Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today's
Stories
June
16, 2004
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
June
11, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Reagan in Truth and Fiction
Ron
Jacobs
Ray Charles' Legacy of Spirit
Chris
Floyd
Funeral Games
Steven
Sherman
How Reagan Destroyed the Democrats and Paved the Way for Clinton
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Remembering Reagan
Norman
Solomon
Media's Mourning in America
Paul
Alexander
The Kerry Fantasies of Chalmers Johnson
CounterPunch
Wire
The Terror Hour: Miami TV Station Invites Commandoes to Talk
About Planned Attacks on Cuba
June
10, 2004
Noam
Chomsky
The Apotheosis of Reagan : Divinity
Through Marketing
Gary
Leupp
Bush, the Religious Scholar
Patrick
Cockburn
The Iraqi Street Has Spoken: New
Govt. Made Up of CIA Pawns
Saul
Landau
Force-Feeding Lies About Free Trade
Scott
Evans
Settling for the System: How Punkvoter.com Became Just Another
Tool of the Democrats
Jacob
Levich
John Kerry's World of Hurt: Senator Supports Beam Weapons
Zeynep
Toufe
Reagan, Neo-Cons and the "Intelligence Failures"
Nico
Pitney
Reform at Wal-Mart?
Dave
Zirin
Son of a Reagan: What a Sporty 6-Year Old Saw at the Revolution
Jack
McCarthy
Where Were You When Reagan Croaked?
Gary
Corseri
Nouns That Should be Acronyms
David
Price
Reagan and the Black Budget
Website
of the Day
Inequality by the Numbers
June
9, 2004
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Israel's Common Use of Torture
Must be Exposed
Mike
Whitney
Alan Dershowitz, Still Defending
Torture
John
Chuckman
Why the CIA will Always be a Costly Flop
Jim
Tarbell / Roger Burbach
Bush's Democratic Charade in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Put Reagan on the $3 Bill
Miguel
D'Escoto
Reagan was the Butcher of My People
Becky
Burgwin
The Betrayal of Smarty Jones: Flogging a Natural Born Hero
Patrick
Cockburn
The Rich Have Been Warned to Leave
Baghdad
June
8, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Nature of Ronald Reagan: Will
the Earth Accept His Corpse?
Dave
Lindorff
The March on Rumsfeld's House: Is
the US Anti-War Movement Running Out of Steam?
Phillip
Cryan
Torture, Bombings & the Press in
Colombia
Mark
Zepezauer
Getting Reagan Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Reagan, Radicals and Repetitive Reactions
John
L. Hess
Reagan and Bush in Normandy
Alex
Dawoody
Reagan and Saddam: the Unholy Alliance
Christopher
Fons
Reagan in a Word: Mean
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Some Tenets are More Important Than Others
Ahmed
Bouzid
Nothing New Under the Israeli Sun
Michael
Leon
Bush the Narcissist
June
7, 2004
Jason
Leopold
New Enron Docs Show Lay and Skilling
Knew of California Trading Schemes
Patrick
Cockburn
The Baghdad Bombings: the Pattern
of Attacks is Changing
Dennis
Hans
From Afghanistan to El Salvador: Reagan's
Dark Global Legacy
Tracy
McLellan
Nader at the National Press Club:
a Glimpse at a Different Kind of Politics
Bill
Blum
The Myth of the Gipper: Reagan Didn't
End the Cold War
Ben
Tripp
What I Owe Reagan: the Brylcreemed
Bullshitter
Susan
Davis
Reagan, In a Nutshell
Phil
Gasper
Reagan: Goodbye and Good Riddance
Website
of the Day
A Child's ABCs of Terrorism
June
5 / 6, 2004
C.
Douglas Lummis
Toward a Universal Declaration of
Human Wrongs
Saul
Landau
Five Cubans in Prison, Victims of Bush's Obsession
Dave
Lindorff
John Walker Lindh, Revisited
Brian
Cloughley
Apologies, Please, From Those Who Got It Wrong
Rich
Gibson
The Grenada 17: the Last Prisoners of the Cold War are Black
Elaine
Cassel
A Sorry FBI
Cathrin
Schütz
On the Ruins of Yugoslavia
Ben
Tripp
Call Me, Mr. Cassandra
Kurt
Nimmo
The Madness of King George
Ron
Jacobs
They Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Unless We Make It So)
Laura
Flanders
The Lynne Cheney Show?
Lenni
Brenner
Renaissance Noir: Caravaggio at the Met
Abigail
Jones
Whatever Happened to Lori Berenson, President Toledo's Trophy
Prisoner?
Mark
Latham
Nothing Bush Said Has Changed Our Hopes
Gerry
Adams
I Was Photographed While Tortured, Too
Toni
Solo
Venezuela 2004, Nicaragua's Contra War Reprised
Derek
Seidman
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old
M.
Junaid Alam
Torture is Just the Symptom
Matt
Siegfried
An American Way of War
Dave
Zirin
The Politics of Charles Barkley
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Krieger, St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
Overnight Sensations
June
4, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Masked and Anonymous: Inside America's
Animal House
Cornwell
/ Penketh
Exit Tenet: the Fall of a Fall Guy
Wayne
Madsen
Apprehension & Frustation: Neo-Cons on the Brink
Greg
Moses
Agitating for Workers' Rights in Iraq
Yitzak
Laor
Before Rafah
Ghali
Hassan
Ambassador to Death Squads: Who is Negroponte?
Jane
Stillwater
God, the Rapture and Vera Casey
CounterPunch
Wire
D-Day Reconsidered: Was It Really Worth the Carnage?
John
Borowski
Woo-Wooism v. Meteorites: Why the Dems Are No Match for Bush
Mike
Griffin
Caterpillar's Assault on the UAW
Alexander Cockburn
Has Bush Gone Over the Edge?
Website
of the Day
Aquae Urbis Romae:
Water and Empire
June
3, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Iran's Nuclear Dilemma
Dr.
Susan Block
America in tha Hood
Michael
Donnelly
The Bully and the Brahmin
John
Chuckman
Insanity in America: US Ranks Number
One in the Deranged
Christopher
Brauchli
The Return of Cardinal Law: Rome
on $12,000 a Month
Samia
Nassar Melki
Caravaggio in Iraq
Mike
Whitney
Subverting Justice: Pre-Trial Ruminations in the Padilla Case
Diane
Rejman
Memorial Day Isn't Just About the Dead
Scott
Morris
"WMDs" in Cuba
Paul
de Rooij
Palestinian Misery in Perspective
June
2, 2004
Brian
Cloughley
The Liars are Winning
Ray
McGovern
How Far Would They Go? Beware "Credible
Intelligence"
Josh
Frank
The Anybody But Bush Offensive
Mike
Whitney
The Afghanistan Failure: Bush's Warlord Patriots
Jackie
Corr
Iraq and Ireland: Three Tales from Butte, Montana
Robert
Jensen
The US Lost the Iraq War...and It's a Good Thing, Too
Alexander
Cockburn
"Bye, Bye Boonville!"
June
1, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Instant Karma: Bush's Sins Catch Up
with Him
William
A. Cook
Manufacturers of Fear and Loathing in
Rafah
Dave
Lindorff
Will the Times Clean House?
Kevin
Zeese
Inside the Kerry / Nader Meeting: Did
the Kerry Campaign Lie About What Was Discussed?
Jacob
Levich
Coming Soon: Return of the Draft,
a Bipartisan Production
Kathy
Kelly
Voices in the Wilderness v. the US
Government
Website
of the Day
Remind Us
May
29 / 31, 2004
Lee
Ballinger / Dave Marsh
The Origins of Memorial Day
Janine
Pommy Vega
Memo for Memorial Day
Mike
Ferner
On Their Way to Abu Ghraib
Alfred
W. McCoy
The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research
Douglas
Valentine
An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions
Chris
White
First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto
Bruce
Anderson
The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu
David
Vest
Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire
Saul
Landau
Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy?
Kurt
Nimmo
Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA
Elaine
Cassel
The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders
Will
Potter
The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps;
Get Arrested as a "Terrorist"
Ben
Tripp
They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches
Dr.
Susan Block
Save Abu Ghraib!
Kia
Kojouri
Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an
Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh
Mickey
Z
D-Day: 60 Years is Enough!
Jon
Brown
Correcting the Correction at the Times
Patrick
B. Barr
Pre-emptive War Insurance
Stephen
Gowans
Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel
Tom
Gorman
Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly
New
Dave
Zirin
Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa
Muhammad
Gregory
Weiher
Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy"
Erik
Cummings
Jung Meets Bush
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert
May
28, 2004
Rafael
Rodriguez Cruz
Curtain of Silence on the Cuban 5
Greg
Moses
Bush's Misleading Speech on Abu Ghraib
Dave
Lindorff
Dissing Independent Contractors:
Those Who Do the Dirty Work
Norman
Solomon
Leaping for Lies at the Times
Rep.
Bill Delahunt
Bush's Cruel New Rules on Cuba
Paul
McGeough
Chalabi Baba and the 40 Thieves
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India and Nehru: 40 Years After
Alexander
Cockburn
NYTs: "Maybe We Did Screw Up...a
Little"
May
27, 2004
Amy
Goodman / David Goodman
Fatal Errors: the Lies of Our Times
Douglas
Valentine
Ragging the Dogs of War at the
NYTs
John
L. Hess
The Times Confesses...Kind Of
Stew
Albert
Dellinger, the Wrestling Pacifist
Dave
Dellinger
a 1993 Interview
Christopher
Brauchli
Tax Breaks for Scions...to Hell with Poor Kids
Rampton
/ Stauber
Banana Republicans: Pumping Irony
May
26, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Goodbye, David Dellinger: He Was a
Friend of Ours
Robert
Fisk
The Things Bush Didn't Say in His Speech
Zeynep
Toufe
New Draft UN Resolution Permits Perpetual Occupation
Conn
Hallinan
Bush and Sharon: the Oil Connection
Tom
Stephens
2 + 2 is On My Mind: More Morons
and War Crimes
Derek
Medley
Protesting Gov. Bigot
CounterPunch
Wire
FBI Abducts Artist; Seizes Art
Andrew
Cockburn
The Trail to Tehran
May
25, 2004
Joe
Bageant
The Covert Kingdom: On Earth as It
is in Texas
Col.
Dan Smith
A Question of Human Dignity
Gary
Handschumacher
Visiting Lori Berenson: Time to Bring Her Home
Toni
Solo
A Developing War in the Andes
Marc
Estrin
September Song: Disturbing Questions
About 9/11
Stephen
Banko, III
A Vietnam Vet on "Supporting the
Troops"
Website
of the Day
The Wizard of Whimsy
May
24, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Dan Senor is Safe!
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Tricks & TortureGate: the
Missing Taguba Pages
Sam
Hamod
Gen. Zinni: "Wrong War, Wrong
Place, Wrong Time"
Mike
Whitney
The Wedding was a Bomb
Stan
Goff
Open Season on MAMs
Image
of the Day
A Photo from Abu Ghraib We Didn't See on the Front Page of the
NYTs
May
22 / 23, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
Colin Powell, a Political Obituary
Jeffrey
St. Clair
When War is Swell: Bush and the Carlyle Group
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Her Son Was Told He Wouldn't See Combat; Now He's Dead: an Interview
with Sue Niederer
Brian
Cloughley
America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq
Saul
Landau
Democracy in Latin America: Great for Investors; Not So Good
for People
Brandy
Baker
Feminists Stand By Their Man: Abortion, Judges and Kerry
Randall
Robinson
Bushwhacked in the Caribbean
Uri
Avnery
The Rape of Rafah
Ben
Tripp
Assume the Worst
Bruce
Anderson
News from Ecotopia: the Truth About the Wine Business
Josh
Ruebner
Why I Burned My Israeli Military Papers
Peter
Wolson, Ph. D.
Exhibitionistic Revenge at Abu Ghraib
Chloe
Cockburn
In Defense of "Troy": What Hector Could Teach Rummy
Linda
Burnham
Sexual Domination in Uniform: an American Value
Adrien
Rain Burke
War of the Necrophiliacs: Spc. Sabrina Harman and Her Corpse
David
Krieger
Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy
Ron
Jacobs
Turnaround
Poets'
Basement
Ford, Albert & LaMorticella
May 21, 2004
Ray
Close
The Canards of the Apologists
Christopher
Brauchli
"The Object of Torture is Torture"
Amira
Hass
Darkness at Noon
Jack
McCarthy
Camilo Mejia: Can the Son of a Sandinista Get a Fair Trial from
the US Army?
Bill
Kauffman
Nader v. Bush
Omar
Barghouti
No More Tears for America
Ghali
Hassan
Moral Failure of the "Free World" in Gaza
Christopher
Reed
How the CIA Taught the Portuguese to
Torture
Website
of the Day
Eric Idle on the Bush Administration: Fuck You, So Very Much
May
20, 2004
Andrew
Cockburn
The Truth About Chalabi
Kathy
Kelly
A Visit from the FBI
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Brown and Bored of Education in India
Tom
Stephens & John Philo
The War Crimes of Bush, Cheney & Co.
Sam
Bahour / Michael Dahan
Genocide by Public Policy
Robert
Ovetz
Ending the Race for the Last Turtle
Billy
Wilson
The Most Important Thing I Learned at School This Year
Website
of the Day
Rafah Today
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Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
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Death Train of the WTO
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Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
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J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
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True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
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Impeach
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|
Bloomsday
June 16, 2004
A
Question for Kerry Supporters
Who
is More Decadent? Kerry, His Party or His Church?
By
LENNI BRENNER
The catch-cry of early 2004 was "anyone
but Bush." Anyone turned out to be John Forbes Kerry &
a question arises. Frankly, I don't have the answer. Maybe his
supporters can help me out:
Who is more decadent? Kerry,
his party or his church?
He has a family religious history
out of a novel. He recently was informed that his paternal grandparents
were Jews. Grandfather Fritz Kohn was born in the Czech part
of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1873. He converted to Catholicism
in 1902 & became Frederick Kerry, while still in the empire.
He emigrated to Boston & married Ida Lowe, who had also
converted from Judaism to Catholicism. Then, years later, before
our candidate was born, he committed suicide.
John grew up knowing nothing
of this. But, if he wins, he will be, simultaneously, the 1st
alter boy to become President, & the 1st of Jewish descent.
Of course, as a Catholic Massachusetts
Democrat, JFK follows his hero, John F. Kennedy, declaring himself
politically independent of the church. He votes for legal abortion
& Co. He told a 2003 audience that "one of my objections
to this administration is that it has crossed that delicate
line that our forefathers drew in the Constitution that separates
church and state. And it is vital for us to hold on to that
line."
Indeed Thomas Jefferson &
James Madison, cofounders of his party, did their best to separate
the two. But Kerry lied. He is for legally linking them.
His politics are smothered
in religion. However, he is aware that Catholics, 44% of Massachusetts,
are only 23.7% of Americans. Protestants & other Christians
are 58.5%. His hustle is pandering to the religious & political
ignorance of most white Protestants, Democrat & Republican,
without overly antagonizing Catholics, conservative or liberal,
plus secularists, Jews, gays, within his party.
On June 26, 2002, Michael Newdow
got the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to rule that "under
God" in his daughter's school's Pledge of Allegiance violates
the 1st Amendment's "Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof."
Within hours, the Senate voted
99-0 for a Democrat-authored resolution directing its legal
counsel "to seek to intervene in the case to defend the
constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance." Kerry told
Boston TV that the ruling was "half-assed justice ... the
most absurd thing ... That's not the establishment of religion."
Of course Jefferson had no
religious pledge for students to recite. On April 13, 1820 the
author of Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom & father
of its University, wrote to William Short:
"The history of our University
you know .... The serious enemies are the priests of the different
religious sects, to whose spells on the human mind it's improvement
is ominous .... They pant to re-establish, by law that holy
inquisition, which they can now only infuse into public opinion
.... But in despite of their fulminations against endeavors
to enlighten the general mind, to improve the reason of the
people, and to encourage them in the use of it, the liberality
of this State will support this institution, and give fair play
to the cultivation of reason."
Madison pushed Jefferson's
statute thru Virginia's legislature. He went on to be "the
father of the Constitution" & author of the Bill of
Rights. After Jefferson's death he replaced him as University
Rector. A March 19, 1823 letter to Edward Everett declared that
"The difficulty of reconciling
the Xn mind to the absence of a religious tuition from a University
established by law and at the common expence, is probably less
with us than with you. The settled opinion here is that religion
is essentially distinct from Civil Govt and exempt from its
cognizance; that a connexion between them is injurious to both;
that there are causes in the human breast, which ensure the
perpetuity of religion without the aid of the law."
Francis Bellamy, Baptist minister
& Socialist, wrote the Pledge in 1892 for the 400th anniversary
of the 'discovery' of America. But there was no "under
God" in it. Congress added the words in 1954, after a campaign
by the Catholic Knights of Columbus.
Its theological pronouncement
was part of a bipartisan demagogic strategy in the face of ideological
& military challenge by atheist Stalinism. Its words officially
'established' the God of the domestic "Judeo-Christian way
of life" that politicians of the day endlessly defended
against "Godless, atheistic Communism."
Kerry & his party's leaders
know this. But Gallup tells them that 53% of Americans don't
understand that the Bill of Rights & the 1st 10 Amendments
are one & the same. They see that 84% opposed the court
striking "under God" from the Pledge. These worldlings
know Gallup's 2/25/03 Briefing said that 67% of self-identified
Democrats believe there is a devil. They read Gallup's 9/9/03
report: "even among liberals and Democrats, majorities
disapprove" a federal court's 11/02 ruling that Alabama
Chief Justice Roy Moore had to remove his 10 Commandments 'rock'
from his courthouse.
The scientific community is
increasingly secularist & liberal. So are much of academia
& the media. According to The American Religious Identification
Survey - 2001, non-religious -- atheists, agnostics, humanists,
etc. -- are now 14%, 1 of 7 Americans, & growing, particularly
among college educated. But 'liberal' takes on different meaning
among rural Americans, 21% of voters & mostly white, Blacks
& Hispanics. Beyond the 24% of Americans, 17% of Blacks,
with college degrees & the millions more in schools, it
frequently means vague economic populism & sexual tolerance,
combined with formal theocratic fundamentalism. Forty-seven
percent of Americans, 57% of Blacks, believe God created the
world within the last 10,000 years.
Most US Protestants know nothing
of the history of Madison's 1st Amendment or what it meant to
him. He did his best to separate religion & government at
every level. He didn't get all he wanted. He felt separation
should apply to the 13 states, as well as the federal government,
but Massachusetts had an official Congregational religion until
1833. The religious right feeds churchgoers similar remnants
of British church-state alliance thinking that the founders
carried over into their new republic, "Done ... in the year
of our Lord one thousand and eighty seven" at the end of
the Constitution, Washington's Thanksgiving proclamation, etc.
But most believers don't know Jefferson & Madison's mature
anti-clerical writings exist.
That said, Protestants take
more liberal stances on sex than Kerry's church. It opposes
masturbation, contraception, vasectomy, in vitro fertilization,
sex outside of marriage & divorce other than for adultery,
as well as abortion & euthanasia. They've been known to
masturbate, use condoms, etc. Divorce is almost as common among
Protestants as marriage use to be. When it comes down to it,
they are for legal abortion in some or all situations presently
permitted. They interpret Kerry's statements as he means them
to: 'I promise to accept your Protestant standards, prayers
in schools & privacy in the bedroom.'
That Kerry gets away with using
Kennedy as his homeboy Catholic secularist role model reminds
us that most Americans are historical illiterates. In 2003,
Gallup reported that "three-quarters ... think more than
one man was involved in Kennedy's assassination .... The public
is equally likely to mention Kennedy as Abraham Lincoln (17%
each) when asked to name the greatest US president."
Right-wingers think the Soviets
killed Kennedy (15%), or Cuba (15%). Liberals go CIA (34%) or
Lyndon Johnson (18%). The 56% of Americans picking the Mafia
are largely nonpolitical youth.
In life, Kennedy & his
Attorney-General, brother Bobby, committed the greatest criminal
violation of separation of church & state in US history.
They wiretapped Martin Luther King's phone & bugged his
hotel rooms. It came out in post-Watergate revelations, &
is discussed in established biographies of Kennedy & King.
Yet how many of the Americans, Blacks, Catholics or Democrats
who give themselves a hernia from worrying about who killed that
wonderful man are aware of his unconstitutional spying?
One Democrat does, unless we
are to believe that a Massachusetts Catholic Democratic Senator
doesn't know that a Massachusetts Catholic Democratic President's
infamy can be found on the shelves of every library in his state.
To be sure, Catholic Kennedy
had nothing to do with this. The Pope didn't put him up to it.
Democrat Kennedy did it. The FBI was looking for Commies among
King's advisers. In the June 7 New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg
quotes Kennedy's 1960 speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial
Association, citadel of Protestantism, declaring that "the
separation of church and state is absolute." Hertzberg
says that "it is just barely possible to imagine such a
speech being delivered today by Senator Kerry. Could the same
be said of President Bush?"
I rise in Kerry's defense.
His ghost-writers are as good as Kennedy's. The problem is that
his deeds will be as bad as Kennedy's. His vote for the Patriot
Act, combined with insistence that a secret-police president
is his hero, tell us that his idol's crimes would be a reasonable
worst-case template for a Kerry administration, facing Islamic
terrorism abroad, & growing left anti-war opposition at
home.
Kerry's latest foray into spirituality
is his endorsement of the Workplace Religious Freedom Act. It
would give employees the right to seek accommodations for their
religious practices as long as they do not create an undue hardship
for the employer. The legislation defines undue hardship as
a significant cost -- financial or logistical -- to the business.
It is supported by the National
Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention
& the major Jewish organizations. But the ACLU is opposed.
It warns that the legislation could create scenarios whereby
people use their religious practices as an excuse to violate
the civil rights of others.
It is concerned that religious
people could then legitimately refuse to work with the opposite
gender or gays. Or that they would justify proselytizing on
the job, which provokes bitter arguments, or even wear swastikas,
which would start riots.
The ACLU points to recent court
rulings that employers didn't need to accommodate religious
practices & asks whether courts would rule the same way under
WRFA.
It cites a police officer⤙s
request to refuse to protect an abortion clinic & a social
worker's Bible readings with prison inmates in counseling sessions.
The ACLU says that the Act "is overly broad in the way
it was drafted, and could cause problems for employers that
want to enforce non-discrimination policies that go further."
It wants a bill that would only require employers accommodating
re holiday observances, religious clothing & beards.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency
reports that "Jewish leaders believe Kerry⤙s
vocal support for the legislation, which he touted when he spoke
to the Anti-Defamation League in May, could counterbalance the
ACLU."
Just because he's running for
President & sees a chance to get some pious votes, people
suddenly start badmouthing him, calling him a demagogue. But
let's be fair to the guy. This isn't the 1st time & it won't
be the last time he panders to one, some or all religions.
Bush just visited John Paul
ll. He was critical of the President's war but he continues
"to follow with great appreciation your commitment to the
promotion of moral values in American society, particularly
with regard to respect for life and the family." In fact,
the Pope's critique of Bush's war won't help Kerry with Catholic
voters, & his "appreciation" of Bush's anti-abortion
& contraception stands won't hurt Kerry. Ireland's classic
Catholic saying is "I take my religion from Rome, &
my politics from home." But in the US, most Catholics take
neither religion nor politics from Rome.
There is 1 Catholic church/state
issue that is almost universally unknown. The US stopped recognizing
the Papal States in the 19th century. But Reagan reestablished
diplomatic relations with the Vatican as part of a strategy to
use the 1st Polish Pope in defeating Soviet Stalinism in his
homeland. The USSR is history, but the US still recognizes the
Vatican as a state.
Early American diplomacy recognized
the Papal States because the Pope ruled a temporal government
extending across Italy from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian Seas.
The Vatican's 113 acres were established in 1929 under the Lateran
Treaty between the Papacy & Mussolini, designed to settle
church claims re its lost territories, seized by the Kingdom
of Italy in 1870.
Its the headquarters of the
Roman Catholic Church, an architectural masterpiece & superb
museum, but nothing more. Recognizing it as a temporal state
is no better than recognizing the Jehovah's Witnesses' new headquarters,
north of New York City, which likewise occupies a goodly acreage
(& has the world's worst art).
Beyond treaties, the Supremes
tend not to accept cases challenging the constitutionality of
US foreign policy. The 1776 revolutionaries had no choice but
to wheel & deal with despots. Their alliance with France's
Louis XVl was crucial to winning independence. As America's
Plenipotentiary to his court, 1785-89, Jefferson played a major
role in the French revolution. The educated wanted an American
style regime, & moderate revolutionaries met in his home.
But with degeneration of the anti-clerical republic into Napoleon's
empire, world politics became Britain in Canada, playing Indians
off against the US, the Pope, Muslim pirates in Tripoli, Bonaparte
in Louisiana & Haiti, with its slave revolt, et al. Jefferson
& Madison lived in a wooden ship vs. iron cannonball world,
full of unpleasant but necessary diplomatic maneuvers &
inevitable wars.
Ratified treaties bind the
US to obligations subject to public legal scrutiny. Beyond them,
mandatory adherence to the 1st amendment in dealing with the
world clearly can't be found in the constitution. The Bill of
Rights & religious freedom came along with America's moon-rocket,
but where a hand-held rocket, given to Afghan Islamic fundamentalists
by Kerry & Bush's parties, ended up doesn't come within
the Supremes' purview, whatever historians think of the start
of the chain of catastrophes that led to 9/11.
However, if we could scroll
him up to our times, recognizing the Vatican today, when it
isn't a state, is hardly Jeffersonian. His last letter, written
10 days before his July 4th, 1826 death, tells anyone with eyes
what he hoped his Declaration would ultimately do:
"May it be to the world,
what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others
later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst
the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had
persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings
and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted,
restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason
and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the
rights of man.
The general spread of the light
of science has already laid open to every view the palpable
truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles
on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready
to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds
of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of
this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights,
and an undiminished devotion to them."
Kerry gets away with breaking
with the church's position on abortion because average American
Catholics are Protestants who are too culturally unsophisticated
to know it. At every level there is dissent from the party line.
Priests bail out over celibacy. Gays organize within the ranks.
Victims of pedophile priests sue bishops. Catholic university
science courses generate secularists, not monks.
The 12/18/99 NY Times published
an article re a survey of the NY Archdiocese (which includes
2.4 million Catholics in Manhattan, the Bronx & 8 upstate
NY counties, but not the 3 other city boroughs). "567 said
their religious preference was Catholic, 198 said they were
former Catholics."
That since then the national
church increasingly hemorrhaged parishioners is universally
understood. But the poll's distilled numbers still give us a
broad picture of the political & religious spectrum within
the remaining flock.
To make sense of their stats,
staff demographers broke down 'Catholic' into Catholic Raised,
Catholic Now, "based on those who consider themselves Catholics;
Practicing ... describe themselves as practicing, Non-Practicing
are Catholics now who do not describe themselves as practicing;
Former Catholics ... were raised Catholic but don't consider
themselves Catholics today."
Selected poll stats tell us
much about the factors producing the collapse.
Catholic Now: Male/Female 43/57
Do you consider yourself
a practicing Catholic?
Yes 71 No 27 NA 2
Practicing: Male/Female 42/58
[A]ppropriate for religious
leaders to take a public position on abortion?
Practicing: Appropriate
59 Not 37
[A]ppropriate for them to
urge people to vote for or against a political candidate because
of the candidate's stand on abortion?
Practicing: Appropriate
31 Not 64
Cardinal O'Connor has said
elected officials who are Catholic face possible excommunication
if they publicly support abortion rights. Do you approve or
disapprove of this action by Cardinal O'Connor?
Practicing:
Approve 33 Disapprove 60
Are you in favor of or opposed
to letting Catholic priests get married?
Practicing:
Favor 51 Oppose 41
[L]etting women be ordained
as Catholic priests?
Practicing:
Favor 56 Oppose 38
[L]etting homosexuals become
Catholic priests if they remain celibate?
Practicing:
Favor 46 Oppose 43
Abortion should be generally
available to those who want it; or 2. Abortion should be available
but under stricter limits than it is now; or 3. Abortion should
not be permitted?
Practicing:
Available 24 Stricter
limits 43 Not Permitted 32 DK/NA 2
Do you think homosexual relations
between consenting adults in their own house should be legal
or illegal?
Practicing:
Legal 62 Illegal 25
[S]omeone who engages in homosexual
relations can still be a good Catholic?
Practicing: Yes 68 No
21
Are you of Hispanic origin
or descent, or not?
Practicing: Hispanic - 30 -
Not Hispanic - 59
Was your total family income
in 1998 UNDER $15,000, $15,000-$29,999, $30,000-$49,999, $50,000-$75,000,
OVER $75,000, REFUSED
Practicing:
UNDER $15,000 11 $15,000-$29,999
18 $30,000-$49,999 30 $50,000-$75,000 13 OVER
$75,000 16 REFUSED 12
==
Non-Practicing:
Gender
Male/Female Non-Practicing 47/53
Hispanic - 48 - Not Hispanic
- 44
Non-Practicing:
UNDER $15,000 18 $15,000-$29,999
22 $30,000-$49,999 24 $50,000-$75,000 12 OVER
$75,000 13 REFUSED 11
==
Former Catholics:
Male/Female 42/58
Did you attend ... a Catholic
... school?
Elementary 23 High School
5 Both 19 No 52 DK/NA 1
[L]ast grade in school you
completed?
Not a HS grad 19 HS grad
- 27 Some College 24 College grad 17 Post grad
13
What is your religious preference
today?
None 46 Protestant
40 Jewish 1 Other 8 DK/NA 4
Some people think of themselves
as evangelical, or fundamentalist, or charismatic. Do you ever
think of yourself in any of these ways?
Yes - 30 No - 64 NA 6
Are you of Hispanic origin
or descent, or not?
Hispanic 36 Not Hispanic
55
Was your total family income
in 1998 UNDER $15,000, $15,000-$29,999, $30,000-$49,999, $50,000-$75,000,
OVER $75,000, REFUSED
UNDER $15,000 17
$15,000-$29,999 22
$30,000-$49,999 20
$50,000-$75,000 18
OVER $75,000 18
REFUSED
5
Understanding polls is an art
& a science. By luck, I interviewed the world's greatest
demographer, the late Egon Mayer of City University of New York.
The American Religious Identification Survey - 2001, a poll
of 50,000 Americans, the 2nd largest ever done, taught him a
deep truth:
"The religious right makes
the most noise. It sounds like its gaining strength. But reality
is the other way around. The percentage saying they have no
religion is growing. More important, millions of people are changing
their religious ideas and organizations in a liberal direction."
Gallup's historic stats confirm
this. In the 1930s, they didn't dare ask Americans if they would
vote for a Black for President. Most whites would have hung
up the phone. Today over 90% say they would. The notion of full
human equality became central to our culture with the Black
civil rights struggle of the 1950s & 60s. It immediately
generated a mass women's movement. Equally important, the 1969
Stonewall Inn riot triggered off a huge gay movement which made
similar legal gains.
'Mass movement' is a misunderstood
term. These were hugh. But most Blacks, women, gays, weren't
marching, let alone most whites, who either opposed them or
did nothing beyond vaguely sympathize with their egalitarian
demands. But equality before the law became the secular reality
& its impact percolated thru American society.
As everywhere, the overwhelming
majority grow up believing in their family religion. They acquire
further basic values from their schools, religious or secular.
Since the 60s, all state-certified schools must at least formally
teach human equality. The mass Christian sects, Catholicism
the largest, follow an ancient text full of male chauvinism
& homophobia. What we are experiencing is the slow but steady
destruction of those venerable sects as the reality that society
is legally egalitarian, & the better for it, becomes the
dominant element in the average American Christian's cultural
values.
The Bible says God created
man in his image. We witness the unmistakable opposite. Millions
are cleaning up God's act for him, in response to unmistakably
higher secular standards. Sect after sect is waging a mini-civil
war over ordaining female & gay clergy.
The Times' Catholic stats tell
us much about the contemporary American church & its future.
It will continue to lose followers at every economic & educational
level. It has already lost at least 25% of its Latino working
class followers, mostly to Protestant store-front sects.
Shacking up with Protestants
& Jews & the intermarriage flowing from it, take their
toll among educated Catholics. In metro New York, with its substantial
Jewish population, "it is the historic 'mission' of one's
1st Jewish girl friend to convince a Catholic boy that Voltaire
was a good guy & the priests were idiots," as an ex-Catholic
friend put it. The educated accept Darwinism in state &
quality private universities. History courses take up the inquisition.
The church apologizes for persecuting Galileo for teaching that
the earth goes around the sun. Sex, science & history send
significant numbers of intellectuals into the atheist camp.
Bush's theological/political
strategy is to call for an anti-gay federal constitutional amendment,
to mobilize the most conservative religious elements here, for
a last ditch battle against the oncoming hordes of cultural change.
Kerry's is to run with the fox & hunt with the hounds. He
panders to the populist liberalizing flow, whether it speeds
up or slows down. Hence his double-reverse-triple-whammy re
abortion & the judiciary.
He will appoint only pro-abortion
Supremes, but anti-abortion lower court judges are OK. This
means that, in today's every-Catholic-is-his-own-Pope church,
Pope John Forbes is announcing that he is not excommunicating
the remaining Swiss Guards, the anti-abortion, pro-celibacy
traditionalists in his party, who vote for it for economic reasons.
If some bishops won't give him communion, he is still willing
to give it to their followers, particularly the Catholics among
the party hacks, who commonly pander to the catholic right on
a local level, as with Kucinich, who was anti-abortion as long
as his ambitions centered on the Polish Catholic vote in Cleveland.
His something-for-everyone
pandering style makes Kerry oppose Bush's federal anti-gay marriage
amendment, while supporting such at the state constitutional
level. Nationally, gays are major players, numerically &
financially, in the Democratic Party. But Massachusetts has
many traditionalist Catholic Democrats.
With his calibrated domestic
religious demagoguery, Kerry isn't about to break diplomatic
relations with the Pope. But, beyond that, Catholicism would
play no important international role in his regime. Indeed we
have to get the world ready for a possible next war-crimes administration,
a Catholic Democratic President who no one would ever mistake
for Jesus or Jefferson, whose pandering to the diminishing Zionist
minority within American Jewry puts him closer to Ariel Sharon
than to his Pope.
As I write on religion &
politics, self-proclaimed leftists, liberals & secularists
ask me if Methodist Bush is for-real about his Christianity.
They are frequently disappointed when I say that evidence of
his fanaticism is overwhelming. They want him to be a demagogic
cynic so they can even more legitimately hate him.
With Kerry it is the opposite.
They want to vote for him. Therefore they want to believe that
he is a clever hustler, pandering to Catholic fools. Otherwise
he is a fool, & educated anybody-but-Bushies feel degraded
voting for idiots. But they have no problem voting for clever
Democratic demagogues, hustling fools, if they can get something
from them for their issues.
Many are ex-Catholics, all
know such. They see endless millions pouring out of the church,
worldwide, & know more will do so. They don't want a Kerry
who genuinely believes in an institution racked with pedophile
scandals.
The only sign that his Catholicism
might be real is that he once was an alter boy. Many readers
know people with early hyper-involvement with a sect, who just
can't get it out of their heads. But the ex-alter boy has been
able to politically break with the church on abortion &
other 'moral' issues, when it suits his purposes. This, combined
with accelerating electoral religiosity, as with endorsing the
WRFA, show commitment to demagoguery as a way of life.
Readers may ask why Kerry can't
solve his problem by leaving the church? But the conventional
wisdom among bipartisan strategists is that most Catholics will
tolerate any amount of theological heresy &/or sinful living
on a politician's part, if he's good on their issues, but that
millions of traditionalists won't vote for an apostate. He is
a direct challenge to them.
Kerry's Kennedyesque statements
declaring himself politically independent of his church serve
to draw attention away from his Catholicism. But his positions
on the Pledge & WRFA work in the opposite direction. He disagrees
with his church on legalized abortion. Does he agree with the
Pope & 2/3rds of his party, who are convinced that the devil
is loose in the world?
The Gallup organization was
legitimately disturbed by its finding. The devil as organizer
of natural or social evil went out of style in serious intellectual
circles centuries ago. That so many voters are steeped in medievalism
is a sign of the wretchedness of most of American public high
school science education. Every politician talks on & on
about educating kids. Except that 8-year olds don't vote. Its
most adults who need that education, but a demagogue pandering
to as many of their follies as he dares to can't say that to
them. The end result? Millions of their youths will grow up
buying season tickets to ball games, playing slot machines in
casinos, & praying, instead of studying sciences that would
be useful to them in an increasingly high tech global economy.
But now a new church scandal
has arisen that theatens to put Kerry on a cross, if I may be
forgiven my choice of words. The 6/13 Times exposed the sordid
truth. "Short on Priests, U.S. Catholics Outsource Prayers
to Indian Clergy."
God almighty! Our churches
are sending requests for special masses to India, where "memorial
and thanksgiving prayers conducted for local residents are said
for a donation of 40 rupees (90 cents), whereas a prayer request
from the United States typically comes with $5 .... Bishop Adayanthrath
said sending Mass intentions overseas was a way for rich churches
short on priests to share and support smaller churches in poorer
parts of the world."
The International Union of
Prophets & Saints, AFL-CIO, was ready to do election-day
telephoning for Kerry until the story broke. But now Joe Baloney,
National Secretary of IUP&S, says "Mother of Jesus!
No more American prayers said in Maylayalam! Kerry's got to
go on record opposing the Vatican's destruction of our spiritual
economy. If he doesn't, we are going to get the whole AFL-CIO
to tell him & his damn church to go to hell."
Pundits aren't sure which way
the Catholic Democrat will go. What do readers think? Is he
for American prayers staying here, where they belong? Or is he
for Indians praying in Maylayalam for the soul of Grandpa Fritz?
Lenni Brenner is the editor of 51
Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis. He can be
reached at BrennerL21@aol.com.
Weekend
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