The Antiwar Movement, the Congress and the Realignment
Carolyn Eisenberg of Historians Against the War and United for Peace and Justice discusses the state of the current American antiwar movement and how best to pressure the Congress.
MP3 here. (38:24)
Carolyn Eisenberg is a professor of history at Hofstra University and a visiting professor at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany.
It’s always about the war with you, isn’t it, Charles?
According the the new issue of the New American, a recent military report acknowledged that Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in twenty-six years. According to the report: “There was a significant relationship between suicide attempts and the number of days deployed.”
The New York Times has announced that, effective midnight tonight, they will stop charging for access to various portions of their Website.
Two years ago the Times made what turned out to be a stupid decision: they decided to start charging for their top columnists, 20-year archives, and various special features. The result was that influential columnists like Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, and Maureen Dowd were marginalized, with far fewer people reading their articles.
The Times owners did not get the Web. They didn’t understand the effect of search engines and broad distribution on advertising and other “passive” revenue sources.
The Times article explains that they didn’t misunderstand, but it was the Web that changed:
What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.
“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others.â€
The Los Angeles Times tried a similar model in 2005, charging for access to its arts section, but quickly dropped it after experiencing a sharp decline in Web traffic. We can expect to see newspapers using this example to continue to move into the world of free information.
Video is not kind to demagoguing politicians like McCain. Establishment water-carrier Tim Russert clearly isn’t up to the task of pointing out McCain’s false statements, but YouTubers are.
Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.
This is just to assure readers of the site that I am still alive (having been first on a family vacation and then down with the flu), although I learned this week that I am once again persona non grata (PNG) at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). The first time I was declared unwelcome there resulted from my appearance on BBC’s weekly public-affairs “Panorama†television program, “The War Party,†that aired in May 2003 and covered the neo-conservatives’ role in promoting the invasion of Iraq. (AEI’s Joshua Muravchik later assailed the program in an article in the September 2003 Commentary, “The Neoconservative Cabal,†in which, among other things, he noted, curiously, that “[Lobe] look(ed) as Jewish as his name sounds.†I am indeed Jewish.) I have since attended several AEI events without incident, but last week, when my colleague, Eli Clifton, was registering for the “No Middle Way: Two Reports on Iraq†event September 6, he was taken aside by AEI’s communications director and told that AEI knew that he worked with me and that, while he was welcome to attend the forum that day, I was still PNG. In a subsequent phone call with Eli, she re-affirmed that I was unwelcome at Washington’s most prominent and influential neo-conservative think tank because I had allegedly made false accusations about and mounted ad hominem attacks against its scholars. Although requested, no specifics were forthcoming, and I remain in the dark about what she — or those who informed her — have in mind.
Of course, my writings about AEI and its associates are on the record, and readers can reach their own conclusions as to the merits of its allegations and the appropriateness of its remedy. But it is remarkable that an institution that prides itself on promoting freedom around the world and on defending “open debate†and “the competition of ideas,†as its mission statement asserts, would seek to restrict access to its policy forums in this way.
Eli, incidentally, is leaving the Washington bureau for a master’s program in international relations at Elliott Abrams’ alma mater, the London School of Economics, as is another valued colleague, Ellen Massey. (Ah, youth!) I have no doubt they will perform brilliantly in their studies and perhaps find some time to continue to contribute to IPS as well.
I hope to catch up quickly on recent events in the coming days and resume posting more frequently next week.
