Month: May 2011

Spanish Protests Lose Their Way

The popular protests across Spain gave voice to national indignation over the political/economic system, but the result of regional elections was only to shift power from the Socialists to the center-right Partido Popular. Spanish writer Pablo Ouziel says that outcome…

Split Cartons Great for Book Clubs

Some readers have told us that our 50/50 split cartons of Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep are great for book clubs, with 14 copies of each book costing only $59 for the entire box (postage included for U.S. orders),…

Wall Street Was ‘Too Big to Jail’

HBO’s new docudrama on the Wall Street crash of 2008 details the frantic government efforts to stabilize the banking system and stave off a global depression, but the program misses the systemic fraud and other crimes that were at the…

Obama Goes AIPAC-ing

Like many American politicians before him, President Barack Obama paid his respects on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), mostly telling the powerful lobby what it wanted to hear about the greatness of Israel and the evils of its…

Obama’s Covert Clash with Pakistan

U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that American success in the Afghan War requires Pakistani help in rooting out Taliban safe havens along the border but that Pakistan is unwilling to turn against its longtime Taliban allies a conundrum that continues…

Obama’s Middle East Platitudes

President Barack Obama’s speech on a “new chapter” in U.S. policy toward the Middle East was filled with platitudes befitting a New Year’s resolution, but there is little expectation that he will follow through, especially on the hardest issues like…

Netanyahu Sets Limits for Obama

Special Report: President Barack Obama got an Oval Office lecture from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about how far Obama may deviate from Israel’s positions on Mideast peace. This public rebuke raises questions about whether Netanyahu will now try to…

Asking Obama to Protect Gaza Relief Ship

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who has signed on to participate in a new attempt to bring relief supplies to Palestinians living in Gaza, asks President Barack Obama to intercede with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow the ship,…

Perp-Walking the Wrong Banker?

The sexual-assault arrest of International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn touched off a frenzy of media coverage in New York, including repeated showing of the French banker looking disheveled in handcuffs. But Danny Schechter pines for the day when the…

Halberstam’s ‘Best-Brightest’ Blunder-2

David Halberstam won acclaim and riches from his influential book, The Best and the Brightest, about the making of the Vietnam War, especially during the Kennedy and Johnson years. However, in retrospect, the book’s narrative asserting that John Kennedy and…