home / subscribe / donate / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events

Stunning New Print Edition of CounterPunch Will the US Labor Movement Rise Again in Chicago? Or is this just a power play at the top? JoAnn Wypijewski details what's really at stake in the great showdown as some of labor's most powerful bosses threaten to quit the AFL-CIO. No-holds-barred profiles of the SIEU's Andy Stern, Hoffa of the Teamsters and the other "insurgents". Jeffrey St Clair tells the incredible saga of the $30 billion bailout of Boeing. How the scandal reached the White House and Don Rumsfeld screamed, Let the woman take the fall. Plus Alexander Cockburn on the Judy Miller story. 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! CounterPunch's Hot New T-Shirts for Women! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by Kathy Kelly Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories July 13, 2005 Andrew N. Rubin Life Behind the Wall: "We are No Longer Able to See the Sun Set"   July 12, 2005 Laith al-Saud Voices of Resistance: an Interview with Dr. Mohammed al-Obaidi of Iraq's Peoples' Struggle Movement Kara N. Tina "This is How We Do It": Report from the Gleneagles Battlefield William A. Cook The London Bombings: Why Has It Come to This? Jack Bratich 2 Live Cruise: Tom Cruise v. Big Pharma Amina Mire The Problem with Speaking in the Name of Others Dick J. Reavis Lessons from the Christian Jihadists: the Virtues of Burning Crosses and Colored Smoke Kevin Zeese Depleted Uranium: States Take Action to Protect Their Vets Paul Craig Roberts No-Think Nation Website of the Day Coke Gags Indian Artist   July 9 / 11, 2005 Alexander Cockburn After the Bombings Uri Avnery War of the Colors in Israel Sheldon Rampton Blaming Galloway: Rhetoric vs. Reality in London Bill Christison Hiroshima's 60th Anniversary and Nukes in Iran: an Opportunity or Just More Hand-wringing from the Peace Movement? Robert Fisk Blair's Alliance with Bush Bombed Stephen Winspear Collateral Damage in London? Saul Landau Mission Accomplished: Iraq is Broken Behrooz Ghamari Thomas Friedman's Muslim Problem Karl Beitel False Promises and Real Debt Relief Brian Concannon, Jr. Throwing Gasoline on Haiti's Fires Fred Gardner Sentencing Season John Whitlow And What Does the Market Say? Niranjan Ramakrishnan The London Blasts: Who's Being Transformed, Them or Us? Lila Rajiva Witches and Bastards Laura Carlsen CAFTA: Deepening the Inequities Jackie Corr Ted Turner and Jiminy Cricket Dave Lindorff "My Brother Went Over There Gung Ho; Now He's Just Bitter" N. D. Jayaprakash Why the CIA Tried to Kill Chou En Lai at the Bandung Conference Seth Sandronsky Meet the "Truth Tour": Rightwing Radio Hosts Go to Iraq Norman Madarasz The Choking of Brazil's Worker Party Ben Tripp The Inevitability of George W. Bush Poets' Basement Louise, Albert, Landau, Davies and Engel Website of the Weekend The Mother of All Enemies Lists   July 8, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Blowback Hits Britain: Londoners Pay Heavy Price for Blair's Deception Tariq Ali The London Bombings: Why They Happened Monica Benderman One Soldier's Fight to Legalize Morality Rick Jahnkow Beyond Opt-Out: the Counter-Recruitment Movement Christopher Brauchli Dear Vet: If You Want to Eat While You Recuperate, You Gotta Pay Extra Kim Peterson Bombs in the Underground: Terror Begats Terror Joshua Frank Leakers and Liars: Inching Toward Indictments? Norman Solomon Messages from the Carnage Website of the Day An Interview with Ray McGovern July 7, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr John Walsh More Hawkish Than Bush: Dems in Full Battle Cry Mike Marqusee Message from London Gilad Atzmon London's Burning Nicole Colson Showdown at the Supreme Court Jack Random Judith Miller, Anti-Hero Norman Solomon Judith Miller, Drum Majorette for War Len Colodny Is Bob Woodward Still Protecting Al Haig? Cockburn / St. Clair Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr     July 6, 2005 Elaine Cassel Political Necrophilia in Florida: Jeb Bush and Terri Schiavo, a Strange Affair Sean Donahue Why the G8 Debt Relief Plan Won't Help Nicaragua's Poor Jeremy R. Hammond State Sponsors of Terrorism, Applying the US Standard Joshua Frank Will Rove be Indicted? Ali Khan The "Gift" of US Democratization Michael Dickinson Billy Graham's Final Crusade: Blessed are the Warmakers Norman Solomon How to Plunge Deeper into a Quagmire: Withdrawal and US Credibility Dave Zirin Triumph of the Shrill: Tony Blair's Olympiad Gary Leupp Accusing Ahmadinejad Website of the Day Humiliation in Baghdad: "Not Something We Would Do"     July 5, 2005 Behrooz Ghamari What's the Matter with Iran?: How the Reformists Lost the Presidency Elaine Cassel Why This Progressive Will Miss Sandra Day O'Connor Ron Jacobs Robert and Mabel Williams's Great Fight for Justice Bob Libal The Right's Assault on Academia Dr. Peter Rost Mea Culpa from a Big Pharma CEO Mark Engler The Big Debt Deal: Where's the Jubilee? Gideon Levy They Broke the Public's Heart Dave Zirin The Great Olympics Scam Sameer Dossani The Trouble with Gleneagles     July 2 / 4, 2005 Alexander Cockburn "Bomb Teheran!" Urges Jilted Condi? Lenni Brenner Jefferson, God and the Fourth of July Laura Carlsen Zapatista's Red Alert James Petras The Pretensions of Neoliberalism: Six Myths About the Benefits of Foreign Investment William A. Cook Kings of Serpents Brian Cloughley Quagmire of the Vanities Saul Landau The Mass Media, Symbols and Ownership Tom Crumpacker Who Has What to Hide About Luis Posada Carriles? Greg Moses Dylan's America Dr. Susan Block My Adelphia Story: a Tale of Censorship, Fraud, Christian Family Values and Really Lousy Cable Service Fran Shor Disassembling Bush's Iraq War: Liberated into a No Man's Land Fred Gardner Study: Smoking Marijuana Does Not Cause Lung Cancer Moshe Adler The New London Case: Corporate Giveaways That Destroy Communities, But Don't Create Jobs David Model The Downing Street Memo: So What's New? Seth Sandronsky California Spying, Schwarzenegger-Style Ramzy Baroud Managed Democracy in the Middle East Suzan Mazur Frank Carlucci the First: the "Sublime Prince" of Scranton Ben Tripp Voltaire, I Can Dig Your Rap Justin Taylor Faux Biography and the Pleasures of "Lint" Brendan Bailey Mesh Caps, Vice Magazine and the Trouble with Irony Poets' Basement Albert, Engel and Louise Website of the Weekend Radical Reference     July 1, 2005 Christopher Brauchli With Friends Like These: Bush Buddies Karimov and Musharraf Pat Williams What Real Westerners Think About Bush's Pseudo-Cowboy Palaver Gary Leupp Summer Surprise? John Stauber Mad Cow in America: the USDA Continues to Lie John Chuckman The Blessings of Canada Justicia y Paz Colombia's Disappeared: Their Names, At Least! Cockburn / St. Clair It's Put Up or Shut Up for Bush and the Dems on the Supreme Court   June 30, 2005 Kathy Kelly An Open Letter to Carl Levin: Compassion for Iraqis John Stauber Oprah Not the "Only" Mad Cow in America Virginia Rodino All Roads Lead to Baghdad: Unity in the Anti-War Movement Jason Leopold Meet the New Chair of the FERC: James Kelliher, the Man Who Invited Enron to Write Bush's Energy Policy Dave Lindorff What Was Bush Thinking? Greg Moses Racism at Cape Cod Norman Solomon Memo to the Iraq War Joshua Frank Israel's Theocrats Alexander Cockburn The Political Function of PBS   June 29, 2005 Mike Schaefer How the Washington Post Lied About Its Own War Poll Roger Burbach / Paul Cantor Bush's Big Democratic Hoax in Iraq Sharon Smith Democrats Shift into Reverse Sam Husseini A Quick Way to End the Insurgency John Stauber Put a Photo of Mad Cow #2 on a Milk Carton Ahmad Faruqui Is Militarism Irreversible in Pakistan? Linda S. Heard Bush's Speech: the View from Cairo Stew Albert Chet Helms: a Rock and Roll Hero Ray McGovern Bush at Ft. Bragg: Stay the Crooked Course     June 28, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts A Defeat Bred in Deceit Landau / Hassen Bush's Meddling in Internal Syrian Politics John A. Murphy Keeping Nader Off the Ballot: an Analysis of Political Profiling in Pennsylvania Mike Whitney More Lies from Rumsfeld: Those "Meetings" with Insurgents CounterPunch News Service JFK on Staying in Vietnam: Is Bush Reading from Kennedy's Playbook? Dave Zirin Pining for the Pistons Dave Lindorff Showtime in Washington Patrick Cockburn Iraq: a Bloody Mess     June 27, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Blood Sacrifices for Empty Slogans Mike Marqusee G8: Who are the Hijackers? Mark Scaramella When a Corporate Raider Claims Economic Hardship: the Court-Approved Lies of Charles Hurwitz Leigh Saavedra Press Apologists for Torture Kathy Kelly Where is the UN? June 25 / 26, 2005 Alexander Cockburn The Supreme Court's Jackboot Liberals Jennifer Van Bergen America's Parallel Legal Systems George Corsetti This Land is Their Land: Condemnation for Corporations Mark Chmiel / Andrew Wimmer Let's Open the Gulag: a People's Mission to Gitmo Kevin Zeese Counter-Recruitment: How to Keep the Military From Getting their Hands on Your Kids P. Sainath Russian Roulette in Vidharbha John Stauber How to Bury a Mad Cow Scott Handleman Gay in the Third World Tom Barry The Politics & Ideologies of the Anti-Immigrationists John Walsh Looking for Peace in All the Wrong Places Justin E.H. Smith The Hairless Apes of Kansas vs. the Reality-Based Community: Why Progressives Have a Stake in the War on Evolution Alan Wallis The Story of Pinky: the Drug Trade in My Neighborhood Ben Tripp Negative Space: an Artful Lesson Frederick B. Hudson Songs to Lose Your Loneliness By: the Raised Voices of Sweet Honey in the Rock Poets' Basement Gaffney, Engel, Davies, and Albert     June 24, 2005 Ray McGovern The Downing St. Fixation: Fixing to Fix "Fixed" Jorge Mariscal "They Only Call Us Americans When They Need Us for War": the Paradox of Mexican Americans in Iraq Desiree Hellegers Portland vs. the FBI Zeynep Toufe What Do the American People Know and When Did They Know It? Joshua Frank Call Him Senator Con Job David Lindorff Which Flag Would Jesus Burn? Michael Neumann Victory and Recruitment Website of the Day Gagging Dr. Dean June 23, 2005 Christopher Brauchli Thomas Griffith and Rule 49: He Practiced Law Without a License; Now He's a Federal Appeals Court Judge Clay Conrad Killing Off the Jury with Tort Reform Standard Schaefer A Retort to Military Neo-Liberalism P. Sainath Vidharbha: No rains and 116F, But It Does Have "Snow" and Water Parks Mark Engler CAFTA Deserves a Quiet Death Norman Solomon Voluntary Amnesia in America Cockburn / St. Clair Frank Calzon Kathy Kelly Where You Stand Determines What You See   June 22, 2005 Kevin Zeese The Bush Administration's Psy-Ops on the American Public: an Interview with Col. Sam Gardiner William S. Lind Afghanistan: the Other War Arsalan Iftikhar Patriots Against the PATRIOT Act Dan Nagengast Give Populism a Chance: From France to Kansas David Krieger To the Graduates: We Live in an Interdependent World Kathleen & Bill Christison Tempest in Santa Fe: Confronting Israeli Myth-making     June 21, 2005 Brian Cloughley Destroy the Unbelievers! Mike Whitney President Disconnect Dave Lindorff Who Needs Big Bird, Anyway? Mark Weisbrot Bush's Lonely Campaign Against Hugo Chavez Matthew R. Simmons The Coming Saudi Oil Crisis Dave Zirin The Crass Slipper Fits: Ron Howard's Terrible "Cinderella Man" Virginia Rodino The Anti-War Movement and Impeachment Paul Craig Roberts A War Waged by Liars and Morons   June 20, 2005 Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Tariq Ali To the Gates of the Gleneagles Hotel! Mickey Z. WMDs American-Style: It's 60 Years Since Alamogordo William Blum Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends Gary Leupp Old News Indeed: In 1999, Bush Craved Chance to Attack Iraq Jason Leopold Someone Tell Bush Iraq Wasn't Behind 9/11, Before He Starts Another War Dave Lindorff Why the Media Should be Schiavo'd Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Uri Avnery Condi and Hamas Website of the Day Crimes Against Poetry                                                                               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.     Subscribe Online

July 13, 2005 Social Movements Make Social Change A Supreme Waste of Time By CARLOS FIERRO What is sure to be a contentious battle, over the nomination and the confirmation of the president's soon to be Supreme Court appointee, will be fast upon us. But this is a battle best left to those who have an interest in the outcome of that battle. Which is to say, those who have something to win within this system, whatever that outcome might be. Those who have something to win within this system are a distinct group from those who lose, the winners always win and the losers always lose regardless of the outcome. The overarching issue is not one of political party, but that of an institution that is structured to clearly and consistently separate the "winners" and the "losers." A quick look at the history of the Supreme Court, the country, the constitution, and the Declaration of Independence makes clear distinctions between the "winners" and the "losers." It will become clear that the winners are always the winners and the losers are always the losers regardless of the outcome of such decisions. Distinctions between wannabe justices' philosophies are relatively meaningless; that is, they are distinctions without differences (imagine arguing how best, or most humanely to kill a prisoner). Besides perspective justices' differences regarding specific issues (e.g. gun-control, abortion) there is very little difference in prevailing philosophies, and those differences break down upon closer inspection. The differences in philosophies are most often looked at as being between those justices who see the constitution as a living document (often times called activist judges) and those who see the constitution as a steadfast document (often times called traditionalist or conservative judges). The arguments for both approaches have been played out and will not be dealt with here. In any case, both types of judges essentially do the same thing ­ namely, they maintain the status quo. Therein lies the rub; regardless of what type of nominee is confirmed, conservative or activist, the traditional winners are the winners and the traditional losers are the losers. This is why it is best for us traditional losers - the powerless, poor, working class, minorities, immigrants, and progressives - to let the traditional winners fight over the distinction without differences. This is not to say that the losers simply give up far from it! But we have to realize that such a fight is a supreme waste of time that necessarily takes attention and energy away from things more pertinent to making society more just and equitable. To Borrow a Line Thomas Jefferson famously wrote in the Declaration of Independence that certain truths are self-evident and that the Creator endowed us with certain unalienable rights, "that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." He lifted this line, of course, from John Locke's Second Treatises. Jefferson changed it slightly: the third right mentioned becomes the "pursuit of Happiness" rather than that of property as Locke wrote it. Jefferson's writings, inspiring enough for his compatriots while well-suited to be used against the King of England, were too radical to be used in the founding document, and consequently no such rights are seen in the Constitution. And although "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" were not too radical to use as a rhetorical stick to beat over the head of ol' King George III, Locke's use of "property" perhaps was. If we think back to who owned property in revolutionary times (white males), how many people actually owned property (very few), and how the ownership of property or lack thereof was used to exclude the "losers" from participation in the new government (property ownership as a prerequisite for serving in the legislature and voting), it becomes abundantly clear that Jefferson's revision was not by mistake. In fact, even though Jefferson's writing was decidedly conservative, it was radical enough that some of those who fought the revolutionary war were perhaps taken up by the rhetoric after the war. Such was the case with Shay's rebellion, though the seldom mentioned in American history courses. The very men who fought the Revolutionary War had the misfortune of believing that rhetoric. However, debtors prisons, the seizure of farms by banks, and poll taxes all seemed to be the antithesis of those high ideals spewed by the founders against King George III. The veterans of the Revolutionary war subsequently fought a rebellion against the Massachusetts government. After the rebellion was crushed, the rebels were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. The right to property that Locke posited would not do. Although Jefferson's writings were decidedly more conservative than Locke's, Locke should not be thought of as a radical with a true sense of equity and social justice. Locke, of course, thought that governments should protect private property. As such, they should not infringe on the rights of property owners. Private property was that land which was taken out the commons by the mixing of one's labor with the land. Locke himself saw this definition as justification for the white Europeans taking land from Native Americans. Land in the Americas, inhabited by the aboriginal people of the Americas, was seen as land in fallow and thus available for white Europeans to take. Such a justification certainly moves far from social justice; however, it was greatly problematic for Jefferson and the new country. Most of those mixing their labor with the land were in fact landless, and a great many of them (slaves) had no liberty. It wasn't Jefferson, Washington, Madison, and Hamilton - the great land holders of the new country - who were mixing their labor with the land, but their indentured servants and slaves. The founding documents were written by those who had a distinct interest in maintaining the power imbalance; the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence reflect these interests. These documents were written from above. It is safe to say that these documents would look very different had they been written by those below: slaves, Indians, women, indentured servants, the landless, the powerless, the "losers." The very notion that the new nation was a democracy or a republic or any combination of those two is repugnant on its face. Any nation that excluded upwards of 90% of its inhabitants from any participation or say in their future should be called an oligarchy at best. This is what our founders, the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and our government established! This is the tradition that our legislative, executive, and yes our judicial branches come out of. Possible justices, whichever philosophical camp they come out of, activist or conservative, will do little to serve the "losers." Whichever camp wins out, the winners will still be the winners and the losers the losers. The Supreme Court and Progress One cannot deny that the Supreme Court has handed down some decisions that have greatly made our nation more equitable and just, and at times these decisions might even be seen as progressive (unfortunately, there are far more decisions that do just the opposite). It is, however, dangerous to mistake the genesis of these decisions. There are two reasons for this danger. First, it is simply false. The legislature, the executive, and the judicial have not progressed this nation. They have gone along with popular movements kicking and screaming. It was not any of the three branches of government that lead to the advances in voting rights, labor rights or the end of slavery, it was mass popular movements. It was not Cleveland, Harrison, McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, or even FDR that had anything to do with advances in labor right or suffrage. It wasn't Brandeis, Berger, Brennan, Holmes or Marshall that lead to the advancement of this nation as a more equitable state. It wasn't JFK, Robert Kennedy or Johnson in the White House, or Mansfield and Dirksen in the Senate that lead to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was people on the street marching and fighting for a more equitable nation. It was many of those same people that brought about the end to the Vietnam War, not the mainstream media or any of those mentioned above. It is this very misperception, the creation of dubious hero leaders, that leads to the second danger: disempowerment. We are left to petition our overseers and vote for leaders in the hopes that they will make things better. If only we could get a liberal justice on the bench, if only Kerry were to win the election, if only the Democrats could take control of the congress. A liberal justice would still act in the manner and tradition of the Supreme Court, which is in defense of the powerful; Kerry would have taken us to Afghanistan and Iraq and kept us there, and a Democrat controlled congress has in the past and would still legislate in favor of those in power, and circumvent their own responsibility just as when they gave the first George Bush and Bill Clinton the right to fight and continue a war in Iraq throughout the 90s without a declaration of war from congress. When advancements that were the result of people on the street fighting for a more equitable society are lost to the myth of great men (our leaders) advancing history, we (the "losers") are doomed to throwing our support to one of two distinctions without a difference, and we still lose. Carlos Fierro can be reached at: fierrocd@yahoo.com