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Last Call: A Farewell Interview with Cindy Sheehan

 I had the pleasure and privilege of doing an interview with Cindy Sheehan on her radio show not long ago. She is, of course, one of the original modern ‘Occupiers,’ having “occupied” public space outside the fake dude ranch of George W. Bush (and other spaces) in the heroic attempt to force the twerpish little errand boy of empire to explain why America was waging aggressive war in Iraq — a war that took the life of Sheehan’s son, and shocked her into the life of dissent and activism that she carries on, bravely, today. The interview can be heard

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Reality Check: Practical Protestors and Extremist Elites

A billionaire media baron presiding over a deeply corrupt plutocratic government — no, not Berlusconi; Bloomberg — has swept in to crush a small protest movement that dared question the legitimacy and efficacy of the ruling oligarchy. The ‘ideological cleansing’ of Zuccotti Park — in the dead of night, with no warning, by hordes of heavily armed police, and the press literally penned up far from the action, all in the classic police-state style to which most Americans seem happily habituated — is a temporary setback to the Occupy movement in New York. But over in London, where — at

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Gonna Change My Way of Thinking: OWS Opening Jaded Eyes

My old Moscow Times colleague, Matt Taibbi, has this to say about Occupy Wall Street: I have a confession to make. At first, I misunderstood Occupy Wall Street …  there were scads of progressive pundits like me who wrung our hands with worry that OWS was playing right into the hands of assholes like Krauthammer. Don’t give them any ammunition! we counseled. Stay on message! Be specific! We were all playing the Rorschach-test game with OWS, trying to squint at it and see what we wanted to see in the movement. Viewed through the prism of our desire to make

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Profits of Doom: Managed Democracy on the March

Thomas Jones, at LRB, says what I wanted to say about the exit of the plutocratic goon Silvio Berlusconi from his post as Italian prime minister: At last Berlusconi has said he’ll step down. It should be a good day for Italian democracy. Except that – assuming he really does go – Italy’s longest serving postwar prime minister will have been finally driven from office not for corruption, croneyism, tax evasion or colluding with the mafia; not for the conflict of interests between his media empire and his political position; not for having presided over years of economic stagnation, rising

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The Dark Weight of Night

One day several years ago, I was killing time — and trying to cool my nerves — before a job interview. I was wandering in a bookstore, leafing idly through this book and that, when I came across a slim volume called “Responsibility to Awe.” It was poetry by someone named Rebecca Elson. I read a few of the poems, and liked them. Then I looked at the back and saw that she had died not long before, at 39, of lymphoma. This had special resonance to me, for personal reasons, but other parts of her biography were striking as

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Libya: The Lies That Launched Another War

Hugh Roberts’ new article in the London Review of Books is the best story I have yet read about the war of regime change in Libya. It is meticulously detailed, rich in context — historical, cultural, political — carefully measured and soberly expressed. The article should be read in full — anyone who cares at all about a deeper understanding of these events would be foolish to miss it — but I want to highlight just one aspect: the deliberate falsehoods — fanned by the media, including many “progressive” voices — which were used as a justification for the Western

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Oakland Police Riot: The Imperial Boardroom Strikes Back

I had the honor of talking with Cindy Sheehan tonight, recording an interview for her radio show, which I believe will air on Sunday. She made mention of the “police riot” — as she aptly phrased it — in Oakland Tuesday night, as a Democratic administration moved in with gas and other weapons of war to clear the streets of American citizens taking part in the Occupy movement. Ms. Sheehan also noted the fact that the Occupy movement’s terminology about “the 99 percent vs. the 1 percent elite” is not entirely accurate; far too many of the 99 percent are

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Withdrawal Symptoms: Curtain Rises on Second Act of an Endless War Crime

Barack Obama has announced that all American troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year. This was presented as America honorably adhering to the agreement signed years ago by the Bush Administration. At the same time, White House and Pentagon spinners were planting stories to make clear that the United States had fully intended to continue its military presence in Iraq past the deadline, but was thwarted by the Iraqis’ unconscionable refusal to allow American forces to commit crimes with impunity — and immunity — on Iraqi soil. These backroom “process” stories — filled, as always,

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Greek Fire: The Yellow Bird is Singing

Greece is the canary in the coal mine of modern hyper-capitalism. Throughout the “developed” world, elites and political leaders are following the same path, using a self-created financial crisis to institute a radical destruction of free societies and create an authoritarian “managed democracy” in their places. But the extremist measures being imposed on Greece are producing a furious reaction — and a recasting of old political realities in new forms — that could also prove to be a harbinger of the future. Costas Douzinas gives this analysis in the Guardian: Greece is split in two. On one side are politicians,

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