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Should the Left Cheer the Dollar's Drop? How to make the bankers scream: Robert Pollin, world's best obituarist of Clintonomics, explains it all for you. Do police states make people feel safer? Vicente Navarro on Franco's Spain, Cockburn on Ireland in the Fifties under the Catholic Hierarchy, Alevtina Rea on growing up in Brezhnev-time. Capitalism's true utopia? St Clair on the Pentagon's no-bid arms contracts. How's the press doing in Iraq? Patrick Cockburn tells all to Omar Waraich. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
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Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY  Today's Stories May 28 / 30, 2005 Alexander
Cockburn Richard
Lichtman Sharon
Smith Dave
Lindorff Ramzy
Baroud Brian
Cloughley Lee
Sustar Joshua
Frank Justin
E.H. Smith Jackie
Corr Michael
Kimaid Toufic
Haddad Justin
Taylor Amir
Butler Ben
Tripp
May 27, 2005 Gary
Leupp Daniel
Estulin Kevin
Zeese Robert
Fisk Dave
Zirin Website
of the Day
May 26, 2005 Yuki
Tanaka Ray
McGovern Arthur
Mitzman Jack
Random Britt
Bailey and Brian Tokar Rebecca
Rush Jorge
Mariscal Paul
Craig Roberts Website
of the Day
May 25, 2005 Camilo
Mejia Dave
Lindorff William
S. Lind Chris
Floyd Brian
Cloughley Lenni
Brenner Sean
Cain Karl
Shepard John
Ross Website
of the Day
Dave
Zirin Michele
Bollinger Winslow
Wheeler Uri
Avnery Michael
Donnelly Joshua
Frank Stephen
Dunifer Paul
Craig Roberts
May 23, 2005 Esther
Sassaman / Thomas Nagy Mike
Whitney Ramzy
Baroud Michael
Dickinson Walter
Brasch Dick
J. Reavis Maria
Tomchick Norman
Solomon Kevin
Zeese Website
of the Day
May 21 / 22, 2005 David
H. Price Gabriel
García Márquez Oren
Ben-Dor Gary
Leupp Laith
al-Saud Elaine
Cassel Greg
Moses Fred
Gardner Dave
Lindorff Alan
Maass William
Blum Tom
Crumpacker Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Doug
Giebel Evelyn
J. Pringle Carolyn
Baker Chris
Floyd Frederick
B. Hudson Ben
Tripp Poets'
Basement
May 20, 2005 Dave
Lindorff Kevin
Zeese Paul
de Rooij Christopher
Brauchli Mark
Engler Joshua
Frank Robert
Jensen Jeffery
R. Webber
May 19, 2005 Bill
Forman Stan
Goff Neve
Gordon Michael
Dickinson Karyn
Strickler Andrew
Freedman Paul
Craig Roberts
May 18, 2005 Jean
Bricmont Laura
Carlsen Mike
Whitney Joshua
Frank George
Galloway Manuel
Garcia, Jr. Dwight
D. Eisenhower Dave
Lindorff
May 17, 2005 Mickey
Z. Petuuche
Gilbert Paul
Craig Roberts Ramzy
Baroud Robert
Jensen / Pat Youngblood Stan
Cox Dave
Zirin Diana
Barahona Website
of the Day
May 16, 2005 Michael
Gillespie Jason
Leopold Jesse
Muldoon Norman
Solomon Robert
Cray Patrick
Cockburn Website
of the Day
May 14 / 15, 2005 Alexander
Cockburn Saul
Landau Gary
Leupp JoAnn
Wypijewski Ben
Tripp Brian
J. Foley Tom
Barry Mitchell
Verter Mike
Ferner Dan
Smith Mark
Scaramella Don
Fitz Diane
Farsetta Michael
Dickinson Ron
Jacobs Fred
Gardner Farrah
Hassen Douglas
Valentine Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
May 13, 2005 Tom
Stephens Patrick
Cockburn Mike
Whitney Chris
Floyd Jenna
Orkin Dave
Lindorff Joshua
Frank Website
of the Day
May 12, 2005 Paul
Craig Roberts Uri
Avnery Greg
Moses Carolyn
Baker Pat
Williams William
S. Lind Jack
Random Gary
Leupp
May 11, 2005 Patrick
Cockburn Kevin
Zeese Christopher
Brauchli Zalman
Amit Robert
Shull Mike
Whitney Dr.
Teresa Whitehurst Norman
Solomon
May 10, 2005 Richard
Drayton Dave
Zirin Jackie
Corr Dave
Lindorff Michael
Donnelly Reza
Fiyouzat Scott
Parkin Stephen
Babcock Alan
Farago Michael
Neumann Website
of the Day
May 9, 2005 Louis
Proyect Robert
Fisk Kevin
Zeese Joshua
Frank Sasha
Kramer Andrew
Wimmer Jeffrey
Webber Jeffrey
St. Clair
May 7 / 8, 2005 Alexander
Cockburn Gary
Leupp Saul
Landau Joe
DeRaymond Daniela
Ponce Heather
Williams Gregory
Elich Anis
Memon John
Chuckman Mike
Whitney Ron
Jacobs Colin
Kalmbacher Lance
Selfa Fred
Gardner Ben
Tripp Mickey
Z. Richard
Joseph Dr.
Susan Block Poets'
Basement
May 6, 2005 Patrick
Cockburn Erin
Yoshioka Sam
Husseini Dave
Lindorff Kevin
Zeese Joshua
Frank Dan
Bacher P.
Sainath
May 5, 2005 Carles
Mutaner Carl
G. Estabrook Farrah
Hassen Kevin
Zeese Michael
Leonardi Bennett
Ramberg Ray
McGovern Norman
Solomon Nicole
Colson Brian
Concannon, Jr.
May 4, 2005 Colin
Kalmbacher John
Walsh Greg
Moses Ali
Khan Chris
Floyd Linda
S. Heard Dave
Zirin William
S. Lind Gary
Leupp Website
of the Day
May 3, 2005 Dave
Lindorff Brian
Cloughley Ira
Kurzban Seth
Sandronsky Gilad
Atzmon Michael
Donnelly Alex
Sanchez Peter
Linebaugh
May 2, 2005 Ron
Jacobs Stan
Goff Karyn
Strickler Joshua
Frank Kevin
Zeese Vicente
Navarro
April 30 / May 1, 2005 Alexander
Cockburn Gabriel
Kolko Jennifer
Loewenstein Lee
Sustar Saul
Landau T.W.
Croft Nikolas
Kozloff William
Blum Dave
Lindorff Joshua
Frank Doug
Giebel Steven
Erlanger Fred
Gardner Mike
Whitney Kurt
Nimmo Joe
DeRaymond Michael
Dickinson Mickey
Z. Justin
Taylor Poets
Basement Website
of the Weekend
Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Subcomandante
Marcos Norman Finkelstein Steve Niva Dardagan,
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Weekend Edition CounterPunch DiaryThere's Their Way or the GallowayBy ALEXANDER COCKBURN So now we have the worst of all worlds: the prospect of some rotten new federal judges and the survival of the filibuster, which the Republicans have consented not to abolish and the Democrats pledged almost never to use. As Senator Russ Feingold said, "Democrats should have stood together firmly Confirming unacceptable judicial nominations is simply a green light for the Bush administration to send more nominees who lack the judicial temperament or record to serve in these lifetime positions I am disappointed in this deal." Since I spent my youth reading
fervent denunciations of the filibuster as the tool of Southern
reaction I found it beyond my powers to take the urgent advice
of liberals over the past month, shed the prejudices of a lifetime
and promote the filibuster to the status of progressivism's stout
bulwark. Rather than get drawn into the recent unseemly haggling it would a rather more honorable course for the left to attack the entire corrupt system of judicial selection from top to bottom. What possible justification can there be for a system in which all federal judges are within the gift of state delegations of the Democratic and Republican parties? Let's have popular election of all judges. The US Senate, on the other hand, should abandon its comical pretensions to be being a body reflecting any democratic mandate. Senators should be installed by some version of the phonebook approach. Probably the best method was the one obtaining at the former House of Lords, now destroyed by Tony Blair: incumbency by birthright, handed down the generations. Within not too many decades this simple method produced useful numbers of decent, independent-minded people. After Blair's "reforms" the place has become a quango, meaning a creature of the government of the day. But these are mere dreams. Can there be anything more dismal that what we do have, Democrats in House and Senate apparently brain-dead, with vacant real estate where the heart normally resides. These are times ripe with opportunity. The people hold the Republicans in derision and contempt. Bush huddles on the ledge of a 41 per cent popular approval rating, bolstered only by the fact that the Republican who not long ago towered above him in popular regard, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is perched on an even lower, 40 per cent rating. The congressional Republicans' popular standing is somewhere in the 20s. Day by day the news gets worse for Bush. He plunges into pits of his own making, like the Schiavo case. The economy turns to rubble. He nearly lost his main prop, Laura to a coalition of the Sons of the Prophet and the Friends of Jonathan Pollard. Yet there's no sign of a vigorous Democratic onslaught. This last week brought us Democratic surrender in the matter of the nomination of the appalling John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN. Senator Barbara Boxer indicated Tuesday, March 24, she was lifting her hold on the Bolton nomination. Senator Chris Dodd added the same day that "there's no desire for a filibuster". This was the same day that Republican senator George Voinovich sent out a Dear Colleague letter assailing Bolton and urging all to vote against the man. It's true that later there was a last spasm of resistance from a few Democrats delaying the inevitable by a week, but with the combo of Dodd and Biden, two entirely despicable legislators, leading Democratic foreign policy in the Senate, we can expect nothing but flag-wagging in Bush's wake. What lies on the horizon by way of a renewed Democratic party? We're supposed to be welcoming The senatorial candidacy in Minnesota of Al Franken, a man who won't let the words "Withdraw from Iraq now" be uttered on the Air America network? God help us. Or the other senatorial candidacy, in Vermont, of Bernie Sanders. At least Jeffords bucked his party. Sanders can't even do that. So it's scarcely surprising that the recent testimony on Capitol Hill of the newly elected independent Respect MP for London's East End, George Galloway, had every person with any snap left in their stride cavorting in jubilant satisfaction. Here at last was a man who could deploy coherent sentences of well merited, well structured and richly detailed abuse of US relations with Iraq at the nearest available representative of the Bush administration, who happened to be Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota. This contemptible fellow doubtless rose that morning and gazed at himself in the mirror without the slight apprehension that in a few hours a genuine parliamentary rough-houser would give him some whacks on the back on the neck whose bruises won't fade for many a long year. Another man who rose from his bed presumably no less confident of the shape of the day was Christopher Hitchens, who repaired to the Hill with the plan of garnering himself headlines by confronting Galloway. He tried to do so, but ran into witheringly accurate small arms fire from Galloway, chanting "You're a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay. Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink." This was the biggest thing to happen to popinjays since Hemingway defined one in Death in the Afternoon as "a writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured or well bred", which is an eerily accurate characterization of the prose of C. Hitchens. The routed popinjay, plumage a-droop, fluttered wanly off to the offices of the Weekly Standard where Rupert Murdoch paid him to retaliate with 4,000 distinctly less memorable words, dedicated to showing Galloway to be a shady fellow, using the standard arsenal of "filthy", "mark the sequel" and other familiar popinjabber. At that length, using Hitchens' standards of evidence and innuendo, I reckon I could make a pretty good case for Hitchens being the Armstrong Williams of high-end punditry. One odd bit in Hitchens' defensive diatribe was a wail about Galloway's "main organizational muscle" being "provided by a depraved sub-Leninist sect called the Socialist Workers party." In a slightly earlier incarnation the SWP was the organizational homeport of the former drink-soaked Trotskyist, C. Hitchens, also of Oona King, the Blairite incumbent Galloway routed in the East End. Maybe Hitchens's erstwhile comrades will the popinjay a ripe welcome in his upcoming tour of London with David Horowitz, assuming that outing hasn't perished for lack of subscribers. So Galloway showed what a man with fire in his belly can do. The Democrats have no one with that capacity. They have Nancy Pelosi, whose idea of a constructive approach to the Middle East was to tell AIPAC last week,
She must have meant arms and cash. Israel already has the water.
Nutty Professor Screams About "Plot" Against Him, Cites Troika of Evil As an ongoing public display the ongoing mental collapse of Alan Dershowitz continues to afford us modest delight, and particular pleasure since he cites co-editor Cockburn as one of the contributory causes of his distress. Dershowitz has been much agitated in recent years by the charge, leveled by Normal Finkelstein that he, Dershowitz, is a plagiarist. CounterPunchers will find my discussion of the issue on this site back in the fall of 2003, at http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09262003.html. At the time there was blast and counterblast both here and in The Nation, where the letters page featured the bleats of Dershowitz and my definitive rebuttal. Since that time Dershowitz has been in an extreme state of agitation at the prospect of Finkelstein's analysis of his borrowings from the work of Joan Peters being published in book form, first scheduled for publication by The New Press, and latterly by the University of California Press. There hasn't been such a commotion since the British Customs tried to keep Lady Chatterley's Lover out of England. A book that otherwise might have been a relatively modest blip on the national radar screen has been elevated by Dershowitz's frantic squawks to the status of a major cultural event. In his efforts at prior restraint Dershowitz even appealed to Austria's pride, the governor of California, who presumably has more pressing problems on his mind (such as his pell-mell schuss towards single-digit public approval in California) than an impending publication of the University of California. The last refuge of any cornered mountebank is to invoke "The Plot Against Me", and in a curious inversion of some anti-Semitic tract, Dershowitz has now traced all his problems to an all-powerful troika, consisting of Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein and me. Dershowitz's thesis is that like some Archon of the Galaxies Chomsky croaks from his lair in the heart of darkness, "Destroy Him". The compliant Finkelstein goes to work, and the result of his researches is then publicized by Yours Truly, with devastating effect upon Dershowitz. His life is ruined! A pleasant life formerly devoted to apologias for Israel's barbarous treatment of Palestinians has now been cruelly subverted by the all-powerful Troika. The professor who once impressed young women in Harvard Yard with technical discussions of how best, (under judicial warrant, of course) to push scalpels under the fingernails of terror suspects now fills the air with threats of libel. Like some latter day Ancient Mariner, stopping one in three, Dershowitz posts interminable dissections of "The Plot Against Me" on the internet, dissections which could fairly be accused of partiality towards the male sex, since I recall that even before my own discussion of the Dershowitz-Peters conjunction in late 2003, the affair received detailed scrutiny on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now. (To address only Dershowitz's discussion of my own role, malicious inaccuracies abound. He claims falsely I was fired from the Village Voice. Though invited to return by the Voice's then editor I had no desire to return to a publication panicked into an unfair suspension and quit. It was a sound choice and a happy day. The Nation offered me a column and a national audience. In scarce more than a decade CounterPunch had set sail!) For our part, CounterPunch is taking the high road. Not for us the course of malice and paranoia adopted by the demented Dershowitz, who ever more closely resembles an illustration to the limericks of Edward Lear. This fall we will be publishing The Case Against Israel, by Michael Neumann. Then let constructive debate commence! On the one hand Dershowitz's shoddy, compromised apologia for a morally bankrupt state; on the other, Neumann's conclusive, scholarly and immaculate presentation, brilliant in its logic, unchallengeable in its carefully assembled facts.
Our 14 Per Cent Club T-Shirt Is Now Available! Order Now! In the few months before every CounterPuncher worth the name will be carrying Neumann's splendid work, let me commend as a CounterPunch product our new, special-edition T-shirt, now available in an exclusive summer line. This is the famous 14 per cent Club T Shirt, recently heralded in this diary and featured nearby. Designed by the Pride of Pleasant Grove, Tiffany Wardle, assembled by expert, well-paid fingers from the finest cotton, enhanced by the richest natural dyes, these t-shirts are already jumping off the shelves of the CounterPunch warehouse in downtown Petrolia. Twenty dollars plus shipping and handling gets you as succinct a statement about the credibility of the national press as you can hope to wear. Order NOW, before stocks run out. Becky Grant is standing by, at 1-800-840-3683 or order through the form on this site.
Our BBQ Scout from Buffalo Elicits Manly Plaudits from Texan Taste-Buds Any discussion of barbecue usually elicits the sort of clamor you'd expect from a discussion of the nature of the Godhead at the Council of Nicaea. People have strong views on barbecue and regard any controversion of their own prejudices as by its very nature ignorant and perverse. So, when assigning her the task of reviewing the barbecue joint of Lockhart, Texas, I warned JoAnn Wypijewski of the thunderclaps of affronted Texas pride she might expect. JoAnn turned in her magnificent piece, "The Glory That Is Lockhart" and the perspicacity of her palate received nothing but generous acknowledgment from Texas' jealous sons. From John Cloud, now exiled in Silver Spring, MD, from the Lone Star State, this nostalgic capriole:
And from Wimberley, Texas, these words from praise from a man whose very name breathes the sweet savor of the smoking pit, Joe Nick Patoski:
Joe Nick later added,
And later, to JoAnn from Toler again (whose spelling of the word "grille" excites CounterPunch's darkest suspicions):
And another, from Richard Smith which I find even more unpersuasive:
Footnote: a slightly shorter
version of the opening item initially appeared in the print edition
of The Nation that went to press last Wednesday.
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