Archive for Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Cockburn is co-editor of CounterPunch and a columnist for The Nation.
Are Obama and Hillary Clinton Really Bumblers?
Are they really bumblers? The opinion columns quiver with reproofs for maladroit handling of foreign policy by President Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Those who cherished foolish illusions that Obama’s election presaged a substantive shift to the left in foreign policy fret about “worrisome signs” that this is not the case.
Stack’s Afterlife
“I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.”
Joe Stack was now 30 words from the end of his life. He continued: “The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed. Joe Stack (1956-2010).”
Calling Monica Lewinsky! You May Have To Get Back on Your Knees
The American political system is nicely balanced so that certain foul deeds—like throwing poor women off the welfare rolls, or cutting old people’s pensions—are handed off to Democrats, who put on a better act, tears streaming down their faces as they protest that they must kill in order to be kind. So when, in January 2009, Obama gave an interview to the Washington Post shortly before he took over the White House, saying that it was high time to take an unsparing look at “entitlements,” the warning shot rang clear loud. Once again, a Democratic president was signaling an intent to sell his most loyal supporters—working people of modest means—down the river, to hack away at basic social protections like Social Security and Medicare.
Fifty Years After Greensboro, Whatever Happened to the American Left?
Fifty years ago this month, history took a great leap forward. On Feb. 1, 1960, four black students from Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina sat down at a segregated lunch counter in Woolworths department store in Greensboro, N.C. The chairs were for whites. Blacks had to stand and eat. A day later, the four young black men returned, with 25 more students. On Feb. 4, four white women joined them from a local college. By Feb. 7, there were 54 sit-ins throughout the South in 15 cities in nine states. By July 25, the store, part of a huge national chain and plagued by $200,000 in lost business, threw in the towel and officially desegregated the lunch counter.
State of the Union
You can see how seriously Obama is taking the hot populist temper of the American people and their eagerness to strangle every banker with the entrails of every insurance executive. In an altogether welcome departure from past presidential form in State of the Union addresses at least since 1973 (the first time I listened to one), he shoved the rest of the world into less than five minutes near the end of an oration that lasted well over an hour, giving over at least 90 percent of his time to various pledges for economic cleanup on the domestic front.
Heading Back into Clinton-time
What lies ahead politically? Look for an answer back in the ’90s. Even if the Republicans don’t take over after the midterm elections, the Democratic Party now in Congress is dominated by politicians fashioned in the Clinton era, nourished by such heirs of Aristotle as Rahm Emanuel and, before him, Tony Coelho. Their maps had simple precepts and coordinates. Barring a few yaps, the left will put up with anything and stay loyal. As for corporate America, stick your hand out for the campaign contributions and click your heels.
War Cries from a Defeated Man
Ritual trumphalism about America’s righteous mission in the closing sentences of his speech did not dispel the distinct impression during President Obama’s 33-minute address to cadets at West Point Tuesday night that we were listening to a man defeated by the challenge of justifying the dispatch of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Obama didn’t make the case and he pleased few. The liberals seethed as they heard him say that it is “in our vital national interest” to send 30,000 more troops to a mission they regard as doomed from the get go.
A Year of Obama
A year after Obama’s triumphant election, hauling substantial majorities in the House and Senate on his coattails, the progressive sector sits trying to warm its hands before the bonfire of all its hopes. An awful “health reform” bill has cleared the House and is now headed for marriage with some even more ghastly Senate version from which we may be saved only by a filibustering Lieberman, Obama’s initial mentor in the Senate.
All the Populism Money Can Buy
Across the country last weekend, there were antiwar demonstrations, modest in turnout, but hopefully a warning to Obama that war without end or reason in Afghanistan, plus 40,000 more troops to Kabul, is not why people voted for him.
I spoke at our own little rally in my local town of Eureka, Calif. My neighbor Ellen Taylor decided to spice up the proceedings by having a guillotine on the platform, right beside the Eureka Courthouse House steps. Her father was Telford Taylor, chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg,
A Gift from the Ramparts of Capital…
Of the four U.S. presidents who have been given a Nobel Prize—Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama—the one who’s shown the cleanest pair of heels when it comes to escaping the world’s guffaws for the absurdity of the award is Jimmy Carter.
It’s easy to throw mud at TR. The excuse for his prize, awarded in 1906, was his role in ending the Russo-Japanese war. But what the committee of those worthy Norwegians was actually saying was that when it comes to giving a U.S. president the Peace Prize, the bar has to be set awfully low. After all, TR was fresh from sponsorship of the Spanish-American war and ardent bloodletting in the Philippines.
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