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Today's
Stories
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
March 9, 2004
Greg Weiher
The
Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Tom Barry
Neo-Cons Target Syria
Sharon Smith
The Hypocrites in the Catholic Church
Robert Fisk
The Same Old Iraq
Doug Giebel
The Bush Strategy: Laughing All the Way
Ralph Nader
Pension Rights, the Trail of Broken Promises
Daniel Estulin
In Memory of Ricardo Ortega: a Great Journalist, Killed in Haiti
Dave Lindorff
Martha Stewart's Cloudy Day
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
Website of the Day
Imperial Armies in the Garden
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
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
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for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edition
March 20 / 21, 2004
Bush v. Bush-lite
Chomsky's
Lesser-Evilism
By PHIL GASPER
An article in Saturday's Guardian reports that
left-wing icon Noam Chomsky has given his "reluctant endorsement
to the Democratic party's presidential contender, John Kerry".
Chomsky's support for Kerry is far from enthusiastic. He describes
the choice between Bush and Kerry as one "between two factions
of the business party" and Kerry as "Bush-lite",
only a "fraction" better than his Republican opponent.
But Chomsky argues that the current administration is exceptionally
"cruel and savage" and "deeply committed to dismantling
the achievements of popular struggle through the past century
no matter what the cost to the general population." He concludes
that "despite the limited differences [between Bush and
Kerry] both domestically and internationally, there are differences.
In a system of immense power, small differences can translate
into large outcomes."
Chomsky's acceptance of the "anybody
but Bush" position is sure to be influential, but on this
occasion the arguments he offers represent wishful thinking rather
than the clear-headed political analysis for which he is famous.
There is no question that the Bush administration's policies
are "cruel and savage", but John Kerry (along with
the majority of Democrats in the Senate) supported most of them,
including the war on Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, the war on
Iraq, and the "No Child Left Behind" education act.
As Marjorie Williams pointed out in the Washington
Post recently, "Kerry voted for so many of Bush's major
initiatives that in order to disown them now he can only argue
that they were wrongly or dishonestly 'implemented.' This amounts
to a confession that his opponent made a chump of him for the
past three years. In fact, one might argue that Kerry is a poster
boy for all the ways in which congressional Democrats have allowed
themselves to be rolled by the Bush administration."
The Bush administration has pushed US
politics sharply to the right, but this represents not a qualitative
break with what came before but an extension and continuation
of "cruel and savage" policies implemented by other
administrations over the past 25 years, Democratic as well as
Republican. Bush's attacks on civil liberties build on the legacy
of Bill Clinton, including the 1996 Effective Death Penalty and
Anti-Terrorist act (supported, incidentally, by Kerry). And while
Bush is certainly committed to "dismantling the achievements
of popular struggle through the past century no matter what the
cost to the general population", nothing that he has yet
done in terms of social policy has equaled the brutality of Clinton's
gutting of the federal welfare system (again supported by Kerry).
In terms of foreign policy, the differences
are even smaller. Kerry's criticisms of Bush are purely tactical,
as was abundantly clear in
a recent interview in Time magazine:
"Look, I'm prepared to take any
action necessary to protect the country, and I'm prepared to
act unilaterally if we have to," Kerry insists, noting that
he backed the use of force in Grenada, Panama, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
"But there is a way to do it that strengthens the hand of
the United States. George Bush has weakened the hand of the United
States."
In fact, Kerry wants to send an additional
40,000 troops to Iraq, advocates a "muscular internationalism"
in the tradition of 20th-century Democratic presidents (whose
foreign policy record was far bloodier than their Republican
counterparts) and even refuses to rule out "preventive"
wars. Chomsky is right that "small differences can translate
into large outcomes", but this plays both ways. Kerry, for
instance, may be in a better position than Bush to push through
the reintroduction of the draft, just as it took a Democrat to
implement welfare "reform".
Making decisions about the presidential
election on the basis of the minute differences between the two
major party candidates is ultimately a mug's game. Whoever wins
in November, we'll need the biggest and most militant social
movements on the ground to fight their policies, but when activists
get sucked into support for the Democrats the movements are weakened
and sometimes destroyed. In 1964, when the Republicans nominated
the anti-communist fanatic Barry Goldwater as their candidate,
anti-war activists thought they could go "Half the way with
LBJ". But as the late Hal Draper remarked in a classic article
on the politics of "lesser
evilism":
... you know all the people who convinced
themselves that Lyndon Johnson was the lesser evil as against
Goldwater, who was going to do Horrible Things in Vietnam,
like defoliating the jungles. Many of them have since realized
that the spiked boot was on the other foot; and they lacerate
themselves with the thought that the man they voted for "actually
carried out Goldwater's policy." (In point of fact, this
is unfair to Goldwater: he never advocated the steep escalation
of the war that Johnson put through; and more to the point,
he would probably have been incapable of putting it through
with as little opposition as the man who could simultaneously
hypnotize the liberals with "Great Society" rhetoric.)
"So who was really the Lesser Evil
in 1964?" asked Draper. "The point is that it is the
question which is a disaster, not the answer. In setups where
the choice is between one capitalist politician and another,
the defeat comes in accepting the limitation to this choice."
The same is true in 2004. The most liberal administration of
the past 35 years was led by Republican Richard Nixon, who was
forced to respond to ghetto rebellions, wildcat strikes and radical
social movements. But the historic role of the Democrats has
been to muzzle such movements. If we choose Kerry over Bush,
we make it more difficult to do the only thing that ever makes
a difference for our side--building real activism on the ground.
Think again Noam.
Phil Gasper
is professor of philosophy at Notre Dame de Namur University
in California. He is a member of the National Writers Union and
a frequent contributor to Socialist
Worker and the International
Socialist Review. He can be contacted at pgasper@ndnu.edu.
Weekend
Edition Features for March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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