James Ridgeway

In 1965, James Ridgeway helped launch the modern muckraking era by revealing that General Motors had hired private eyes to spy on an obscure consumer advocate named Ralph Nader. He worked for many years at the Village Voice, has written 16 books, and has codirected Blood in the Face, a film about the far right. In 2012, he was named a Soros Justice Media Fellow.

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The 9/11 Questions That Remain

—By James Ridgeway

| Fri Sep. 11, 2009 11:53 AM PDT

It’s been five years since the 9/11 Commission released its studious but timid report, and questions still remain. But believing that additional investigation is necessary and vital doesn’t require a subscription to the conspiracy theory about the attacks pushed by the so-called 9/11 Truth movement. In my 2006 book The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11: What the 9/11 Commission Report Failed to Tell Us, I focused on straightforward, even obvious questions: Why was the airline industry, with its army of well-connected lobbyists, permitted to resist safety regulations that could have saved lives? How did our foreign policy, and "allies" like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, help pave the way for the attacks? Why did a politically driven, Iraq-obsessed administration ignore repeated warnings of the coming danger? Who was in charge as the attacks unfolded?

Some of these questions ought to practically answer themselves. Yet in its 664-page report, the 9/11 Commission managed not to address them—in many cases, by the simple means of not asking them in the first place. The commissioners themselves announced their limited intentions in the report’s opening pages, where they wrote: "Our aim has not been to assign individual blame. Our aim has been to provided the fullest possible accounting of the events surrounding 9/11 and to identify lessons learned." The contradiction inherent in these stated aims is obvious: without blame, there can be no true accountability, and without accountability, there is nothing to ensure that the lessons of 9/11 will be learned.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

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"My Name is Betty Ong. I’m Number 3 on Flight 11"

—By James Ridgeway

| Fri Sep. 11, 2009 7:48 AM PDT

Take a few minutes to listen to the last phone call of Betty Ong, a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11 before it hit the World Trade Center, eight years ago today on September 11, 2001. Ong is calm and matter-of-fact as she describes what was occuring within minutes of the hijacking to skeptical airline personnel on the ground. She was forced to repeat the same basic details again and again: "Ok. Our Number 1 got stabbed. Our purser is stabbed. Nobody knows who stabbed who, and we can’t even get up to business class right now cause nobody can breathe…" She remained on the phone for 23 minutes, calmly relaying information up to seconds before the impact. Just over four minutes of the phone call were replayed at the 9-11 commission hearings. Her last words were "Pray for us. Pray for us."

Joe Wilson: Confederate Heritage Is "Honorable"

—By James Ridgeway

| Thu Sep. 10, 2009 3:44 PM PDT

Rep. Joe Wilson, the congressman who accused the President of lying last night during his address on health care to a joint session of Congress, isn’t just some mean-spirited buffoon. As a South Carolina legislator, he was one of only 7 state senators who fought to keep the confederate battle flag flying over the state capital. South Carolina, of course, was the first state to leave the Union after Lincoln was elected. Flying the confederate battle flag was a big deal in the south, which was once—and in some cases is still—inhabited by the KuKluxKlan and its successors. Here, via Kris Kromm’s excellent blog Facing South, is what happened when South Carolina's state legislature voted to take down the flag in the 1990s:

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Viva Big Pharma

—By James Ridgeway

| Thu Sep. 10, 2009 1:31 PM PDT

Regardless of what happens from here on out, the current health care reform clearly will offer no significant challenge to Big Pharma, which year after year rates among the top two or three most profitable industries in the world. This leaves the drug manufacturers free to carry out their vital, life-saving work. One example of that work appears today on John Mack’s highly informative Pharma Marketing Blog:

A Long Island man infringed on Pfizer’s trademark by towing a 20-foot replica missile with ‘Viva Viagra’ painted on its side through midtown Manhattan, eventually parking it in front of the drugmaker’s 42nd Street headquarters, a federal judge ruled.

This story dates back to last year, when a couple of guys from the Island came up with the rather kooky idea of using decommissioned military ordinance as an advertising medium. According to their web site, their company, Jet Angel, “takes the target marketing capabilities of mobile billboards and adds an experience for consumers to achieve the ultimate viewer captivation”—in other words, everyone is guaranteed to look at a giant missile being towed through the streets.

Apparently seeking to prove this claim, they emblazoned a missile with the slogan from Pfizer’s grotesque “Viva Viagra” ads, drove it around Manhattan, and hung out for a while in front of the drugmaker’s corporate headquarters. They followed up with an email to Pfizer:

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Good Speech, Muddled Politics

—By James Ridgeway

| Wed Sep. 9, 2009 6:54 PM PDT

Many people in Washington sadly have come to the conclusion that the moment for health care reform has come and gone. In short, that Obama’s inspiring speech was too little and too late.

What’s left is a dim possibility of limited reform. And many critics believe Obama can’t even get that.

However, it may just be that Obama, using the Democratic majority as a hammer, can achieve some limited change for the better. If so, that most likely will come from a base set forth by the Baucus plan announced yesterday, embellished and compromised during the joint House-Senate conference that will settle the issue.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]