Category: USA

Supporting Wikileaks

Dylan Ratigan and Glenn Greenwald

Wikileaks has transformed activism, raising its scope and impact. Its detractors are myriad, but it defenders are worthier. Daniel Ellsberg is of course the best known among them, who has recently written an open letter to Amazon criticizing its decision to deny service to Wikileaks. But there are also Ray McGovern, Ron Paul and Noam Chomsky. Our friend Phil Weiss has also written an eloquent tribute to Wikileaks’s achievements. But by far the most impressive commentator on the issue is constitutional law attorney and Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald. For a delightful demolition of the naysayers and their anaemic arguments watch Greenwald debate Steven Aftergood of FAS on Democracy Now.  Also don’t miss Dylan Ratigan’s extended interview with Greenwald on the overblown reactions to Wikileaks:

New York Times Beats Drums for War

Ray McGovern: NYT ignores intelligence there is no evidence of Iran nuclear weapons program program. He also has some interesting observations about Alan Dershowtiz’s fantasies.

Why a Saudi King Might Want the US to Attack Iran

Some insights, some zany speculation. (for smarter, informed commentary see this CBC interview with Glenn Greenwald)

Lawrence Wilkerson: The Wikileaks cable isn’t about Iran being a threat to security, it’s about rival elites defending oil wealth and power

Former British diplomat blasts New York Times’ subservience

Carne Ross blasts Bill Keller of New York Times. (see Glenn Greenwald’s must read post on Wikileaks and what it says about the political culture and press).

Ann Wright on WikiLeaks and Accountability

Col (ret.) Ann Wright discusses cablegate on GritTV with Laura Flanders.

“We were told as diplomats, ‘Don’t ever put anything in a cable you wouldn’t want on the front page of a newspaper.’ It shows that they’re a lot of arrogant people, that the system itself wasn’t checking itself,” says Ann Wright, Retired United States Army Colonel and former State Department official, of the latest documents released from WikiLeaks. Meanwhile, several of the diplomatic cables released depict possibly illegal actions by the U.S. government, and Wright notes that the chances of anyone being held accountable are slim.

Ann Wright joins Laura in studio to discuss the latest releases from WikiLeaks, what they tell us about the Defense and State departments, and what should happen–but probably won’t–to the people implicated therein.

Wilkerson on the significance of Wikileaks and Israeli Apartheid

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on Countdown with Keith Olbermann to discuss Wikileaks.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

 

The Money and Media Election Complex

John Nichols joins Bob McChesney on this week’s Media Matters to discuss their recent article published in The Nation magazine, November 29th, 2010 edition. Call and comment or ask a question this Sunday, November 28th on WILL AM580.

Nichols are McChesney are authors of The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again.

Ilan Pappe on the Future of Palestine

Ilan Pappe on Al Jazeera’s Frost over the World, discussing the prospects for a future Palestinian state and the means to achieve it. (The interview begins at 9:00 and is followed by an interview with the insufferable Mark Regev)

The Impact Today and Tomorrow of Chalmers Johnson

by Steve Clemons

chal johnson.jpgNext week, Foreign Policy magazine and its editor-in-chief Susan Glasser will be releasing its 2nd annual roster of the world’s greatest thinkers and doers in foreign policy. I have seen the list — and it’s impressively creative and eclectic.

There is one name that is not on the FP100 who should be — and that is Chalmers Johnson, who from my perspective rivals Henry Kissinger as the most significant intellectual force who has shaped and defined the fundamental boundaries and goal posts of US foreign policy in the modern era.

Johnson, who passed away Saturday afternoon at 79 years, invented and was the acknowledged godfather of the conceptualization of the “developmental state“. For the uninitiated, this means that Chalmers Johnson led the way in understanding the dynamics of how states manipulated their policy conditions and environments to speed up economic growth. In the neoliberal hive at the University of Chicago, Chalmers Johnson was an apostate and heretic in the field of political economy. Johnson challenged conventional wisdom with he and his many star students — including E.B. Keehn, David Arase, Marie Anchordoguy, Mark Tilton and others — writing the significant treatises documenting the growing prevalence of state-led industrial and trade and finance policy abroad, particularly in Asia.

Today, the notion of “State Capitalism” has become practically commonplace in discussing the newest and most significant features of the global economy. Chalmers Johnson invented this field and planted the intellectual roots of understanding that other nation states were not trying to converge with and follow the so-called American model.

Continue reading “The Impact Today and Tomorrow of Chalmers Johnson”