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Recent
Stories
May
24, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss
and the Neo-Cons
Uri Avnery
The Hannibal Procedure
Diane
Christian
Who's the Real Enemy?
"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
William
S. Lind
Is Saddam Really Out of the Game?
William
Cook
Road to Nowhere
David Krieger
Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice
Ilan
Pappe
Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel
Wayne Madsen
American Idle
Noah
Leavitt
Slowing Sowing Justice in the Killing Fields
Walt Brasch
Americans are Liars
Lenni
Brenner
John Brown and Dutch Bill
Mickey
Z.
Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Grievous Harm Here and Abroad
Adam Engel
Towers of Babel
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
May
22, 2003
Mark
Gaffney
Christian in Name Only
Carl
Estabrook
Republic of Fear
Carl
Camacho, Jr.
Reason for Hope
Ben
Granby
What Rates a Headline from the Middle
East?
Vanessa
Jones
Terror Alerts in Australia
Mickey
Z.
Instant Understanding
Don
Monkerud
Snowballs in a Soggy Economy
Barry Lando
The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush
Steve
Perry
Total Information
Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?
May
21, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The
Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain
Chris
Floyd
How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Graham's God and Bush's Pathology
Patrick
Cockburn
In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown
are Everywhere
Brian Cloughley
The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz
Saul
Landau
Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning Poems, May 2003
Steve
Perry
Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq
May
20, 2003
Tariq
Ali
The Empire Advances
Ahmad
Faruqui
Whither American Nationalism?
Ben Tripp
Dialysis with Osama
Linda
Heard
The Cage of Occupation
Cynthia
McKinney
Toward a Just and Peaceful World
Edward
Said
The Arab Condition
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Why Ari Should Have Resigned in Protest Long Ago
Stew
Albert
Yale Men
Steve Perry
The New Face of Al-Qaeda
May
19, 2003
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing
Evidence
CounterPunch
Wire
"Terror" Slut Steve Emerson
Eats Crow
John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward Lies
Matt
Vidal
Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market
Michael
S. Ladah
The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map
Robert
Fisk
Bush's Eternal War Backfires
Elaine
Cassel
Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan
Freedland
Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic
Steve Perry
Play It Again, O-Sam-a
May
17 / 18, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Children's Teeth
Peter
Linebaugh
An American Tribute to Christopher
Hill
Gary
Leupp
Nepal Today
Rock and
Rap Confidential
The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks
Walter
Sommerfeld
Plundering Baghdad's Museums
Ron Jacobs
Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades
Thomas
P. Healy
Dubya Does Indy
Tarif Abboushi
Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap
Francis
Boyle
Debating US War Crimes in Iraq
Mark Davis
An Interview with Richard Butler
Richard
Lichtman
American Mourning
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Overcoming Terrorism
Adam
Engel
Uncle Sam is YOU!
Alan Maas
The Best News Show on TV
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Albert
Elaine
Cassel
Good Enough for an Alien
Website
of the Weekend
The 37 Americans Who Run Iraq
Song of
the Weekend
Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues
May
16, 2003
Leah
Wells
In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix
Ben Tripp
Fear Itself
Sharon
Smith
The Resegregation of US Schools
Ramzy Baroud
Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating?
Sam
Hamod
A Nation of Fear
Phil Reeves
Baghdad Pays the Price
Robert
McChesney
The FCC's Big Grab
Mark Engler
Those Who Don't Count
Steve
Perry
We're All
Extras in Bush's Movie
Website
of the Day
Iraq and Our
Energy Future
May
15, 2003
Ayesha
Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould
How
Not to Help Amina Lawal: The Hidden Dangers of Letter
Writing Campaigns
Julie
Hilden
Moussaoui and the Camp X-Ray Detainees:
Can He Get a Fair Trial?
Tanya
Reinhart
Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure
Laura Carlsen
Here We Go Again: NAFTA Plus or Minus?
Kenneth
Rapoza
The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts
New Yorker's Goldberg
Stew Albert
A Story I Will Tell
Steve
Perry
Bush's Little
Nukes
Website
of the Day
Strip-o-Rama
May
14, 2003
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Jason
Leopold
The Pentagon and Hallburton: a Secret
November Deal for Iraq's Oil
David
Lindorff
Fighting the Patriot Act: Now It's
Alaska
John
Chuckman
Giggling into Chaos
Jack
McCarthy
Twin Towers of Journalism: Racism
and Double Standards
Wayne
Madsen
Assassinating JFK Again
M.
Junaid Alam
The Longer View
Paul
de Rooij
The New Hydra's Head:
Propagandists and the Selling of the US/Iraq War
James
Reiss
What? Me Worry?
Steve Perry
More on Saudi Arabia Bombings
Website
of the Day
A Tribute to Ted Joans
May
13, 2003
Saul
Landau
Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves
Michael
Neumann
Has Islam Failed? Not by Western
Standards
Uri
Avnery
My Meeting with Arafat
Steve Perry
The Saudi Arabia Bombing
Jacob
Levich
Democracy Comes to Iraq: Kick Their Ass and Grab Their Gas
William
Lind
The Hippo and the Mongoose: a Question of Military Theory
The
Black Commentator
Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes
Stew Albert
Asylum
Hammond
Guthrie
An Illogical Reign
Website
of the Day
Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence
May
12, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush, Bin Laden, Bechtel, and Baghdad
Dave
Lindorff
America's Dirty Bombs
Sam
Hamod and Elaine Cassel
Resisting the Bush Administration's War on Liberty
Uzi
Benziman
Sharon and Sons, Inc.
Jason
Leopold
The Decline and Fall of Thomas White
Rich Procter
George Jumps the Shark
Federico
Moscogiuri
Going to Israel? Sign or Else
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/12
Book
of the Day
Fooling
Marty Peretz
Website
of the Day
T-Shirts to Protest In
Hot Stories
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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for More Stories.
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Memorial
Day Edition
May 26, 2003
Supreme Sacrifice
Dying for the
Rights Bush and Ashcroft are Intent on Dismantling
By ELAINE CASSEL
Memorial Day is the day we set aside to honor
those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms of
life that the Bush Administration is taking away. In that respect,
this Memorial Day is most poignant. Can it be that those hundreds
of thousands of sacrifices have now been in vain? because one
Administration, drunk on power and ruling by fear, will dismantle
the Constitution to promote the interests of wealth and privilege?
Never have I thought more about the significance
of Memorial Day than on this day. Spending so much time reading
and writing about the loss of freedom put this day in a new perspective.
Sad as I was upon waking this morning, I even more so as I read
about yet another young man (African American, of course) about
to be put to death by the machinery of my state, Virginia.
Then it came to me?. Why not add a new
category of people to honor on Memorial Day--all people that
our local, state, and federal governments have killed? They,
too, make the ultimate sacrifice in the name of "freedom."
Law enforcement and justice systems tell us that by killing the
innocent? and the guilty they are making our communities safer.
They are saving us from fear and ridding the state of undesirables
(as Bush says he is doing in the war on civil liberties).
At the top of the roll call of honored
dead would be the two innocent, hard-working, law-abiding citizens
who died at the hands of New York City police officers (NYPD)
last week. One, an immigrant from Africa whose specialty was
restoring African art, was killed in a ambush when NYPD were
looking for people who are pirating CDs (ask yourself why, even
if he were doing that, it would merit a shooting). Then there
was the woman whose apartment was stormed by SWAT team members
looking for criminal activity. Wrong place, wrong person. She
died of a heart attack in the melee.
We could add all those, known and unknown,
who have been executed by the state for crimes they did not commit.
We could add all those who have been executed for crimes they
did commit?, for a state that kills its own is a sad, sick government
that relishes in the ultimate act of power?--taking life away
in the pretext of doing "justice."
Then we could add those whom the state
executes who are so mentally ill that their murder by the state
rises above the "normal" execution. I am talking about
24-year-old Percey Levar Walton, whom Virginia plans to execute
(yes, Virginia, there is an electric chair in the Commonwealth)
this coming Wednesday night.
Percey was 18 when he killed three of
his neighbors in a senseless violent rampage. His senselessness
was born of schizophrenia, that brain disease in which causes
its sufferers to be cut-off from reality, and to live in a world
of delusions and hallucinations. One wonders what kind of representation
Percey had. Why was he convicted, given that his mental illness
was unquestioned? But, Virginia is second only to Texas in the
number of people it executes, and Virginia is a fraction of the
size of Texas. Virginians love their guns, and love to kill.
The state death machinery only mirrors its citizens' sick obsession
with taking life.
In order for Percey's life to be taken
Wednesday by shocks of electric current frying his already sick
brain, it has to make a minimal showing that he is "competent"
to be put to death. Now there is a sick concept for you?: state
psychiatrists have to say that he knows he is about to die and
that he is doing so to expiate for his sins against the Commonwealth.
Psychiatrists have already done their part. They are not partial,
mind you. They work for the state. Their jobs depends on telling
the warden what he wants to know?--that the man is ok to die.
They have already so reported in Percey's case.
Last year the Supreme court ruled in
another Virginia case, Atkins v. Virginia, that the mentally
retarded should not be executed. But that logic has not extended
to the mentally ill, some of whom, like Percey, are so deranged
that they think they are Jesus Christ, Batman, Superman, or,
the King of Hearts. Go figure out that atrocity; and, while you
are at it, think of the triad of hatred in Justices Rehnquist,
Scalia, and Thomas, all of whom lust for blood and death. They
rail against any mention that anyone should not be put to death,
including, in Scalia's case, a belief that "horse thieves"
should be hung today because they were in the early days of the
country.
So look no further than sickness in the
high court to wonder why men like Percey are executed. The bean-counting
governor, Mark Warner, is not likely to risk his future political
ambitions (though Virginia governors serve only one term, they
all aspire to higher office; former governor George Allen is
now, sadly, a U.S. senator, and former governor Gilmore was once
the head of the Republican National Committee and now has some
cushy job in Homeland Security) by speaking out for a man who
represents no constituency.
Prosecutors, with blood on their hands,
say that mental illness should be no defense to execution because
then convicted inmates could "fake" illness to escape
dying in the chair or by injection. Like a state psychiatrist
could not tell the difference? And if he or she could not, that
means that they are not qualified to render a condemned man or
woman competent to die, either. Seems like this logic could cut
both ways.
Baring some relief from the federal courts,
and you can imagine the likelihood of that happening, Percey
Levar Walton, age 24, will become another statistic in the state
record books. And proof that we have no shame as a society when
we would take pride, joy even, as Scalia does in the death penalty,
in killing the sick, the deranged, and the demented.
So, on this Memorial Day, let's remember
those who, by reason of birth, nationality, ethnicity, race,
age, geography, social status, and bad luck, die at the hands
of a government who could, if it would, show compassion and decency.
But which won't, because those traits don't buy votes. And dead
men can't vote.
Elaine Cassel
practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia and writes
about psychological and legal issues for CounterPunch and Findlaw.
She keeps an eye on the Bush Administration's shredding of the
Constitution at Civil
Liberties Watch, hosted by City Pages. She can be reached
at ecassel1@cox.net.
Yesterday's
Features
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs (poem)
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
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