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Today's
Stories
July
7, 2004
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Parade: Madman or Commisar?
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
June
29, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover
Robert
Fisk
Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland
Troy
Selvaratnam
New York Times Boosts Pet Developer
Harry
Browne
Bush in Ireland
Ray
McGovern
The CIA According to Anonymous
Elaine
Cassel
Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really
Won?
June
28, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn / Leyla Linton
Grisly Rituals in Iraq
Amira
Hass
Confronting Myths and Deadly Power
June
26 / 27, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
Patrick
Cockburn
Iyad Allawi, the CIA's New Stooge
in Iraq
Dennis
Hans
Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney,
the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11
Ben
Tripp
Adventures in Fuel Efficiency
Dave
Lindorff
That State Department Terrorism
Report: What They Knew, But Didn't Tell You
Chris
Floyd
Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit
Ali
Tonak
Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives,
Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela
Keith
Rosenthal
The Withering of the Anti-War Movement
Bryan
Sacks
The Failure of the 9/11 Commission
Wayne
Madsen
Another Case of Blowback
Thomas
St. John
L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating
in the Wizard of Oz
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
American Swadeshi
June
25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul
Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege:
Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack
McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal?
Did Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diana Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June
19 / 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation
on Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother
Nature
Col.
Dan Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis
in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a
Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June
18, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave
Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player
& Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American
Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
18, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
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
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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July
7, 2004
Kerry's
BBQ
A
Deafening Silence of Meaning
By
JOHN CHUCKMAN
Recently, John Kerry and his wife held
a barbecue at the Pennsylvania White House. Never heard of the
Pennsylvania White House? It's actually the homestead of Kerry's
wife, a white-columned mansion on a tailored estate outside Pittsburgh
built from the proceeds of a billion cans of spaghetti and bottles
of ketchup. Kerry wants everyone to know he's an ordinary guy
so he's holding barbecues these days instead of crystal-and-candlelight
dinners. People who normally never would get past the front gate
have now been allowed on the rolled greens to chomp hot dogs.
Those attending a down-home
get-together recently were greeted with hay bales designed by
a team of Neiman-Marcus window dressers; a custom-made silk flag,
gigantic enough to use for hang-gliding, flapped over the mansion
in breezes generated by rented Hollywood wind machines; a band
subtly suggested the Marines Corps Band playing "Hail to
the Chief"; and, as if in homage to Ronald Reagan, a rented
soldier home from occupation-duty in Iraq led the crowd through
a heart-rending Pledge of Allegiance. They may well have served
jelly beans along with the tapioca pudding, but reports don't
tell us.
The new class of visitors to
the estate was not allowed to enjoy the hot dogs without receiving
a dose of inspiration from the campaign trail, almost the way
poor men at a Salvation Army shelter get scripture between bites
of doughnut. Kerry enjoined guests to leave the hallowed grounds
"with the spirit in an uplifting sense that we're going
to change this country." Yes, those were his very words,
much as we might have received from that other source of constant
inspiration, the President himself, down in Crawford, Texas,
over some smoldering cows and cold root beer.
Guests apparently left with
puzzled faces over what they were being asked, but they merely
joined the swelling ranks of puzzled Americans who have attended
Kerry's rallies and speeches.
Kerry likes to say, "This
is the most important election of our lifetime," and his
guests heard it again over dollops of tapioca in Dixie Cups.
It's his best line when he doesn't muff it, although he never
explains why the claim should be true. Its threadbare, re-tread
quality begins to suggest Richard Nixon's "It's time for
a change!" a line that got him elected in 1968 so he could
vastly expand the pointless killing and destruction in Vietnam.
Everyone understands, though,
that Kerry's slogan is about "anyone but Bush," exactly
the kind of substitute for thinking that gave the world Bush
in the first place. Anybody-but-Bush is about the only positive
adjective you can apply to the candidacy of John Kerry.
If you want to read some indigestible
stuff, finish whatever it is you're eating and then go to John
Kerry's Town Hall Meeting Internet site. Other than a few slabs
of party boilerplate, there is nothing there, absolutely nothing,
to inspire Americans and others in the world about the future.
On many of the site's "on the issues" topics, when
you go to subtopics, you find nothing of substance. The headlines
themselves are the most encouraging words, and they do not even
fairly describe what is contained under them. In several cases,
there are statements that are positively depressing.
Here is Kerry's summary statement
on Iraq:
Winning the Peace in Iraq...A
Strategy for Success
To establish security and move
forward with the transition to Iraqi sovereignty, the President
must show true leadership in going to the major powers to secure
their support of Lakhdar Brahimi's mission, the establishment
of a high commissioner for governance and reconstruction, and
the creation of a NATO mission for Iraq. These steps are critical
to creating a stable Iraq with a representative government and
secure in its borders. Meeting this objective is in the interests
of NATO member states, Iraq's neighbors and all members of the
international community. True leadership means sharing authority
and responsibility for Iraq with others who have an interest
in Iraq's success. Sharing responsibility is the only way to
gain new military and financial commitments, allowing America
to truly share the burden and the risk.
This is Kerry-speak for saying
that NATO allies should pay part of the human and material cost
for America's mess in Iraq. Why? In case, Kerry hadn't noticed,
Bush has been trying to accomplish this very thing for some time,
applying a good deal of nasty pressure to allies, but Iraq, as
Bush was pointedly told recently by Europeans, has nothing whatever
to do with NATO's mandate.
I suspect the phrase "true
leadership," apart from being a totally unwarranted advertising
claim about the Senator's dreary career, means Kerry sees himself
playing good cop in the old good cop-bad cop routine used by
police to break down suspects, but friends and allies aren't
usually regarded as suspects.
Consider the words, "winning
the peace." At first glance, they suggest heroic purpose
like that of World War Two, providing a gloss of worthiness to
the utter human and material waste of Iraq. The words were undoubtedly
selected also to suggest for some Americans, the Planet-of-the-Apes
crowd, slogans like "winning in Vietnam." The word
"peace" was selected with entirely another group of
Americans in mind, mostly wishful thinkers and harmless dreamers.
If putting together the words
"winning" and "peace" suggests to you George
Orwell's "war is peace," you are not alone, particularly
when you consider that Iraq already had peace and was a genuine
threat to no one before the United States smashed it.
Tucked under the topic on Iraq
at Kerry's site is an item "Protecting Our Military Families
in Times of War: A Military Family Bill of Rights." Here's
an advertising pitch for tossing a tiny packet of sugar at each
military voter, recalling, at one and the same time, scenes in
World War Two films where GIs toss sticks of gum to hungry refugees
and microphone reminders to shoppers for today's special at Wal-Mart
- all with a suitably sentimental nod to all the Jimmy Stewarts
serving at spots like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo's human dog cages.
Well, a packet of sugar is better than nothing, because God knows
Kerry's view of foreign policy promises a future with plenty
of the same duty.
We could analyze the rest of
the stuff on Kerry's site - all of it trying to make it appear
he has something new to say and all of it about as helpful and
clear as the fine print on a prescription-drug brochure - but
it just isn't worth the effort. I'll only note further that Kerry
had a featured item there about China, accusing Bush of letting
Americans down about China. Please, Senator, say that we are
not being promised another years-long chorus of American hectoring
and carping about a proud but poor people working hard to earn
their place in sun. Good God, what hypocrisy that was under Clinton.
It is important to remember
that George Bush, while a top contender for title of Biggest
Flop in American History, is largely a spent force. It is difficult
to see what else he could possibly do to damage the planet. Once,
not very long ago, his presidential Brain Trust, the neo-con
Nazis, advocated mopping up Syria, Iran, and other places whose
names they couldn't even pronounce as soon as they finished up
in Iraq. Well, things are not going to finish up any time soon
in Iraq. America has spent herself silly trying to stabilize
Iraq after de-stabilizing it.
There is a distasteful quality
about Bush that people all over the world instinctively feel,
and Bush's efforts, we may all be thankful, will continue being
hindered by that perception. Kerry has the advantage of being
utterly boring instead of distasteful, but his ideas about the
world are remarkably similar to Bush's. If Americans elect Kerry,
they will get a fresh, new Bush who may actually be able to leverage
some of the world's recent weariness and desperate desire for
change to carry right on with more destructive stupidity.
Weekend
Edition Features for JuLY 3 /4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
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