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Today's
Stories
August 5, 2004
Peter Linebaugh
Doing Time for Political Crime:
Paul and Silas, Bound in Jail
August
4, 2004
Mickey
Z.
Two Traditions: WMD and Disinformation
Justin
Huggler
The Hunt for Bin Laden
John
Ross
Mexico's Dirty War Never Ended: Inside
Puente Grande Prison
August 3, 2004
Uri Avnery
The
Oligarchs
Ray McGovern
The 9/11 Commission Chimera
Jack McCarthy
Sexual Politics in Jeb's Florida
Eric Ruder
Meet Barak Obama: the Democrats' New Liberal Star
John L. Hess
Crying Wolf: Orange Alert!
Elaine Cassel
Civil Liberties Elections: 1800 v. 2004
Jules Rabin
The Man Who Didn't Walk By
Website of the Day
No Wall
August 2, 2004
Robert Jensen
Kerry's
Hypocrisy on the Vietnam War
Joshua Frank
Greens, Kerry and the Politics of Mendacity
Mike Whitney
The 9/11 Commission and Civil Liberties: "We Need an American
Police State"
Gary Leupp
Beyond
Good and Evil: Some Thoughts on Invasions
July 31 / Aug.
1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Kerry:
He's the (Any) One
Merlin Chowkwanyun
Five Questions with Noam Chomsky: "The Savage Extreme of
a Narrow Policy Spectrum"
David Lindorff
The Shame of the DNC
John Chuckman
The
Disturbing Words of John Edwards
Brian Cloughley
All Slam and No Dunk; All Blame and No Responsibility
Christopher Brauchli
"Being Poor is a State of Mind": the Frowning Face
of Compassionate Conservatism
Fred Gardner
A World of Pain
Michael Donnelly
How Big Pharma Bilks the Elderly
David Nally
Genocide in Darfur?
Joshua Frank
Forest Battles Escalate in Oregon
Sam Bahour
Colin Powell and My Grandmother
Diane Farsetta
The IMF and the Indonesian Elections: The Invisible Hand in the
Voting Booth
Harold Gould
Was Iraq a Mutual Charade?
Van Bergen / Stephens
Election 9/11: Surreal Political Theater
Lee Sustar
A New Model for the Labor Movement?
Ron Jacobs
The Lost Art of Hitchhiking
M. Junaid Alam
An Interview with Palestinian-American Rapper, The Iron Sheik
Poets Basement
Albert, Ford, Krieger, St. Clair
Website of
the Weekend
Cross Cultural Poetics
July 30, 2004
Kolhatkar /
Ingalls
Shattering
Illusions: Kerry's Speech Tells Anti-War Activists They're Not
Wanted
Dave Lindorff
Murder
Not So Foul?
Bruce Jackson
Walt Whitman on the Sound of Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Fidel Castro
The
Pathology of George W. Bush
Maximilien Robespierre
Memo to Kerry and Bush: Why They Resist
Saul Landau
Bush
Charges Castro with Sex Tourism; JFK Rolls Over in His Grave
Sex, Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
July 29, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Hail,
the Conquering War Criminal: What Kerry Really Did in Vietnam
Frank Bardacke
What
Michael Moore Left Out of F9/11
Tom Barry
Shallow and Formulaic: Kerry's Latin America Plan
Ron Jacobs
Kerry
and Lennon: Hawking the CounterCulture
Robert Fisk
The Unreported War
Lichtman /
Kellis-Borok
What Kerry Must Do to Win (But Probably Won't)
William S. Lind
The 9/11 Commission Report: Cashing in on Failure
CounterPunch
Wire
Doonesbury Onto John Kerry in 1971!
Website of
the Day
Jabbing JibJab: Copyright Madness
July 28, 2004
Robert Fisk
The
Occupation at 114 Degrees: Baghdad is Swamped in the Smell of
the Dead
Kevin Mink
Kerry's Misperception of Palestine
Ray McGovern
Israel and the Iraq War: How the 9/11 Report Soft-Pedals Root
Causes
United for
Peace & Justice
An
Open Letter to John Kerry: Winter Soldiers and Summer Patriots
Mike Ferner
Vets Demand End to Occupation: "Pull the Troops or Face
Impeachment Mvt."
Imraan Siddiqi
Turning Tricks with Ann Coulter
Alexander Cockburn
Candidate
Kerry
Website of
the Day
Iraq Vets Against the War
July 27, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
the Democrats Deserve Nader
Dave Lindorff
Back to the 19th Century: Globalization's Coming!
Mike Whitney
Control Room: Inside Al Jazeera
Ali, Anderson, Bello, et al.
If We Were Venezuelan, We'd Vote for Chavez
Stefan Wray
Texas Plan to Grab Los Alamos Takes Hold, as DOE Shuts Down Labs
Louis Proyect
Reflections on Nicaragua: First Came the Contra Butchers, Then
the Sweatshops
Rick Giombetti
Faith in Freedom: the Challenge of Thomas Szasz
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
The
9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus: Dogding Israel/Palestine;
Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism
July 26, 2004
Todd Chretien
Green
Resistance: a Reply to Normon Solomon & Medea Benjamin
Robert Fisk
Terror
by Video
Richard Forno
Security
Theater in Boston: Security Expert Harrassed by DHS for Exposing
Flaws at the Fleet Center
Mitchel Cohen
Report from a Boston Demo: Arresting the Curious
Richard Moreno
Rockers
for Justice: an Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian
Alexander Cockburn
Boston
Awaits a Dead Party
July
24 / 25, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Democrats and Their Conventions:
Part One
Dennis
Hans
Those 16 Words Still Smell, Mr. Bush
Patrick
Cockburn
The Struggle for Iraq is Only Beginning
Josh
Frank
The War Path of Unity: Dems Reject
the Peace Movement
Justin
E.H. Smith
Christianity and the Left: the Latin
American Experience
Tariq
Ali
What's at Stake in Venezuela
Fred
Gardner
The Politics of Pot: Year of the
Antagonist
Mark
Scaramella
There's Dope and There's Dope
Ron
Jacobs
The Weather Underground's Prairie
Fire Statement...35 Years On
July
23, 2004
Lee
Sustar
Revolution in Nicaragua: 25 Years
On
Dave
Lindorff
Battle for NYC: Bush 1, Protesters
0
Saul
Landau
Zaniest President in US History: Bush
Beats Reagan
Mike
Whitney
The 9/11 Whitewash: Blaming No One
Mickey
Z
Get On the Bus: 150 Years After Elizabeth
Jennings
Gary
Leupp
The 9/11 Commission and the Looming
War on Iran
July
22, 2004
M.
Junaid Alam
Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat
Brian
McKinlay
Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon
Jason
Leopold
Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While
CEO of Halliburton
Chris
Floyd
Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths
Uri
Avnery
Chirac v. Sharon
July
21, 2004
Paula
J. Caplan
The Emotional Casualities of War: Psychologists
Can't Heal All the Damage
Joshua
Frank
Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's be Fair
Ron
Jacobs
American Exceptionalism
Reza
Ghorashi
The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda
Amy
Martin
Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals?
John
Ross
Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go On and On
|
August 5, 2004
Two Rejections
From Pelican
Bay to Portland
By
BRUCE ANDERSON
Go
figure.
I'm
approved to visit the California state prisons at Susanville and
Salinas but not Pelican Bay where I'd hoped, and still hope, to
visit my friend Jack Morris, a resident of Pelican Bay's infamous
SHU or Security Housing Unit. Pelican Bay sends me a form letter
saying, "According to the Department of Justice, you have failed
to list your complete arrest history."
My
application had apparently been forwarded by Pelican Bay to the
FBI, an agency that began tracking me back in 1962 on the basis
of the political affiliations of my youth, I suppose. Pelican Bay
had thoughtfully stamped my FBI file number on my visitor's app:
FBI-22648IRA5 and AO2109784, whatever these latter identifiers signify.
For
the record, and although as a kid I kept regular company with commies
of all kinds, I am, philosophically considered, an anarcho-syndicalist,
the only political theories that have ever resonated with me, although
reading Marx in my formative years has been kinda like eating forbidden
fruit in that ever after absorbing the old boy's explanation of
the way the world works I've seen it his way as the truest explanation
there is. I always liked Eugene Debs, a democratic socialist, and
I've admired everything I've ever read about the old IWW, but I'm
no Leninist. Never have been.
As
for arrest record, jeepers, creepers, who's had their peeeeepers
on meeeeeee, a harmless old beatnik whose first arrest as an adult
occurred, I think, in 1959 and whose last occurred, I think, in
1995 for a grand total of, I think, a dozen or so, all of them but
one -- a barroom scuffle -- occurring in political protest contexts.
What
now, then? Do I write to the FBI to update me on my own interfaces
with the lowest levels of the national security state? I even can't
remember all of them, and even if I could, and even if I wrote them
all down, do I get to visit Jack? I've always been flattered that
the G-Men have taken such an intense interest in me, and I have
no hesitation in declaring myself not only an enemy of the state
but capitalism, the two having become interchangeable in America
after Honest Abe, but still I thought one's belief systems were
one's own free enterprise in the land of the not-so-free, so what
the hell is this? And me, an honorably discharged Marine, a homeowner,
a man who rotates his tires, a patriot in his bones?
Fresh
off my rejection by Pelican Bay, and still commuting between Boonville
and Eugene as the Missus and I complete our move to the north, last
Saturday I flew from Eugene to Frisco, via an hour's delay in the
hot, stuffy overcrowded Portland airport. As directed by Alaska
Airlines, I had arrived at the Eugene Airport an hour before a little
plane was scheduled to depart for Portland with me on it. The little
plane with me on it had "The Great City of Redding" emblazoned
beneath the cockpit's port window, a clear indication of severe
delusion and maybe even a bad omen.
At
the gate to the transit area, a grim-faced cop says to me, "Mr.
Anderson, you've been selected for a security check." Lucky
me, I reply, before noting that the cop is clearly a member of that
potentially lethal sub-species known as Limited Ability, Automaton
Personality Type. No playing around with this character or its off
to the cement side room for the full monte bend over and spread
'em keester search. The cop waves a wand at my front bod. He tells
me to turn around where he waves the wand at my rear bod. I hear
a child say, "Look, Mommy. A bad man." Then the cop runs
the wand under my armpits, and sticks it in the area of my pills
which, even in my youth were never grenades. "Your wallet,
please." Your mother, you prick, I don't say.
He
asks, "Why didn't you put that stuff in your pocket in the
tray?" I forgot, I reply. The cop glares at me. "What's
this thing?" he asks, holding up an inflatable rubber cushion
I sit on for long-distance drives. It's a life raft, I reply, explaining
that I don't trust Alaska Airlines' seat cushions to float if the
plane goes down in the Columbia. Another glare.
"Turn
your wasteband out towards me." He stares at the stitching
for a long time before ordering, "Take your shoes off."
I'm wearing sandals, officer. Bunions, you know. I hike a lot. Our
Savior wore them too, you know. But just as I was picking up momentum
to lay some *serious* tedium on him, the cop silences me with, "*Whatever*
you've got on your feet, take it off."
Better
stop messing with this nut, I tell myself. I don't want to miss
my flight outtahere. The little girl pipes up again. "Mommy?
Is the bad man going on the air plane with us?" Mom says, "It
looks like it." I wonder how many more defective parents there
are in Eugene. Finally, the cop says, "You can put your shoes
on. Thank you." And thank *you*, officer, for keeping America
safe.
Bruce
Anderson is publisher of the Anderson Valley Advertiser.
Weekend Edition July 17 / 18, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations is
Must Reading
Ghada
Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians
Lenni
Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader
Ben
Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story
Brandy
Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?
M.
Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA
Patrick
Bond
The George Bush of Africa
Fred
Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics
William
Blum
Bush and Thucydides
Ben
Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything Wrong
with a General Running the Country"
Tom
Barry
John Lehman on the War Path
David
Vest
Dylan Without the Music
Phyllis
Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons
Ron
Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out
Joshua
Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"
David
Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot
Toni
Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Landau,
Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911
Poets's
Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert
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