the conference centre, holding signs that said "Landlessness = racism" and "New apartheid: rich and poor". Many denounced the conference as a sham, and demanded concrete reparations for the crimes of apartheid.
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The overriding message was that even though the most visible signs of racism had largely disappeared – colonial rule, apartheid, Jim Crow-style segregation – profound racial divides will persist and even widen until the states and corporations that profited from centuries of state-sanctioned racism pay back some of what they owe.

Give a Worker a Raise

How to Fight Deflation

By MIKE WHITNEY

"Deflation has spread to every sector of the economy; retail, travel, luxury items, autos, building supplies, home furnishings, electronics. No business has been spared. The C.P.I. inflation-gauge has slipped into negative territory and is now at -2.1 percent. Prices are headed down and spending is falling fast. Unemployment is soaring, wages are dropping, and the average work-week has been sliced to just 33 hrs.
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Economist Irving Fisher tackled the problem of deflation 76 years ago in his masterpiece "Debt-Deflation Theory of the Great Depression". Fisher showed how over-indebtedness eventually triggers a chain of events beginning with debt liquidation and ending in distress selling, huge capital losses, and violent economic contraction. This is the challenge that Bernanke faces today.

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Wall Street likes to stimulate demand through credit expansion and bubblenomics because they can skim fat bonuses on the front end and then bail out before stocks crash. But this perennial "boom and bust" cycle is a real loser for ordinary working class Americans, who merely want a little stability and a paycheck that keeps pace with inflation. The best way to avoid "demand shock"--which is at the heart of every recession--is through wage growth and full employment. It's that simple. When workers get better pay, they buy more more stuff and the economy thrives. Everybody wins!"

Suddenly Righteous Dudes

Mendocino County, Famously Laid Back, Reconsiders Its Stance on Marijuana

"Down at the courthouse, the district attorney sighs.... 'Quite frankly, I might benefit from a card. This is a high-stress job. It would probably do me good to go home and smoke some pot in the evening.' "

NPR: Ancient Wall Discovered In Jerusalem

"The City of David digs are funded by Elad, a Jewish settler organization that also buys Palestinian homes and brings Jewish families into the neighborhood. Palestinian and Israeli critics have charged that the archaeology is being used as a political tool to cement Jewish control over parts of Jerusalem that Palestinians want for the capital of a future state."

THE ROVING EYE
Fifty questions on 9/11
By Pepe Escobar

Chase Madar: Samantha Power and the Weaponization of Human Rights

Sarah Sewell, the recent head of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard, has written a slavering introduction to the new Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual: human-rights tools can help the U.S. armed forces run better pacification campaigns in conquered territory."

"Human-rights organizations can do a splendid job of exposing and criticizing abuses, but they are constitutionally incapable of taking stands on larger political issues. No major human-rights NGO opposed the invasion of Iraq. With their legitimacy and funding dependent on a carefully cultivated perception of neutrality, human-rights nonprofits will never be any substitute for an explicitly anti-imperialist political force. In the meantime, America’s best and brightest will continue to explore innovative ways for human rights to serve a thoroughly militarized foreign policy."

Chase Madar: Samantha Power and the Weaponization of Human Rights

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Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel's Health Care Speech

"Not to be too much of a downer, but I found Obama's speech tonight a big O-bummer. ... Obama felt the need to tell the country that he's devoted to making sure the wildly unpopular private insurance industry at the heart of the health care meltdown remains profitable. He also made sure to forget that Americans love Medicare and hate private insurance when he went out of his way to reiterate his support for "market" economics (shocker - this was the line both parties stood up and gave a thundering round of applause). Awesome."