By William Blum
December 03, 2008
killinghope.org
Okay, let’s get the obvious out of the way. It was historic. I choked up a number of times, tears came to my eyes, even though I didn’t vote for him. I voted for Ralph Nader for the fourth time in a row.
During the past eight years when I’ve listened to news programs on the radio each day I’ve made sure to be within a few feet of the radio so I could quickly change the station when that preposterous man or one of his disciples came on; I’m not a masochist, I suffer fools very poorly, and I get bored easily. Sad to say, I’m already turning the radio off sometimes when Obama comes on. He doesn’t say anything, or not enough, or not often enough. Platitudes, clichés, promises without substance, “hope and change”, almost everything without sufficient substance, “change and hope”, without specifics, designed not to offend.
Continue reading Vote first; ask questions later
EVEN as India’s elite military units were flushing out the remnants of the terrorists who launched a bloody, well-coordinated attack on several symbolic targets in Mumbai, the blame-game was underway. Predictably, Gujarat’s Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, openly accused Pakistan of being behind the attacks. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was more diplomatic in his comments, as was his Foreign Minister. What is clear, though, is following this multi-pronged assault on that country’s commercial capital, war between India and Pakistan is a strong possibility.
…as hard as it is to accept a black president, it’s even harder to accept a black first lady. First Lady has always held a beloved sentimental mother/wife of the nation symbolism. Conservatives are not ready to have to look at this very BLACK woman with her degrees and her fierceness and see her as the epitome of the American mother/wife.
The people of Haiti are as poor as human beings can be.
LAST week, when I suggested that the masses of poor and middle-income people across the world may yet have the last laugh in the midst of the global financial crisis, many readers laughed at me. “You can’t be serious?” several of my friends called to ask, exploding into loud guffaws. “Of course I am,” I responded. I proceeded to explain why I thought the super-wealthy would cry more tears than the wretched of the earth.
Steve Kroft looks at some of the arcane Wall Street financial instruments that have magnified the economic crisis.