Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire It’s An Anti-Imperialist Struggle, Not a Clash of Civilizations

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/30/its-an-anti-imperialist-struggle-not-a-clash-of-civilizations/

Reflections On the Occupy Movement-A Review of We Are Many

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/23/from-occupation-to-liberation/

Intentional and Deadly Mistakes: The Film

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/16/intentional-and-deadly-mistakes/

Sieze the Time: Toward a New Leftist Politics

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/09/toward-a-new-leftist-politcs/

Gore Vidal After the Fact

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/02/gore-vidal-after-the-fact/

The FBI vs. the People of Berkeley

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/26/the-fbi-vs-the-people-of-berkeley/

Reflections on George McGovern

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/19/reflecting-on-george-mcgovern/

Lessons From Korea

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/12/lessons-from-korea/

Turkey Plays Chicken for NATO

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/05/turkey-plays-chicken-for-nato/

A Citizens' Call to Act

Rumors of war become more frequent. Tel Aviv pushes harder and harder for an attack on Iran while Iranian defense officials seem resigned to the fact of an eventual war on their nation. Sanctions against the Iranian people are tightening. Many regular citizens of the world expect some kind of military attack on Iran either right before or not long after the US elections in November. The thinking goes that no matter who wins, the warmongers in Tel Aviv and Washington, DC will set such an attack in motion. Once the first salvo is fired, it is unlikely there will be any turning back for many weeks, at least. Thousands will die. Cities and towns will be destroyed. A new wave of terror will be unleashed by all sides using traditional forces and guerrillas. A future of bloodshed and the threat of nuclear holocaust will reign.

Yet, there is no discernible antiwar movement. Unlike the months prior to March 2003 and the US invasion of Iraq, there has hardly been a single sign held opposing war on Iran. Part of this is because of political mistakes made by the leadership of the antiwar networks in place during the prelude and first few years of the war on Iraq. Part of the reason for the ennui is a denial by the antiwar population that the potential for war is lurking ahead of us like an insurmountable snow bank ready to collapse in the suddenly warming weather. Then there is the belief propagated by the power elites who profit from war that Iran is an enemy that deserves defeat; part of an “axis of evil” so incorrigible the only remedy is its obliteration. The reasons for this perception are many. The Israeli government needs an enemy to justify its continued military occupation of Palestine and the repression of many of its own residents. Washington also needs an enemy for the same reasons. Then there is the question of revenge against the Tehran regime founded in a revolutionary defeat of Washington's man in Iran--the Shah. Then, of course, there is the question of oil.

Never mind that Iran is essentially as much of a functioning democracy as the United States or Great Britain. Never mind that it is one of the world’s most literate nations. Never mind that many of its citizens want their government to minimize the power of the religious conservatives in their daily lives. Iran has oil that Washington wants to control like it used to in the days of the Shah. Also, Iran dares to defy the agenda Washington and Tel Aviv have in mind for the region called the Middle East. Indeed, it has done so for more than three decades, angering those powers and their allies while providing an example of resistance to millions. These are the reasons Washington and Tel Aviv want to make war on Iran. They should not be construed as endorsements of the Iranian government.

We know that existing antiwar networks like the United National Antiwar Coalition, United for Peace and Justice, and others are working in multiple and diverse ways against this and other manifestations of the US war machine. But, it is time to step up the ante. Therefore, we urge everyone opposed to the threat of war on Iran to organize locally and quickly. If we cannot stop any attacks, we must be ready to respond to them.

There does not have to be an official organization, just the desire of a few friends and acquaintances. Picket lines, teach-ins, sit-ins, marches through downtown; all of these and more must be planned. The masters of war must not be let off the hook. Occupy proved that local networks exist that can mobilize people quickly. This model is as old as the Diggers and as new as today. Utilize it. Call for a protest at your Federal Building, City Hall, recruiting office, military base, or somewhere downtown. All organizing begins small. As the events around the world the past couple years have proven, it can become very big.

Who are we? We are workers, students, small business owners, parents from all over North America. We are well off and not so well off. Most importantly, we are agitators. That's nothing special. There should be millions of us instigating calls against war around the world. It’s as easy as 1, 2, and 3. Join us!

Original signers include:

David Abeles
Shalui Abeles
Paul Atwood
Peter Bohmer
Kathleen Brown
Marc Estrin
Bob Feldman
Robert Ferraro
Ramsey Kanaan
Ron Jacobs
Scott Noble
Sue Reading
Jude Sargent
Michael Simmons
Bob Simpson
Brian Tokar


Don't forget to mark the tenth anniversary of the US war in Afghanistan. For a list of events, please go to http://october7actions.net/

The Black Panthers-No Bullshitting

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/28/the-black-panthers-no-bullshitting/

Springsteen in Washington

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/21/springsteen-in-washington/

Burning Paper Instead of Children--The Catonsville Nine

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/14/burning-paper-instead-of-children/

Students as Commodities:Back to School in the Twilight of Capitalism

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/07/back-to-school-in-the-twilight-of-capitalism/

What Do You Want From Death?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/31/what-do-you-want-from-death/

Opposing the Eagle's Talons

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/24/opposing-the-eagles-talons/

The Drums of War Pump Up the Volume

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/17/the-drums-of-war-pump-up-the-volume/

Can I Vote For Revolution?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/10/can-i-vote-for-revolution/

When Police Attack

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/03/when-police-attack/

Iran, The US, Nukes and Other things--an interview

http://www.rohama.org/en/news/8905/ron-jacobs%E2%80%AC-wests-hypocrisy-over-iran-nuclear-capabilities,-an-insult-to-intelligence-of-the-world

Living In A World Without Reason

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/27/in-a-world-without-reason/

Radio Interview with Scott Harris of WPKN

A brief conversation with Radio Host Scott Harris of WPKN in Connecticut.  We talk about Alexander Cockburn and Syria.

http://archives.wpkn.org/bookmarks/listen/39156

The Empire Project-Another Round

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/20/the-empire-project-another-round/

Syria Through the Looking Glass

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/29/syria-through-the-looking-glass/

A Tale From a Time of Heroes:Leila Khaled and the Struggle for Palestinian Liberation

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/22/a-tale-from-a-time-of-heroes/

Trying To Kill Social Security: A Thirty Year Hit Job

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/15/trying-to-kill-social-security/

The American Empire: The Feature Film

Excuse the typo...
the senator's name is Vandenberg, not Andenberg (ron)

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/08/american-empire-the-feature-film/

The Limbo of Death Row: A Review of In This Timeless Time

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/01/the-limbo-of-death-row/

Tentacles of Empire

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/25/the-tentacles-of-empire/

Living For the City: David Harvey's Rebel Cities

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/18/living-for-the-city/

A Review of Frank Bardacke's Book on the UFW

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/09/chavez-and-the-two-souls-of-the-ufw/

Rules are Rules As Any Fool Can See

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/04/rules-are-rules-as-any-fool-can-see/

Occupy 1914

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/27/occupy-1914/

Racism in a Postracial Nation

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/20/racism-in-the-postracial-nation/

Kick Some Ass With the Working Class

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/13/kick-some-ass-with-the-working-class/

Bohemian Hoedown

http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/music-ron-jacobs-new-kind-of-lonely.html

Papa Had a Brand New Bag: A Review of The One: The Life and Music of James Brown

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/30/papa-had-a-brand-new-bag/

Rebellious Spring, Murderous Winter: Vijay Prashad on the Arab Spring

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/23/rebellious-spring-murderous-winter/

Bureaucracy of War

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/16/the-bureaucracy-of-war/

Women's Rights Are Human Rights-International Women's Day

http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/ron-jacobs-womens-rights-are-human.html

It Started In Wisconsin: Sparks and Wildfires

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/02/sparks-and-wildfires/

Reasons to Protest Obama

Barack Obama is Coming to My Town

Ask the Cop on the Corner, Ask the Cop at Your Front Door

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/17/creeping-fascism-2/

Younger Than That Now

One typo--Sanders mag was called Fuck You not Fug You--auto correct mistake

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/10/younger-than-that-now/

Privatizing the Grid in Burlington, VT

http://vtdigger.org/2012/02/02/jacobs-privatizing-the-grid-in-burlington/

Rationalizing Idiocy: Attacking Iran For All the Right Reasons?

Forgive the typo
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/01/rationalizing-idiocy-attacking-iran-for-all-the-right-reasons/

The Politics of Upton Sinclair

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/20/the-politics-of-upton-sinclair/

Excerpt from my novel The Co-Conspirator's Tale

http://www.stateofnature.org/theCoConspiratorsTale.html

Fomite Author reading January 18th in Burlington

The War Is Over. Let It Begin

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/10/the-war-is-over-let-it-begin/

A Brother With a Furious Mind

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/02/a-brother-with-a-furious-mind/

Three Books Two Tales

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/23/occupy-gets-booked/

The Scream of the Butterfly--Greil Marcus Does the Doors

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/19/the-scream-of-the-butterfly/

Cratched Does California--Ghosts of Christmas Past

Selection that appears in Tripping Through the American Night...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/12/26/cratched-does-california/

Bolano's Board Game

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/09/bolanos-board-game/

December 8, 1980-Remembering John Lennon

http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/12/09/remembering-john-lennon/

The Way the Wind Blew Reviews Part Three

two not so positive reviews and one from The Journal of American History
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/18307

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4468/the_way_the_wind_blew/

The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground By Ron Jacobs. (New York: Verso, 1997. viii, 216 pp. Cloth, $50.00, ISBN 1-85984-861-3. Paper, $15.00, ISBN 1- 85984-167-8.)

Ron Jacobs begins his history of the Weather Underground where most analyses of the move- ments of the 1960s leave off, with the splintering of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1968 and the "Days of Rage" in 1969. His focus is solely on Weather, which turns out to be his book's major strength but also accounts for some of its weaknesses. Jacobs's first chapter, "1968: SDS Turns Left,' recounts the disintegration of SDS into factions that included Weather, Progressive Labor (PL), the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), and others. While the reader gains a careful analysis of the ideological differences among these groups, what is lost is the context out of which this all emerged. There is no discussion of the history of SDS or even of the political careers that led members of the Weather Underground to this point. (There are some biographical tidbits in a brief appendix entitled "The Cast.") From this moment on, however, Jacobs re- tells with care the stages of Weather activity coupled with discussions of its developing theoretical positions and growing cognizance of other political issues, including the emerging feminist movement. One virtue of his work is his decision to take Weather seriously and not to indulge in the kind of sensationalistic discussions of their interpersonal, communal, and sexual side, topics that have tainted other analyses. We witness the evolution of Weather's positions from the initial "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows" (1968) through "New Morning, Changing Weather" (1970) and, finally, Prairie Fire. The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism (1974).

On the other hand, some further examination of the connection between their personal and political sides, including a more textured discussion of underground life, would have more fully rounded his portrait. An added value of this work is to remind older readers and inform younger ones of the domestic political events that occurred after 1968 and 1969, events which are too often merely thought of as footnotes to 1960s history, if not altogether forgotten. We learn not only of the explosion in a New York townhouse in 1970, where members were constructing bombs, and of other Weather bombings but also of the May Day demonstrations of 1971 that aimed to shut down Washington, D.C., the various legal struggles of the Black Panthers, and the short-lived media frenzy surrounding the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and its kidnapping and subsequent conversion of the newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.

What is striking as one reads and remembers the attention paid to the Weather Underground is how small the cadre was, given its importance in both the movement and the media. In part, this is not unusual in the history of the American Left. Numerous well- remembered and oft-studied factions of the Communist and Socialist parties had surprisingly few adherents. Yet we would not be able to find an equivalent amount of mainstream press attention paid to these groups. Through a combination of flamboyant rhetoric, publicity- grabbing activities, and its positioning of itself at the extreme edge of the rebellious impulse of the era, Weather became the most prominent, if not the most representative, group of the last phase of 1960s activism. Jacobs's study, while keeping to a slightly too narrow retelling of their activities, nevertheless provides an accessible, readable, and compelling history of their ideas and their activities.

Alexander Bloom Wheaton College Norton, Massachusetts

The Way the Wind Blew Reviews Part Two: From Social Anarchism #26 1998

http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SA/en/display/269

Drawing Conclusions on the Wall: A Review of On the Ground: an Illustrated Anecdotal History of the Sixties Underground Press in the U.S.

I apologize for the typos.....

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/02/drawing-conclusions-on-the-wall/

Blast From the Past: A Review of My Weather Underground Book from 1998

review published August 1998 in San Francisco Bay Guardian

Guerrilla USA

A philosophical history of the Weather Underground

The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. By Ron Jacobs. Verso, 216 pages, $15.

By Daniel Burton-Rose

IN THE CRUCIBLE of late-'60s white radicalism, a fomenting militancy pushed an element of Students for a Democratic Society toward a more immediate solidarity with the Vietnamese people, one born of shared repression. As the state reacted with dumb authoritarian brutality to questions it knew were too on-point to answer, a small group of middle-class activists took the steps they felt were necessary to end the U.S. regime once and for all. Revolutionary violence was, as Weather member Bernardine Dohrn put it, "The best thing that we can be doing for ourselves, as well as for the Panthers and the revolutionary black liberation struggle...."

Their efforts are the twisting tale that Ron Jacobs tells in his history of the Weather Underground, The Way the Wind Blew. Jacobs -- a worker at the University of Vermont library and avowed New Leftie -- gives a documentary history that includes photos, posters, and underground comix. The Way the Wind Blew transplants you to a time of widespread domestic government repression and foreign aggression. A time in which change was not just an ideal but an imperative.

The history of Weather is the story of radicals for whom nothing could come too fast. Weather needed to immediately end everything it hated about the U.S. government, and it did not have time to waste on tolerating the unconvinced -- those who could have given it the numbers to realize its goals. Weather denounced the U.S. working class as hopelessly blind to its own oppression, supporting imperialist war and racism. In fits of self-righteousness Weather stomped into working-class communities and berated youth as "pigs," often getting an ass-kicking as their payback. With the Days of Rage in Chicago, Weather whipped up efforts to "tear the motherfucker apart" but experienced only low turnout and unfocused street violence.

Jacobs has written a history of ideas rather than personalities. His book is more instructive than either the flat-out denouncements of paramilitary violence or the uncritical celebrations that have thus far constituted the history of late-'60s and '70s guerrilla movements. Jacobs traces Weather's long ambivalent dance with youth counterculture. At times the group saw youth's lack of a stake in contemporary society as the hope for a new nation, but Weather retained a great "distrust of its own potential base of support." Militant feminist analysis by Weather women made the Weather men realize that the men themselves were also capable of counterrevolutionary thoughts. This epiphany made them acknowledge "that individuals were capable of change, whatever their previous prejudices." It was a step from revolutionary purity to real-world maturity.

As the war in Vietnam escalated, Weather's military actions seemed less extreme to New Left folks. A bomb in the Pentagon in May 1972 was well-received in the antiwar community. Conversely, as the war wound down it became clear that there would be no galvanizing force of comparable strength for the next decade. Weather foundered.

So Jacobs goes on to tell of the flip side of the Jerry Rubin and Eldridge Cleaver-style '80s sellouts -- terribly fractured guerrilla cells trying desperately not to drown in the political tide turning away from an open society. Because of Weather's death in a flurry of acronyms, The Way the Wind Blew seems like a book without a conclusion. For that reason it is somewhat unsatisfying. But at closer look, the tapered anticlimax captures the nature of the period and the feeling of the participants. In the end, both they and you want more.

Jacobs admires Weather Underground members for their dedication and strength. Indeed, he dedicates his book to "those who gave their lives and freedom in the struggle against racism and imperial war." The book explores what Weather got right and what it screwed up. To read it is to understand one of the most fascinating attempts to create revolutionary change in modern American history.

(Daniel Burton-Rose is the editor of The Celling of America.)

We Are Not Liberals

http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/04/07/misrepresenting-the-left/

The Nature of the Beast Revealed: The Swing of That Truncheon Thing

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/23/the-swing-of-that-truncheon-thing/

Passion Ruled the Day-A Review of Mark Rudd's Underground

http://sdonline.org/53/passion-ruled-the-day/

Transcontinental Occupation--A Conversation with Peter Bohmer

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/18/transcontinental-occupation/

Nothing Left To Lose

Back in the mid-1970s a lover and I hitchhiked from Maryland's D.C. suburbs to Orange County, California. We lasted a week in that Republican purgatory, then hitched up to Berkeley. Within a couple weeks, my friend and I were collecting unemployment, living in Oakland and familiarizing ourselves with the street scene along Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue and San Francisco's Haight Street. Although I had been quite involved with various anarchist and communist radicals in the DC area, I was primarily interested in participating in what remained of the counterculture by the time I moved to Berkeley. Politics had both worn me out and disillusioned me.

Yet, politics wouldn't leave me alone. I ran into former Black Panthers, White Panthers and leftover Weather Underground types while I did bong hits. One of my friends was a communist organizer who knew lots of radicals from all over the Bay Area. Soon, several other friends from the suburban tracts we had left behind had joined us. We got an apartment. My lover and I eventually went our own ways while remaining housemates.

A couple close friends of mine who were quite political asked me if I was interested in joining their cell. What, I asked, would this entail? I was told that I would have to share everything with them and be willing to undertake "armed" activities. We had several long and deep discussions. I seriously considered their offer, but declined for political and philosophical reasons. We remained good friends and they decided not to engage in so-called armed actions. I was relieved for a number of reasons.

The people I met and hung out with on Telegraph Ave. were some of the most colorful and free individuals I have ever known. Some paid for their freedom with their lives. Some traded it in for something else. Some lost it to the law. Nonetheless, they did have some freedom to lose. Maybe, because (let me refer to a rock tune) they had nothing else left to lose.

The Co-Conspirator's Tale is motivated partially by these experiences. It is something of a speculation about what might have happened if my friends and I had decided to create that cell and engage in bombings, etc. Simultaneously, it is a contemplation on the nature of a system where (as Mick Jagger sings) "every cop is a criminal," and a sanctioned one at that.

My previous novel Short Order Frame Up examines similar aspects of our society, although it is the racism of the system and the cops who work for it that are called into question. The corruption in The Co-Conspirator's Tale does not even have the tawdry principles of a racist pair of cops to dignify it. In fact, the only motivation is to protect and preserve a system built on lies and maintained by deceit and power.

Occupy--What Next?

What happens next with the Occupy movement? Should every camp fight for its continued existence or should those unable to sustain a livable environment for the campers because of the authorities or lack of logistical support pack it up? We always figured on having to make these decisions sooner or later because of the winter weather that is bound to come. However, the recent deaths in and near the Occupy camps in Salt Lake City, Burlington, VT., and Oakland forces the folks in those areas to think about the next move. Other camps have reported rapes. This movement is bigger than the camps, but the camps have been crucial in expanding the movement by providing a place for supporters to gather, an actual piece of turf to defend and identify with, and, for those warriors that have no other place to live, a home.

Each of the camps mentioned above are different in terms of their demographic makeup, the local politics, the police forces arrayed against them and the level of community support. Oakland has seen the most aggressive police action, while Burlington has probably seen the least. However, as soon as I heard that a shot had been fired in the Burlington camp I knew that the local authorities would manipulate whatever happened into a way to close the camp. That is exactly what they did. After inviting occupiers to meet with the Mayor and other officials inside City Hall (which is adjacent to the Occupy site), the police quickly went into the encampment, threw up a yellow tape and threw folks out. A couple folks were arrested for resisting this attempt (one was released immediately and the other was released a few hours later), but the move had been made. Nobody has been allowed back into the Occupy site except for a few folks who were allowed to retrieve their belongings after the police searched them and the belongings. The city is now calling the camp unsafe and is on record as refusing any more camping. As I write a GA is gathering. The future is uncertain. Just as it is in Oakland where the police forces are considerably less friendly and the big business that runs Oakland tightens the screws on the Mayor and police to clear the camp. Meanwhile, in other cities up and down the West Coast, eviction notices have been served on at least three other camps, with the police itching for a fight in at least two of those towns. (November 14-Both Portland and Oakland were shut down with massive displays of police force that were met with mass resistance.  November 15 New York was cleared).

So, back to the question: what next? Are those camps that have been placed in limbo the most important aspect of the movement? Should we go down swinging to protect them? For those that found the camps to be a safe place to live where they were making a difference, they may well be. At the same time, will the extra police surveillance and harassment certain to accompany any further camping at these sites turn them into places where the presence of (or fear of the presence of) police make political organizing difficult or impossible? I myself would find it hard to discuss the squatting of a foreclosed building with cops in and out of uniform within hearing distance.

Although I am not as big of a fan of Gandhi as many people in the movement, the history of the movement to chase the British out of India that he is identified with is instructive. In terms of the current discussion, the most relevant fact is that he and his fellow organizers were able to recognize when a tactic they were using had failed or at least run its course. When they acknowledged this (with much discussion no doubt) they moved on to another. The same could also be said of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and others involved in the movement for black liberation. Both movements never strayed from their goal, but both were quite keen at recognizing what should be the next set of tactics. If I were to express the goal of the Occupy movement, it would be this: redistribute the wealth hoarded by the wealthy few fairly. This simple statement has created space for those who want to effect this change from all walks of life except perhaps from that so-called 1%.

Some camps may (and should) remain the thriving alternative spaces they have become. At the same time, we must ask ourselves what the next set of tactics should be. Getting arrested for defending a piece of land that the cops will take back by any means necessary has to be weighed against the potential of the multitude of possibilities that exist for this movement. At the same time, should an Occupy camp choose to defend its turf, then the rest of the movement must do what it can to support that decision.

Occupy and the Homeless: Tragedy in Vermont

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/11/tragedy-in-vermont/

Good Guys and Bad Guys in Oakland

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/11/good-guys-and-bad-guys-in-oakland/

Writing Red

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/04/writing-red/

The Fight for the Postal Service: Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/28/wait-a-minute-mr-postman/

A Look at the Occupy Movement: In a Manner Neither Forceful Nor Foolish

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/21/in-a-manner-neither-forceful-or-foolish/

The Collision That Changed U.S. Labor

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/14/the-collision-that-changed-the-course-of-labor/

Midnight Train to Georgia

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/23/the-midnight-train-to-georgia/

Come to the Burlington Book Fest

Stop on by the Fomite table on the third for of the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center in Burlington,Vt.

Wake of the Flood-Progressivism and the Workers

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/15/wake-of-the-flood/

Suicide Nation-911 Ten years On

Suicide Nation

London's Melted Furnace--Britain in Flames

http://counterpunch.org/jacobs08122011.html

Empire of the Mind

Empire of the Mind

The G8 and Its Army Head to Chicago

http://counterpunch.org/jacobs07292011.html

Stopping the Train, Stopping the System

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/07/15/stopping-the-train-stopping-the-system/

Talking Politics, Books, Libraries, Budget Cuts and Counterpunch

http://archive.main-fm.org/systemic-20110626.mp3

Letting It Bleed

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/06/17/letting-it-bleed/

A Father's Day Baseball Memory

On May 1st, 1991, Nolan Ryan pitched his seventh career no-hitter and Rickey Henderson broke Lou Brock's record for stolen bases the same evening. I was ecstatic in a way only baseball makes me.

My son, then a towheaded seven year old who, to this day, is fascinated with statistics, whether they concern the height of mountains on Mars or the earned run average of the entire Red Sox pitching staff, asked me what the big deal was after listening to me extol the virtues of both feats that May Day. It was then that I decided to honor his month old request to buy a baseball glove. Then he could find out for himself. The next evening he, his mother (who lived across town and grew up in a Cape Cod household where the Red Sox were the only baseball team there was), and I, embarked on a mission. With twenty dollars he'd been given for his birthday, my son bought a fielder's mitt inscribed with Cal Ripken Jr.'s signature. The next day he played catch with his mom's male friend at the time (a Reds fan) and he began to understand. He told me on the telephone of all the catches he had made and how the ball hit his nose only once. Mom, he said, even played.

Sports in America, my angry young friends tell me, are just an extension of the corporate system of greed. How can you be interested in them, they ask. I don't know how to answer their charges directly, so instead, I ask if they've ever seen a magnificently executed catch. One where an outfielder pulls the ball from its sure path over the fence, slamming his body against the centerfield wall, falling to the ground from the shock of the impact, and rising triumphantly with the ball in his glove. Or, even better, I query, have you ever made a catch that seemed equally magnificent yourself? Of course, it's not really as spectacular to an onlooker, but to you it's like you're Willie Mays in the first game of the 1954 World Series. They look at me as if I am crazy. Of course, I am -- a little.

There is no magic left in the world, say their expressions. And if there is, it surely isn't in some stupid game.

A week later my son brought his glove and ball to my house on the other side of town. The day before I had purchased a well-worn mitt from Salvation Army just for such an occasion. After a couple of wild throws from his end of the yard, and one well aimed toss from mine (which he failed to catch, anyway), I tossed the ball gently towards his glove once again. The expression of doubt across his face changed to one of joy and surprise as his glove wrapped itself tightly around the ball.

It wasn't Willie Mays, but it could have been. At that moment, I knew the genuine power of the game. It wasn't on the TV, in the papers, or even in organized Little League. It was in a game of catch in the backyard.

Washington Chooses Its Battles

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/06/10/washington-chooses-its-battles/

Ron Jacobs: Ken Babbs Shoots Straight

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/06/06/ken-babbs-shoots-straight/

Ron Jacobs: Falsehoods on Freedom

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/27/falsehoods-on-freedom/

Ron Jacobs: These Tales of Constant Sorrow

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/20/these-tales-of-constant-sorrow/

Two New Books

http://issuu.com/coconspirator/docs/bookannouncement?viewMode=magazine

Ron Jacobs: Frozen Bank Accounts and Free Speech in the US

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/12/frozen-bank-accounts-and-free-speech-in-the-us/

CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Tripping Through the American Night Now Available in print

Previously only available as an ebook, my collection of essays and other musings titled Tripping Through the American Night is now available in print.  That's right--real paper and covers and everything.  You can order it here or at Amazon.com.  It will also be available soon at many other stores and through your local bookseller.  For the first couple of weeks, you can get it at a $4.00 discount if you order through the link that says "here" above.  Just type in the discount code NUJMWMG3 during checkout.

Ron Jacobs: Putting the Pentagon Out of Business

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/04/15/putting-the-pentagon-out-of-business/

Red-carding Capitalist Soccer

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/04/08/redcarding-capitalist-soccer/

Ron Jacobs: Getting Juiced with Ishmael Reed

https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/04/01/getting-juiced-with-ishmael-reed/

The Co-Conspirator's Tale Now Available

http://www.fomitepress.com/FOMITE/Co-Conspirator.html

1979.  When Peter Somers fell in love with a girl named moonshadow on the Berkeley pier, little did he know that she was a member of a group of wannabe revolutionaries.  After an undercover cop is killed and another friend is falsely charged with the murder, the cell disappears.

2007.  Somers ends up back in Berkeley after receiving a letter describing the arrest of his friend on murder charges.  He joins forces with a lawyer and others in an attempt to clear his friend's name.  The authorities have something else in mind. 

There's a place where love and mistrust are never at peace; where duplicity and deceit are the universal currency. The Co-Conspirator's Tale takes place within this nebulous firmament. Crimes committed by the police in the name of justice. Excess in the name of revolution. The combination leaves death in its wake and the survivors struggling to find justice in a San Francisco Bay Area noir by the author of the underground classic The Way the Wind Blew:A History of the Weather Underground and the novel Short Order Frame Up.

There are no hero cops or private eyes in The Co-Conspirator's Tale, just a couple of folks who don't trust the world as it is to provide justice. The battlefields are the streets of the San Francisco Bay Area and the psyches of the accused, their accomplices and their accusers.

Ron Jacobs: Killing in the Name of Kindness

Ron Jacobs: Killing in the Name of Kindness

Ron Jacobs: Unbinding the Mind of US Media

Ron Jacobs: Unbinding the Mind of US Media

Washington's Internal Security Apparatus-A Long History

US citizens of almost all political stripes tend to live their lives ignorant of what the government that operates in their name is really up to. Some of this is due to the government's obsession with secrecy and some of it is due to the people's political naivete (or ignorance). Perhaps the only exceptions to this statement are those that exist on what are considered the fringes of US political discourse. Thanks in part to this ignorance, most US residents live their lives unaware of the police state author Andrew Kolin describes in his recently published book State Power and Democracy: Before and During the Presidency of George W. Bush.

This isn't just another book raging against the excesses of the George Bush administration. In fact, it is a historical survey of the slow but steady journey of the US polity towards an authoritarian regime designed to protect a relative few from the democratic urgings of the people. Kolin begins his book with a brief look at the debates over the writing of the US Constitution and its eventual incarnation as a blueprint for a centralized authority whose intention was to keep government away from the hoi polloi. Adjunct to this endeavor was a desire to expand the nation. This was done by killing the indigenous peoples living on the land to be expanded into. In order to justify this genocide, it was necessary to delineate the natives as something other than human. According to Kolin, the need for such an "other" is essential to the development of an authoritarian state. The Native Americans and the African slaves filled the need quite nicely given their obvious physical and cultural differences.

Another aspect of Kolin's proposition that differentiates it from so many other commentaries that have been written on the police state tactics of the Bush administration is his contention that the US police state is not a future possibility. It already exists. We are living in it. He backs up this contention with an argument that dissects the elements generally considered essential to the definition of a police state and applies them to the present day United States. From torture to propaganda techniques; from the government's ability to eavesdrop on anyone to its ability to wage war at will--these are but a few of the indices Kolin examines in his study. According to Kolin, however, the ultimate indicator of a police state is defined by whether or not the leader of a particular government (in this case, that of the United States) exists above the laws of the nation and the world. In other words, if the leader does something, is it ever illegal? Kolin provides multiple examples of every administration since Abraham Lincoln's operating in a vein suggesting that they all operated in this way at times. However, it was not until the inauguration of George W. Bush and the events of September 11, 2001, that the word of the president became a law onto its own. When George Bush said he was "the decider" he wasn't joking. He and every president to follow him truly have that power. They can decide who to kill, who to spy on, who to lock up, and who to attack without any restriction other than their own morality. Furthermore, they can also determine how such actions are to be done. As far as the presidency is concerned, no laws--not the Bill of Rights nor the Geneva Conventions--apply.

The march towards this police state that Kolin describes is best characterized by the phrase "two steps forward, one step back." Historically, for every presidential administration where excesses occurred, there followed another that saw a relaxation of some of those excesses. The repression of the Palmer Raids was followed by a decade where the Communist Party became legal; the McCarthy Era was followed by a relaxation of the anti-communist hysteria in the 2960s; Nixon's attempts to subvert the democratic process were answered with convictions and a series of laws that were supposed to prevent similar excesses. Yet, the march towards authoritarianism continued its quiet goosestep. Nowhere was this more obvious than in US foreign policy. After the US turmoil around its war against the Vietnamese, Congress passed a War Powers Act that supposedly limited the president’s ability to send US troops to other nations. In answer, every single president afterward pushed the limits of that law so that by the 1980s it was meaningless. Other attempts to limit the White House's ability to make war like the Boland amendment which made arming the Nicaraguan Contras illegal were just ignored. By the time Bill Clinton took power in 1991, the ability of the president to attack whenever and wherever was no longer seriously challenged by Congress, leaving the White House in sole control of the nations' military might.

The nation described in Kolin's book is a fearful one. It is a nation whose agents torture at will and whose military wages war for no apparent reason other than profit and power. It is a nation whose political police forces operate as both judge and jury and often fail to leave their personal prejudices at home. It is a nation whose judicial system rarely interprets a law different than the chief executive and when it does that executive ignores the ruling. It is a nation where so many of its citizens live their lives under the illusion that the authoritarian rule they increasingly live with is somehow protecting them. It is a nation that refuses to prosecute officials including the former president that were involved in torture that violated domestic and international laws. Finally, according to Kolin, it is a nation without redemption that will see the powers of the police state continue to grow unless its people wake up and dismantle it.

Making the Robbed Pay for the Robbers' Crimes

"Some men rob you with a six gun/and some with a fountain pen..."-Woody Guthrie

As I write this, Republicans and other right wingers fret and strut about their stage in Madison, WI. calling for the arrest of Democratic legislators refusing to be bullied into destroying public worker unions in Wisconsin. It's not that the Democrats completely oppose the GOP governor's proposal to destroy the unions, but the incredibly powerful and populous protests against the proposal have convinced them that they should disappear for a while. The protests, meanwhile, are growing in size and fury. A similar situation seems to be unfolding in Ohio, Indiana and other US states where similar attempts by anti-union state officials to destroy public employee unions are underway.

The desire to destroy the unions is being presented as a deficit reducing proposal. In reality, the unionbusting proposals would have very little effect on cutting the deficit. In fact, some reporters claim that Wisconsin did not actually face a deficit until the governor pushed through some tax proposals favorable to big business and the wealthy. These very same businesses and wealthy individuals are part of the small number of people that have benefited from the economic crash of 2007. It is their intention to continue benefiting at the expense of the rest of the country. Amazingly, numbers of US voters apparently agree with them despite overwhelming evidence that shows what is good for the super rich is not good for too many others. Despite this, they call for small government while being enslaved to the will of the corporations.

In her 2011 opening address to the North Carolina state legislature, Governor Bev Perdue called for a two percent reduction of the state's corporate income tax. This call from Perdue, a Democrat, is one that has been championed by the Republicans of North Carolina for a long time. Besides being one more bit of proof that there is very little difference between the Democrats and the GOP when it comes to kissing corporate tail, this call flies in the face of logic.

The state of North Carolina is facing millions of dollars in cuts. Libraries are being closed, public employees are being laid off and positions are not being filled. Schools are increasing class sizes, laying off teachers and threatening some districts with closures. Even police and other law enforcement (usually untouchable) are thinking about layoffs. Yet, Perdue and the legislature want to cut corporate taxes. Already, the income tax surcharge on North Carolina's wealthiest taxpayers ended with the 2010 tax cycle. So, what are they thinking?

The rationale behind this call to reduce corporate taxes is as old as the tax system. According to those who champion this nonsensical idea, the reason North Carolina isn't creating jobs is because corporations do not want to pay the 6.99% tax in North Carolina. If that tax is reduced, the tax cut's proponents claim that more businesses will set up shop in the state. Ronald Reagan used a similar argument when he was president. He called it the trickle-down theory. (As far as I can tell, it felt a lot more like getting trickled on). The most recent national politician to make this idea into law is President Obama when he extended the tax cuts for the wealthy.

The big problem with this theory is that it doesn't work. Jobs have been leaving this country by the millions since Reagan instituted his tax cuts and they haven't come back. Corporations don't want a tax cut. They want no taxes at all. Their bottom line is profit and most of them will go where that profit is the greatest. In other words, where labor costs are minimal and taxes are even less. It is the people of North Carolina that work in North Carolina's factories and buy their products, yet the politicians would have us believe that the corporations are doing us a favor by being here, and should therefore have to pay a lower rate of tax than the rest of us.

It should not be the duty of the state government to facilitate a race to the economic bottom for those who live and work in North Carolina. Nor should it be the function of any government entity to enhance the coffers of its corporations at the expense of its citizens. Yet, by lowering the tax rate on corporations, this is exactly what North Carolina is doing. With less tax monies, there will be less money for services like schools. Already corporations come to North Carolina looking to pay lower wages. They should not also benefit from paying a lower rate of taxes than those who work for them.

The scenario described above is one that rightwing forces (with no small amount of acquiescence from liberals) has been putting into place nationwide for decades. The cost of this endeavor has been the safety and health of workers; the impoverishment of entire neighborhoods in the United States and nations around the world; and the impending destruction of the educational system, to name the first that come to mind. If this scenario comes true, it may never reverse.

In a speech I heard Jesse Jackson give in 1984, he stated that workers didn't just want jobs, they wanted jobs that paid a livable wage, offered benefits and, most of all, provided the worker with a sense of dignity. After all, he continued, every slave had a job during slavery. The point being made here is that working people deserve a decent life just as much as those that employ them do. Just working is not enough. The worker uprising in Wisconsin is a recognition of this. As for those who tell private sector workers that it is the public sector workers' fault for the current economic mess--that is, pure and simple, a lie. It is the rapaciousness of Wall Street and the governments that work for it that are to blame. These and other lies pitting workers against each othere are just one more attempt by those in power to divide those who are feeling the pain of neoliberal capitalism's heartless and avaricious greed.

Ron Jacobs: Framing the Sixties

Ron Jacobs: Framing the Sixties