Links: Militarism, Empire, War

• Robert C. Koehler, Cheap Frames of Expensive War, CommonDreams.org, 30 July 2009.


• Stanley Kutler, Lesson of Vietnam Lost in Afghanistan, Truthdig, truthdig.com, 20 August 2009.


• Richard A. Oppel Jr., Marines Fight With Little Aid From Afghans, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 22 August 2009.


• David Sirota, The Science Fiction of Military Marketing, CommonDreams.org, 28 August 2009.


• Tom Engelhardt, G.I. Joe, Post-American Hero: The Long, Slow Death of American Triumphalism [Tomgram: The Next War, On-Screen and Off], TomDispatch.com, 26 August 2009.


• Patrick Cockburn, Life and Death in Baghdad as Americans Leave, CounterPunch, counterpunch.org, 17 August 2009.


• Scott Horton, Once Upon a Coup, No Comment blog at Harper's Magazine, 27 August 2009.


• * Sherwood Ross, Rise of Mercenary Armies Menace World, Help White House Thwart Peace Movement, The Smirking Chimp, 31 August 2009.


• * David Swanson, Bush's Third Term?: You're Living It [Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: David Swanson, The More Things Change], TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 01 September 2009.
  
  Chris Floyd, The 16th Term: Obama's New Betrayals are Old, Old Hat, Empire Burlesque, 02 September 2009.


• * Glenn Greenwald, The looming political war over Afghanistan, Salon.com, 03 September 2009.


• Thom Shanker, Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 06 September 2009.


• Paul Craig Roberts, Indefensible Nation: US Hypocrisy Astonishes the World, CounterPunch.org, 07 September 2009.


• Tom Engelhardt, Is America Hooked on War? [Tomgram: War Is Peace], TomDispatch.com, 17 September 2009.


• Alex Massie, Americans treating Presidents like Kings. Monarchy restored surreptitiously, by dint of general stupidity, Cyrano's Journal Online, 20 September 2009.


• Carol Becker, Forty Years Later Calley Speaks Up, truthout, 23 September 2009.


• * Tom Engelhardt, How to Trap a President in a Losing War: Petraeus, McChrystal, and the Surgettes [Tomgram: A Military That Wants Its Way], TomDispatch, tomdispatch.com, 24 September 2009.


• Gary Hart, The President in Chains, The Huffington Post, 24 September 2009.
  
  * Gary Wills, Entangled Giant, The New York Review of Books, 08 October 2009.

Links: Propaganda, Media, Manufacturing Consent

• Byard Duncan, Why the Right's 'Astroturfing' Propaganda Is Textbook Psychopathic, AlterNet, alternet.org, 15 August 2009.


• Mike Shedlock, Orwellian Madness "Bernanke Saved The World", Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis, 21 August 2009.


• Justin Raimondo, The Coming Media Bailout, Antiwar.com, 26 August 2009.


• Gene Lyons, The media can't handle the truth, Salon, Salon.com, 27 August 2009.


• David Sirota, The Science Fiction of Military Marketing, CommonDreams.org, 28 August 2009.


• Chris Floyd, Big Brass Bull: Pentagon Deceit on Media Manipulation Confirmed, Empire Burlesque, 28 August 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, The Washington Post's Cheney-ite defense of torture, Salon.com, 29 August 2009.


• Barry Ritholtz, Bailout Profits? Don’t Make Me Laugh!, The Big Picture, 31 August 2009.


• Matt Taibbi, Bailout Propaganda Begins, Taibblog - True/Slant, 01 September 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, Who are Broderian anti-investigation journalists really protecting?, Salon.com, 03 August 2009.
  "Establishment journalists and pundits know they are culpable in war crimes; that's why they want to Look Forward."


• Glenn Greenwald, Meet the Press's idea of a "debate", Salon.com, 07 September 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, Time Magazine: the liberal bias of facts, Salon.com, 17 September 2009.


• * Glenn Greenwald, The distracting benefits of ACORN hysteria, Salon.com, 17 September 2009.


• digby, Influencers, Hullabaloo, 18 September 2009.

Links: Sociology, Culture, etc.

• The Four Horsemen - Hour 1 [Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris], Google Video, 30 September 2007.
  
  The Four Horsemen - Hour 2 [Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris], Google Video, 30 September 2007.
  
  DVD available at RichardDawkins.net; Amazon.com; Netflix.
  
  Video of a conversation among them.


• Chris Floyd, Bait and Switch: Using Diversity to Disguise Inequality, Empire Burlesque, 27 August 2009.
  
  Mr. Floyd refers to the essay:
  Walter Benn Michaels, What Matters, London Review of Books, vol. 31, no. 16, 27 August 2009.
  
  Mr. Michaels' essay is a review of:
  Kjartan Páll Sveinsson, editor. Who Cares about the White Working Class?. London: The Runnymede Trust, 2009.
  
  A similar publication exists, refering to the USA:
  Ruy Teixeira & Joel Rogers. America's Forgotten Majority: Why the White Working Class Still Matters. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
  (Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)


• Helaine Olen, Corporate Dominance of Every Aspects of Our Lives Is Suffocating Us, AlterNet, alternet.org, 07 August 2009.
  
  review of:
  Doug Rushkoff. Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back. New York: Random House, 2009.
  (Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)


• Patrica Leigh Brown, Invisible Immigrants, Old and Left With ‘Nobody to Talk To’, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 30 August 2009.


• Greg Laden, The Falsehoods: The poor and the dark skinned have more babies than the rich and the light skinned, Greg Laden's Blog, 31 August 2009.


• * Henry A. Giroux, Living in a Culture of Cruelty: Democracy as Spectacle, truthout, 02 September 2009.


• Alice Waters, Want to Teach Democracy? Improve School Lunches, The Huffington Post, 03 September 2009.


• Ed Vulliamy, Is America ready to admit defeat in its 40-year war on drugs?: A wave of decriminalisation is sweeping through Latin America, The Observer, guardian.co.uk, 06 September 2009.


• Juan Cole, Where Have All the Broad Shoulders Gone? Or, Labor Day in a Kleptocracy, Informed Comment, 07 September 2009.


• Historicism, Wikipedia.
  
  Which frame of Historicism are you, a politician, or whomever, using to interpret human events? Is that variant of Historicism valid in that or any context? Perhaps Historicism is a figment of the human imagination (similar to the way the human brain is hard-wired to recognize human faces, and does so even in contexts that are meaningless, such as in a photo of Mars or in a tree stump; this is know as pareidolia).


• Clive Thompson, Is Happiness Catching?, The New York Times Magazine, NYTimes.com, 10 September 2009.


• * Henry A. Giroux, The Spectacle of Illiteracy and the Crisis of Democracy, truthout.org, 15 September 2009.


• Terence Tao, A speech for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [on the future impact of internet-based technologies on academia], What’s new blog, 17 September 2009.


• Frank Schaeffer, Right-Wing Hatemongering Fueled by Christianity?, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 21 September 2009.


• ‘Rural Brain Drain’ Turns Small Towns Into Ghost Towns, Truthdig, truthdig.com, 21 September 2009.

Links: Science, Medicine, and Policy

• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Fourth Quadrant: A Map of the Limits of Statistics, Edge, Edge.org, 15 September 2008.


• Is There Life on Mars?, Nova, PBS, original broadcast date: 30 December 2008.


• Teryn Norris & Jesse Jenkins, Will America Lose the Clean-Energy Race?, CommonDreams.org, 29 July 2009.


• Greg Palast, Katrina, Four Years Later: Expert Fired Who Warned Levees Would Burst, Crooks and Liars, 26 August 2009.
  
  On Ivor van Heerden and the cowardice of Louisiana State University administrators.
  
  Article also at GregPalast.com.


• Fred de Sam Lazaro, Two Decades On, India Eye Clinic Maintains Innovative Mission, Online NewsHour, PBS, 02 September 2009.
  
  On the Aravind Eye Care System of India (Aravind.org; Wikipedia).


• The World at Night, Online NewsHour, PBS, 03 September 2009.
  
  Astronomers Without Borders.


• Ari LeVaux, Milk May Endanger Your Health, and the Dairy Industry Knows It, AlterNet, alternet.org, 07 September 2009.


• Dennis Overbye, After Hubble Repair, New Images From Space, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 09 September 2009.
  
  Hubble Opens New Eyes on the Universe, HubbleSite, hubblesite.org, News Release Number: STScI-2009-25, 09 September 2009.
  
  Spae Telescope Science Institute.


• William J. Broad, From Deep Pacific, Ugly and Tasty, With a Catch, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 09 September 2009.
  
  Martin Fackler, Tuna Town in Japan Sees Falloff of Its Fish, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 19 September 2009.
  
  Different locations and species, same problem.


• Elisabeth Malkin, Mexico Now Enduring Worst Drought in Years, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 12 September 2009.
  
  Chip Ward, Red Snow Warning: The End of Welfare Water and the Drying of the West [Tomgram: Chip Ward, The Ruins in Our Future], TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 13 September 2009.


• Charles Duhigg, Toxic Waters - Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 12 September 2009.
  
  This shameful situation is a direct result of the anti-regulation policies advocated most vociferiously by the Republican Party, but also supported by the corporation-friendly DLC Democrats. The DLC provides further evidence that there is little difference between the Republicans and Democrats in US politics.


• John M. Broder and James Kanter, Europeans Say U.S. Lacks Will on Climate, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 20 September 2009.

Links: Geopolitics

• Honduras:
  • John Nichols, Totalitarian Rightists Put Orwellian Spin on Honduras Coup, The Beat blog at TheNation.com, 02 July 2009.
  
  
  • Greg Grandin, Battle for Honduras -- and the Region, The Nation, thenation.com, 12 August 2009 [31 August 2009 print edition].
  
  
  • Robert Naiman, Coup Protestor Gang-Raped by Honduran Police, CommonDreams.org, 25 August 2009.
  
  
  • * Benjamin Dangl, The Road to Zelaya's Return: Money, Guns and Social Movements in Honduras, truthout, truthout.org, 22 September 2009.


• Lockerbie:
  • Daniel Tencer, Was Pan Am 103 bomber freed in exchange for oil?, The Raw Story, 29 August 2009.
  
  
  • Jason Allardyce , Lockerbie bomber 'set free for oil', Times Online, timesonline.co.uk, 30 August 2009.
  
  
  • * Chris Floyd, Outrageous Behavior: Bogus Bluster From Bigwigs Hides Lockerbie Truth, Empire Burlesque, 05 September 2009.


• Japanese Politics:
  • Martin Fackler, With Bold Stand, Japan Opposition Wins a Landslide, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 30 August 2009.
  
  
  • Mark Lander and Martin Fackler, U.S. Is Seeing Policy Thorns in Japan Shift, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 01 September 2009.
  
  
  • Amitabh Pal, New Japanese Leadership Causes Discomfort in the U.S., The Progressive, 03 September 2009.


• China & Natural Resources:
  • Gene Laverty, PetroChina to Buy Athabasca Oil-Sands Project Stakes, Bloomberg.com, 31 August 2009.
  
  
  • John Duce and Gene Laverty, PetroChina Agrees Biggest North America Acquisition , Bloomberg.com, 01 September 2009.
  
  
  • Timothy Williams, China Oil Deal Is New Source of Strife Among Iraqis, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 05 September 2009.
  
  
  • David Goldman, The sticky dollar reserve system, Inner Workings Blog Archive at Asia Times, 14 September 2009.
    "China would swap its whole US$2 trillion portfolio of US Treasury securities for food, energy and mineral producing capacity, except that no-one will buy their Treasuries, and no-one will sell them the farmland, oil fields and mines."


• Afghanistan:
  • Elizabeth Rubin, Karzai in His Labyrinth, The New York Times Magazine, 04 August 2009.
  
  
  • Derrick Crowe, In Afghanistan, We Know Failure When We See It, The Huffington Post, 31 August 2009.
  
  
  • Juan Cole, The U.S. is spread dangerously thin in Afghanistan, Salon.com, 03 September 2009.
  
  
  • Juan Cole, Afghanistan Roiled by NATO Air Strikes that killed almost 100, Informed Comment, 05 September 2009.
  
  
  • Juan Cole, EU Foreign Ministers Condemn NATO; German Opposition Attacks Merkel on Afghanistan; Kunduz Residents Furious at West, Informed Comment, 06 September 2009.
  
  
  • Paul Craig Roberts, Indefensible Nation: US Hypocrisy Astonishes the World, CounterPunch.org, 07 September 2009.
  
  
  • M. K. Bhadrakumar, Afghan war reaches a tipping point, Asis Times, 08 September 2009.
    
    "The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's air strikes in the northern province of Kunduz on Friday, which killed or injured more than 100 people, have left Afghan blood equally on the hands of all NATO countries. The incident shows this is no mere fight against terrorism; it is about NATO's role as a global political organization and the "unfinished business" of the Cold War - as well as about defining the new world order."
  
  
  • Pepe Escobar, Enduring Freedom until 2050, Asis Times, 08 September 2009.
    
    "In only 450 days, the number of troops in Afghanistan has swelled from 67,000 to 118,000. Since 2001, the United States has spent $179 billion in the country, while its European allies have burned $102 billion. The tragicomedy is clear: the US and its allies will do - and spend - whatever it takes to implant military bases on the doorstep of Russia and China, and to get their gas pipeline on track."
  
  
  • Tom Engelhardt, Afghanistan by the Numbers: Measuring a War Gone to Hell [Tomgram: Measuring Success in Afghanistan], TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 08 September 2009.
  
  
  • Chris Floyd, Metrics of Monstrosity: Free Falling in Afghanistan, Empire Burlesque, 09 September 2009.
  
  
  • Pamela Constable, After Rescue, Recriminations: Afghans Angry Over Death of Interpreter In Raid That Freed N.Y. Times Reporter, The Washington Post, 10 September 2009.
  
  
  • M. K. Bhadrakumar, Why the US is afraid of 'Afghanization', Asis Times, 12 September 2009.
  
  
  • Conn Hallinan, Afghanistan: What Are These People Thinking?, Antiwar.com, 13 September 2009.
  
  
  • Juan Cole, US Dependence on Northern Supply Routes destabilizing North, Threatening Central Asia, Informed Comment, 14 September 2009.
  
  
  • William Pfaff, All U.S. Presidents Need a War to Call Their Own — and Obama Has His, Truthdig.com, 16 September 2009.
  
  
  • Joe Klein, The Afghanistan Problem: Why Are We in Helmand?, Time, 17 September 2009.
  
  
  • * Juan Cole, Is Afghanistan Vietnam or Iraq? Arguing with Obama and Rubin, Informed Comment, 17 September 2009.
  
  
  • Derek Henry Flood, A dangerous new Afghan road opens, Asis Times, 18 September 2009.
  
  
  • * Ann Jones, Meet the Afghan Army: Is It a Figment of Washington's Imagination? [Tomgram: Ann Jones, Us or Them in Afghanistan?], TomDispatch.com, 20 September 2009.
  
  
  • Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karen DeYoung, Changes Have Obama Rethinking War Strategy, The Washington Post, 21 September 2009.
  
  
  • Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti, Taliban Widen Afghan Attacks From Base in Pakistan, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 23 September 2009.
  
  
  • * Rory Stewart on Afghanistan, Bill Moyers Journal, 25 September 2009.
  
  Taliban:
  • Gareth Porter, The ISI and the Taliban: U.S. Officials Protect Pakistan Aid to the Taliban, CounterPunch, 05 August 2009.
  
  
  • Jean MacKenzie, Are US taxpayers funding the Taliban?: USAID probes the possibility that contractors give a cut to the Taliban, GlobalPost, 02 September 2009.
  
  
  • Juan Cole, US Aid Monies May support Taliban Activities, Informed Comment, 04 September 2009.
  
  
  • Syed Saleem Shahzad, Taliban put their heads together, Asis Times, 19 September 2009.


• John Feffer, Book Review: US hegemony slips into history, Asia Times, 12 September 2009.
  
  review of:
  
  Terrence Edward Paupp. The Future of Global Relations: Crumbling Walls, Rising Regions. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
  (Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)


• Sreeram Chaulia, Netanyahu plays a Russian rope trick, Asia Times, 15 September 2009.

Links: Political Economy

• Barry Eichengreen, The Last Temptation of Risk, The National Interest, May/June 2009.


• Simon Johnson and James Kwak, Finance: Before the Next Meltdown, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Issue #13, Summer 2009.
  
  via: The Baseline Scenario.


• Teryn Norris & Jesse Jenkins, Will America Lose the Clean-Energy Race?, CommonDreams.org, 29 July 2009.


• Naomi Klein, Let's Put an End to Sarah Palin-Style Capitalism, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 30 July 2009.


• Scott Thill, Why Corporations, Emerging Powers and Petro-States Are Snapping Up Huge Chunks of Farmland in the Developing World, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 11 August 2009.


• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Cameron dare not copy Obama's disastrous economic policies: Should he come to power, the Conservative leader must avoid the calamitous mistakes of the American president, The Observer, guardian.co.uk, 16 August 2009.


• Simon Johnson, The Two-Track Economy, The Baseline Scenario, 20 August 2009.
  
  Simon Johnson, More On The Two-Track Economy — From The WSJ And Others, The Baseline Scenario, 29 August 2009.


• Mike Shedlock, Orwellian Madness "Bernanke Saved The World", Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis, 21 August 2009.


• Jim Hightower, Holding Wall Street Bankers Accountable, JimHightower.com, 28 August 2009.


• Gene Laverty, PetroChina to Buy Athabasca Oil-Sands Project Stakes, Bloomberg.com, 31 August 2009.
  
  John Duce and Gene Laverty, PetroChina Agrees Biggest North America Acquisition , Bloomberg.com, 01 September 2009.


• Barry Ritholtz, Bailout Profits? Don’t Make Me Laugh!, The Big Picture, 31 August 2009.


• Lee Adler, Forbes Polls the Wackosphere and Gets An Earful, The Wall Street Examiner, 31 August 2009.


• William D. Cohan, The Final Days of Merrill Lynch, The Atlantic, September 2009.


• Matt Taibbi, Bailout Propaganda Begins, Taibblog - True/Slant, 01 September 2009.


• Rob Johnson & Lynn Parramore, Jim Chanos Warned Brown, Geithner, and Others about Coming Financial Crash in 2007, The Huffington Post, 01 September 2009.


• Barry Ritholtz, How the Bailouts Should Have Gone, The Big Picture, 02 September 2009.
  
  Rick Newman, How the Bailouts Could Have Gone Better, US News & World Report, 01 September 2009.


• Unemployment, Labor Policy
  
  Mike Shedlock, Cut My Pay, But Please Give Me A Job, Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis, 01 September 2009.
  
  Steven Greenhouse, Low-Wage Workers Are Often Cheated, Study Says, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 01 September 2009.
  
  Barry Ritholtz, Data Points to Ongoing Economic Woes, The Big Picture, 02 September 2009.
  
  Yves Smith, Unemployment: The Harder You Look, The Uglier It Appears, naked capitalism, 02 September 2009.
  
  Henry Blodget, Unemployment is Much Worse Than You Think, The Business Insider, 04 September 2009.
  
  Employment-Population Ratio, Part Time Workers, Average Workweek, Calculated Risk, 04 September 2009.
  
  Barry Ritholtz, Recession Job Losses: 3 Views, The Big Picture, 05 September 2009.
  
  Pimco's Tony Crescenzi: Structural Changes in the Economy Will Lead to Long-Term Job Losses, Washington's Blog, 06 September 2009.
  
  Juan Cole, Where Have All the Broad Shoulders Gone? Or, Labor Day in a Kleptocracy, Informed Comment, 07 September 2009.
  
  Barry Ritholtz, Total 10 Year Job Gains: Negative 203k, The Big Picture, 07 September 2009.
  
  Michael Luo, Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 07 September 2009.
  
  Kirk Ladendorf, Caught in global shift, city's high-tech manufacturing jobs are vanishing, Austin American-Statesman, 08 September 2009.
  
  Yves Smith, Manpower: Hiring Plans Hit New Low, naked capitalism, 08 September 2009.
  
  Yves Smith, 40% of Working Age Californians Jobless, naked capitalism, 08 September 2009.
  
  George Washington, How Bad Will Unemployment Get, and What Can We Do About It?, naked capitalism, 08 September 2009.


• Ian Bremmer & Nouriel Roubini, Don’t Expect the U.S. and China to Form a ‘Strategic Alliance’ Anytime Soon, WSJ.com, 01 September 2009.


• Penn Bullock, Friedman Economics: Is Fed chairman Ben Bernanke a follower of John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman?, Reason Magazine, 01 September 2009.


• James Kwak, Revisionist History, The Baseline Scenario, 02 September 2009.


• Paul Krugman, How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?, The New York Times Magazine, NYTimes.com, 02 September 2009.
  
  Paul Krugman, A few notes on my magazine article, Paul Krugman Blog, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 05 September 2009.
  
  Paul Krugman, School for Scoundrels: Book Review - 'The Myth of the Rational Market,' by Justin Fox; and 'The Sages,' by Charles R. Morris, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 06 August 2009.
  
  Some responses to Krugman's Magazine essay:
  
  Jane Smiley, Other Economists in the Room, The Huffington Post, 03 September 2009.
  
  Comments - Links 9/4/09, naked capitalism, 04 September 2009.
  
  James Kwak, Krugman on Economics, The Baseline Scenario, 04 September 2009.
  
  Barry Ritholtz, How Economists Got It Wrong, The Big Picture, 05 September 2009.
  
  Dirk Bezemer, Why some economists could see the crisis coming, FT.com, 07 September 2009.
  
  Ryan Grim, Priceless: How The Federal Reserve Bought The Economics Profession, The Huffington Post, 07 September 2009.


• Dave Johnson, Who Opposes American Manufacturing?, The Smirking Chimp, 03 September 2009.
  
  Johnson has written elsewhere on this topic:
  
  Dave Johnson, Who Would Be Against American Manufacturing?, Blog for Our Future, Campaign for America's Future, OurFuture.org, 01 September 2009.
  
  Dave Johnson, Who Opposes American Manufacturing? II, Blog for Our Future, Campaign for America's Future, OurFuture.org, 03 September 2009 [this is the Smirking Chimp essay noted above].
  
  More of his essays: Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future, OurFuture.org.


• James V. Grimaldi, Washington Redskins React to Fans' Tough Luck With Tough Love, The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, 03 September 2009.


• Michael McKee, Stiglitz Says U.S. Economic Recovery May Not Be 'Sustainable', Bloomberg.com, 04 September 2009.
  
  via: Jesse's Café Américain.


• Alan S. Blinder, The Wait for Financial Reform, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 05 September 2009.


• Karl Denninger, 2009 Labor Day Ponderings ..., The Market Ticker, 06 September 2009.
  
  * Karl Denninger, Labor Day Musings Part II, The Market Ticker, 07 September 2009.


• Michael Lind, Who are the wealth creators?, Salon.com, 07 September 2009.


• Yves Smith, Deflation Worries Looking More Credible, naked capitalism, 07 September 2009.


• * John Robb, Nice depiction of a system in decline, John Robb's Weblog, 07 September 2009.


• Kevin G. Hall, A year after financial crisis, the consumer economy is dead, McClatchy Newspapers, 08 September 2009.


• Bob Ivry, Christine Harper and Mark Pittman, Missing Lehman Lesson of Shakeout Means Too Big Banks May Fail, Bloomberg.com, 08 September 2009.


• George Washington, The Economy Will Not Recover Until Trust is Restored, naked capitalism, 10 September 2009.


• Yves Smith, Trade Tensions With China Quietly Escalating, naked capitalism, 10 September 2009.


• Donald L. Barlett & James B. Steele, Good Billions After Bad, VanityFair.com, October 2009.
  
  "As the Bush administration waned, the Treasury shoveled more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in tarp funds into the financial system — without restrictions, accountability, or even common sense. The authors reveal how much of it ended up in the wrong hands, doing the opposite of what was needed."

Links: U.S. Politics & Government

• Chris Floyd, Symbol for Sale: Obama Cashes Cronies' Chips, Empire Burlesque, 29 July 2009.


• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Cameron dare not copy Obama's disastrous economic policies: Should he come to power, the Conservative leader must avoid the calamitous mistakes of the American president, The Observer, guardian.co.uk, 16 August 2009.


• Scott Thill, Why Are Cops Tasering Grandmothers, Pregnant Women and Kids?, AlterNet, 17 August 2009.


• Michael Lind, Liberalism without labor unions?, Salon.com, 25 August 2009.
  
  Lind doesn't quite say so explicitly, but his essay makes clear that there is no Left/Social Democratic/Labor political party in the U.S. As others have observed, the U.S. has two right wing Corporation/Business parties and, with the enablement of the major media, the range of public political discourse is very narrow. I think this is one source the widespread government and policy inaction in the face of obvious injustices, inequalities, and simple inefficiencies (areas where the public good suffers to the benefit of narrow private interests).


• Glenn Greenwald, Thomas Paine v. the Right's torture defenders, Salon.com, 25 August 2009.


• Chris Floyd, Wrist-slap and Tickle: Obama Goes Mild on CIA Torture, Empire Burlesque, 25 August 2009.


• Brian Donohue, The Corporate Person Without a Country: AIG Spits in America's Eye, Again, CommonDreams.org, 25 August 2009.


• Mary Dejevsky, A mean streak in the US mainstream: The US tolerates more inequality, deprivation and suffering than is acceptable here, The Independent, independent.co.uk, 25 August 2009.
  
  via CommonDreams.org.


• Amy Goodman, Who Is Obama Playing Ball With?, TruthDig, truthdig.com, 25 August 2009.


• * Glenn Greenwald, Even The New Republic now calls for a party purge of corporate-owned "centrists", Salon.com, 27 August 2009.
  
  This is one of Greenwald's best summaries of the dysfunctions in American politics; it's one of the best essays I've read in years for understanding how recent American politics works.


• Chris Floyd, Bait and Switch: Using Diversity to Disguise Inequality, Empire Burlesque, 27 August 2009.
  
  Mr. Floyd refers to the essay:
  
  Walter Benn Michaels, What Matters, London Review of Books, vol. 31, no. 16, 27 August 2009.
  
  Mr. Michaels' essay is a review of:
  
  Kjartan Páll Sveinsson, editor. Who Cares about the White Working Class?. London: The Runnymede Trust, 2009.


• Jim Hightower, Holding Wall Street Bankers Accountable, JimHightower.com, 28 August 2009.


• * Money-Driven Medicine, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 28 August 2009.
  
  This documentary broadcast on Bill Moyers Journal is derived from the book:
  
  Maggie Mahar. Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. HarperCollins, 2006.
  (Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)
  
  Glenn Greenwald, Bill Moyers on the health care debate, Democrats, and Afghanistan, Salon.com, 29 August 2009.
  
  An anecdote:
  
  Joe Goldblatt (patient), From the Patient's Mouth: My Dentist and Why I Believe National Health Care Works, Ysabel de la Rosa, 29 August 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, It's time to embrace American royalty, Salon.com, 30 August 2009.


• Paul Krugman, Missing Richard Nixon, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 30 August 2009.


• Chris Rowthorn, Extremism in Defense of Servitude, The Smirking Chimp, 30 August 2009.


• Dan Froomkin, Cheney Still Manipulating People -- Now In Public, The Huffington Post, 31 August 2009.


• Tom Tomorrow, Once upon a time, the citizens of a large nation turned into monsters ..., This Modern World, Salon.com, 01 September 2009.
  
  Ted Rall, We Have Met the Nazis, And They Are Us., The Smirking Chimp, 31 August 2009.


• Ed Kilgore, The return of the welfare queen: Healthcare reform has brought back the right's favorite wedge issue -- government handouts for the "undeserving," Salon.com, 31 August 2009.


• Scott Horton, American Diplomats Advocated "Nuremberg Defense", The Huffington Post, 01 September 2009.


• Matt Taibbi, Maria Bartiromo shows us how media has helped sandbag health care reform, Taibblog - True/Slant, 02 September 2009.


• Ed Pilkington, CIA doctors face human experimentation claims, guardian.co.uk, 02 September 2009.


• * Dan Froomkin, Paging A Different President Obama, The Huffington Post, 03 September 2009.


• * Glenn Greenwald, The looming political war over Afghanistan, Salon.com, 03 September 2009.


• Rebecca Boone, John Ashcroft Can Be Sued For Post-9/11 Detentions, Court Rules, The Huffington Post, 04 September 2009.
  
  Glenn Greenwald, Major ruling against Ashcroft highlights evils of preventive detention, Salon.com, 05 September 2009.
  
  Scott Horton, And Now: Fredo, the Opera, No Comment blog at Harper's Magazine, 03 September 2009.


• Bill Moyers, A Bill Moyers essay on health care reform, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 04 September 2009.
  
  Josh Marshall, Adventures in the Rabbit Hole, Talking Points Memo, 27 August 2009.
  
  * Henry A. Giroux, Living in a Culture of Cruelty: Democracy as Spectacle, t r u t h o u t, 02 September 2009.


• Alan Colmes, The Van Jones Story, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, 06 September 2009.
  
  Pareene, Who is Van Jones?, Gawker, 04 September 2009.
  
  * Sara Robinson, Conservative Derangement Syndrome: What Are They Thinking?, Blog for Our Future, Campaign for America's Future, OurFuture.org, 04 September 2009.
  
  * Jane Hamsher, Van Jones: A Moment of Truth For Liberal Institutions in the Veal Pen, FireDogLake, 06 September 2009.
  
  David Sirota, Taking the Movement Out of the Obama White House, Open Salon, Open.Salon.com, 06 September 2009.


• Michael Bader, The Psychology of the Right-Wing's Anti-Government 'Death-Panel' Delusions, AlterNet, 05 September 2009.