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Inside the New Print Edition of CounterPunch: How Go the Democrats? Democrats on the Brink: Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair; Innocent Lads, Depraved Killers and Predatory Priests by JoAnn Wypijewski; Torture Air, Inc.: the Road to Rendition: by Jeffrey St. Clair. Remember these stories are available exclusively in the print 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! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Coming Soon from CounterPunch Books Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order! Today's Stories March 12 / 13, 2005 David H. Price The CIA's Campus Spies   March 11, 2005 Jerry Fresia Targeting Giuliana Ron Jacobs Making Lebensraum in the Middle East for Tel Aviv's Fears & Washington's Dollars Dave Lindorff America's Magical Kingdom William James Martin Ben Gurion and the Origin of the "Pushing into the Sea" Myth Muqtedar Khan Modi's Operandi: American Business and Genocide Linked Again Kathryn Ledebur Bolivia on the Brink Mike Whitney Saddam's Capture: Just Another Bush Lie? Dave Zirin Neo-McCarthyism Slugs Baseball Website of the Day William Rivers Pitt, Another Hack for the Occupation   March 10, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts So Much for the New Bush Economy John Marc Leas, Colleen McLaughlin and Ashley Smith Vermont Vs. the War Larry Birns The Pathological John Bolton Michael Donnelly The Re-Reinvention of an Oregon Timber Beast Luis Gomez In Bolivia, Reality Changes Once Again Jackie Corr Whatever Happened to the Social Security Trust Fund? Uri Avnery Bush's Guru: Natan Sharansky Website of the Day Red Alert in the Siskiyous!   March 9, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Dirty Harry's Fear of Flying: Making Love, War and Profits at Boeing Ward Churchill Who's the Terrorist? Robert Fisk Another Species of Cedar: a Half Million Lebanese March for Syria Bernice Powell Jackson No Justice for America's Nuclear Guinea Pigs in the Marshall Islands Mickey Z. The Revolutionary of Potential Art Dave Zirin NHL Says: "Bring On the Scabs!" Michael Donnelly Standing Up to Ecocide in Oregon James Reiss Stopping by Words in Favor of Privatizing Social Security Vijay Prashad Get Modi: a State Terrorist Visits Florida March 8, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Syrian Delusion Robert Fisk Lebanon's Nightmare Kurt Nimmo War is Peace: John Bolton to the UN Suzan Mazur Time for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Polygamy? Evelyn Pringle Neil Bush and Crest: Another Profiteering Scheme Giuliana Sgrena My Truth: "The Americans Don't Want You to Return" Elaine Cassel The Appalling Case of Abu Ali   March 7, 2005 Dave Zirin Bloodlust in Annapolis: Gov. Ehrlich Wants to Kill Vernon Lee Evans Brian Cloughley More War Crimes John Chuckman The Creature Walks Among Us Mike Whitney Jose Padilla and the 10 Commandments Mark Weisbrot Haiti's Torment: Why Are US Human Rights Groups Silent? Fred Gardner The Cannabinoid Messenger Richard Neville The Italian Job Uri Avnery The Next Crusades     March 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Arnold vs. the Nurses Gary Leupp What's Happening in Lebanon: an Interview with Fadi Agha, Advisor to President Lahoud Ron Jacobs Lies Military Recruiters Tell Tom Reeves Haiti: One Year After the Coup Jenna Orkin Memories of Kawaggi, Saudi Arabia Tom Barry Negroponte: Intel Czar or Policy Hack? Joshua Frank The Trials of Max Baucus Moshe Adler When Pfizer Came to New London: Corporate Giveways vs. Eminent Domain Jane Stillwater My Jury Questionnaire: "Do You Agree that a Corporation is a Person?" Omar Barghouti / Jacqueline Sfeir Double Standards on S. Africa and Israel: an Open Letter to UNESCO Christopher Brauchli Target: Al Jazeera John Pilger The Fall of Saigon: 30 Years Later Raúl Zibechi Colombia: Militarism and Social Movements David Krieger Saving the Nuclear Nonproliferation Agreement Three Takes on Nepal Surendra R. Devkota Another Blow to the King of Nepal Bhishma Karki Nepal in Twilight Joseph Pietri Murder at the Palace Ben Tripp The Good Old Days Poets' Basement Hassen, Chief Running Late, Wuest, Albert and Collins Website of the Weekend O'Shaughnessy's: All About Medical Pot     March 4, 2005 Frederick Hudson Caught in a Cage   March 3, 2005 Pat Williams "Social Security Protects the Young as Much as the Old" Brian Cloughley Headlines, Beliefs and Deceptions Dave Lindorff Why Do the Democrats Pamper Greenspan? Amira Hass Oslo All Over Again Greg Moses In Oscar Texas: One Down, One to Go? Lynne Landes Exit Poll Madness Nelson P. Valdés Rapture Takes Leftists John Ross Mexico's Fox Schemes to Jail Front-Running Leftist   March 2, 2005 Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen The "Noble Liars" Attack Syria Mike Roselle The State of Oregon vs. Mike Roselle: Criminalizing Environmental Dissent M. Junaid Alam Columbia University and the New Anti-Semitism Suzan Mazur Inside the Polygamy Cults of Southern Utah Jackson Thoreau Texas Congressman Calls for "Nuking Syria" Michael Donnelly No Love for Teresa Heinz; John Edwards Gets a Pass Jeffrey St. Clair Uncle Bucky Makes a Killing Website of the Day The Ghosts of Karl Marx & Ed Abbey     March 1, 2005 Scott Richard Lyons Million Dollar Bigotry David Lindorff Stealing Workers' Pensions Patrick Cockburn / David Enders Bloodbath in Iraq Ron Jacobs The Last Poets Recalled Tanya Garcia USA Next: the Industry Front Group to Privatize Social Security Joseph Pietri The Drug Trail Ends in Kathmandu: Golden Tar Heroin and the Black Prince Kona Lowell Woody: Broken in Vietnam Paul Craig Roberts The Coming End of the American Superpower Website of the Day Petition: No US Intervention in Iran     February 28, 2005 Gary Leupp Year 4 in the Five Year Plan: a June Attack on Iran? Bill Quigley Haitian Police Open Fire on Nonviolent Marchers Mickey Z. The Million Dollar Interview: Mary Johnson on Clinton Eastwood, Hunter Thompson and the "Right to Die" Paul de Rooij Why Ted Honderich is Wrong on All Counts About Israel David Swanson Basic Income Guarantee Versus the Corp Media Mario Lamo Jimenez Maria Full of Cultural Contradictions at the Oscars Emma Perez The Attacks on Ward Churchill: a Test Case in the Neocons Purge of Academia Diana Johnstone Censorship and the Empire Website of the Day Stop the War Campaign!     February 26 / 27, 2005 Alexander Cockburn An American Jew Laments Decline in Jewish Influence Noam Chomsky Nuclear Terror at Home Rev. William E. Alberts Rhetoric in the Air; Reality on the Ground Fred Gardner AARP Gets Pot-Baited Gary Leupp Bush and Camus on Freedom Saul Landau An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon (Part 3): the Miami Mafia Robin Philpot Second Thoughts on the Hotel Rwanda Yitkhak Laor In Praise of the Facts Ben Tripp Out of Sight; Out of Mind Justin Taylor Zizek Seen Over the Handlebars Jack Random The Wounds from Wounded Knee Rafael Renteria Ward Churchill and White America Jim B. Reflections on the Eve of Fatherhood Seth DeLong Land Reform in Venezuela: More Like Lincoln Than Lenin John Chuckman A Season of Depressing Political Reruns Alison Weir Relativity, LA Times Style Richard Oxman Political Solitude: From Garcia Marquez to Maria Full of Grace Dr. Susan Block It Always Rains in California: All About Female Ejaculation Poets' Basement Landau, Lowell, Louise, Davies, Soderstrom, Norris & Albert     February 25, 2005 Roger Burbach Murder in the Amazon Behzad Yaghmaian Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making Kurt Nimmo Conclave of the Brats Joshua Frank Diagnosing the Green Party John Farley How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians Lawrence Reichard The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil Pratyush Chandra The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs David Smith-Ferri When the Battlefield has No Borders Website of the Day The 2005 Election in 3-D   February 24, 2005 Omar Waraich The Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician Brian Cloughley Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame & 30 Pieces of Silver Tom Wright Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later Sharon Smith The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons Dave Lindorff Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu? Fred Feldman Lynching Ward Churchill James Reiss On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush Diane Christian Bad Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq Website of the Day The Gray Line     February 23, 2005 Werther The Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq W. John Green A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground Rules James Petras A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy? Conn Hallinan Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby Joe Pietri Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and Cops) Louis Proyect Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism Alexander Cockburn Hunter S. Thompson and Gonzo Website of the Day Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?   February 22, 2005 Naseer Aruri The Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East Richard Manning The Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan William A. Cook Righteous Racism Running Rampant Paul Craig Roberts The Agents of Instability Ken Krayeske Dr. Thompson is Out Dave Zirin How the Owners Destroyed the NHL Kirkpatrick Sale Imperial Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire     February 21, 2005 Hunter S. Thompson "He Was A Crook" John Ross Mexico: the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq Ward Churchill What Did I Really Say? Why Did I Say It? Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to You by the US Navy David Swanson Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State Dave Lindorff All the News That's Fit to Fake Stew Albert Fear and Loathing: HST Michael Neumann Strategies in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky     February 19 / 20, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Back to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory" Kathleen Christison Struggling for Justice in Palestine Ted Honderich On Being Persona Non Grata Gary Leupp Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to Commit Suicide Don Santina Reparations for the Blues Jennifer Roesch John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior Scott Richard Lyons Ward Churchill and the Identity Police Chris Clarke Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage George Beres Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in Oregon Harry Browne The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels Manuel Garc'a, Jr. Who Killed Rafik Hariri? Mark Scaramella Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War Michael Donnelly Whatever Happened to John Edwards? John Pilger First, They Attack the Past Norman Madarasz Death Wish for Reform in Brazil? Surendra Devkota The Monarchy in Nepal Deborah Rich How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark Fred Gardner When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard CounterPunch News Service About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland Richard Oxman CounterPunching Arthur Miller Poets' Basement Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin   February 18, 2005 Ben Moxham In East Timor, the Nightmare Continues Dave Lindorff The Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte Larry Birns Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery Gregory Elich N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy Samuel Logan / John Meyers The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads Nicole Colson Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward Churchill Suzan Mazur Whose National Security Are We Talking About? Mickey Z. "One Man Has Stopped Killing"     February 17, 2005 Joshua Frank Hogtying of the Deaniacs Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media Robert Fisk Under the Shadow of Death in Lebanon Christopher Brauchli Where Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Military Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be Cannon Fodder? Alison Weir Russia, Israel and Media Omissions Ahrar Ahmad A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?" Saul Landau An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples the Laws It Wrote" Website of the Day Petition to Support Ward Churchill     February 16, 2005 Robert Fisk Lebanon: a Battlefield for the Wars of Others Kevin Zeese Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect Retirement Gary Leupp Meanwhile, in Nepal... Ron Jacobs Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration Jessica Leight Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff Greg Moses Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities in Texas Mark Engler The Last Porto Alegre Jack McCarthy Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill Bill Christison US Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel Website of the Day The World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch     February 15, 2005 CounterPunch News Service Dean a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch Robert Fisk The Killing of Mr. Lebanon Uri Avnery "Sharm-al-Sheikh, We Have Come Back Again" Stan Cox Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal Mickey Z. Radio Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook Dave Zirin Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean Nadia Martinez Ending World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now Lila Rajiva "Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of Magical Thinking in Politics Paul Craig Roberts The American Job Sell Out     February 14, 2005 Robert Jensen Ward Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11 Brian Cloughley Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style Patrick Cockburn Outcome of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War Gary Leupp Post-election Iraq: What Next? Michael Donnelly Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity? Dave Lindorff When Bush Came to My Neighborhood Elaine Cassel The Lynne Stewart Verdict   February 12 / 13, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ward Churchill's Genes Saul Landau Alarcon Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba Paul Craig Roberts Nothing to Fear But Bush Himself Patrick Cockburn Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All Major Roads into Baghdad John Feffer Bush v. N. Korea: Round Two Mickey Z. Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak Kurt Nimmo Viva la Cucaracha! Fred Gardner Waiting for Raich Dave Zirin Fighting the New Republic(ans) John Chuckman Hiroshima, Mon Amour Ben Tripp A Leftist on the Bush Payroll Carol Norris "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?" Robert Fisk No Middle East Peace Without Justice Frank / Chowkwanyun Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin Mike Whitney Condi's Euro Tour Deborah Frisch A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill Niranjan Ramakrishnan Reading Khomeini in Colorado Christine TenBarge What's So Special About Ward? Ron Jacobs Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan Dr. Susan Block Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting Poets' Basement Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert Website of the Weekend Free Sherman     February 11, 20055 Manuel Garcia, Jr The Eight Percent War Kurt Nimmo Ann Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need Him? Dave Lindorff Guckert or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In Larry Birns War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott Abrams Bill Quigley Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz Tom Barry Bush's State of Delusion Jennifer Van Bergen Lynne Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All     February 10, 2005 Dave Lindorff What Academic Freedom? Christopher Brauchli The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq Patrick Cockburn In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed Nicole Colson Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights? Suzan Mazur More on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha Michael Donnelly Salvaging an Opposition Mike Stark Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little Hope" Greg Moses Taking Jesus Back from the Hijackers Website of the Day The Missionary Positions     February 9, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Duck and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers Mickey Z. What Ward Churchill Didn't Say John Ross Hecho en Mexico: the Iraqi Election Tom Barry Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon Conn Hallinan The Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion Patrick Cockburn Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely Forbidden" Steen Sohn Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions Tim Wise Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians Website of the Day Support Antiwar.com     February 8, 2005 Patrick Cockburn Shia/Kurd Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral Pact, Not a Party" Brian Cloughley Out of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People" Steve Breyman Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society" Harry Browne "Don't Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland Doug Giebel "We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President and Ward Churchill Nate Collins The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the Same Beast Dave Lindorff It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper David Smith-Ferri Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq     February 7, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Bush's War on Jobs Carolyn Baker The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher Ed Joshua Frank Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill Mickey Z. Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill Patrick Cockburn The Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq Mike Whitney Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism Stacie Jonas Pinochet: Fit to be Tried Dave Zirin A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI Tariq Ali Imperial Delusions       February 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ward Churchill and the Mad Dogs Kurt Nimmo A Ward Churchill Kind of Day Joshua Frank Liberals Trash Ward Churchill P. Sainath Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami Patrick Cockburn Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust Laura Carlsen Bush, Rice and Latin America Dave Lindorff How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story Pamela Olson West Bank Story Behzad Yaghmaian The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen A Threatened UN in King George's Court Roger Burbach World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents Robert Fisk History by Laptop David Swanson James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome Justin E.H. Smith Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada Cacie Hart The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love Ron Jacobs Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life Mickey Z. Viewing America from the Outside Ben Tripp Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy Ben Sonnenberg France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the Game Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert Website of the Weekend John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File   February 4, 2005 Brian Cloughley The Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior of Someone Like That is to Kill Them" Bill Christison Election Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005 Elaine Cassel Did Zoloft Make Him Do It? Jacob Levich Chomsky and the Draft Kanak Mani Dixit Return of the Royalists in Nepal Ron Jacobs The Downward Spiral in Iraq     February 3, 2005 Ward Churchill On the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications and Gross Distortions Sharon Smith Resisting Soldiers Need Our Support Mickey Z. Leslie Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy? Mike Whitney President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union Jenna Orkin 9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan Saul Landau Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq Yitzhak Laor Strange is the Silence Dave Lindorff The Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies     February 2, 2005 David Domke / Kevin Coe Bush's Brand of Christianity Noam Chomsky Iraq After the Elections M. Shahid Alam O'Reilly's Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me in Its Crosshairs Richard Oxman Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen Joshua Frank The Suckering of Howard Dean Dave Lindorff A History Lesson from the NYT Nina Hartley Feminists for Porn Website of the Day War is a Racket     February 1, 2005 Joshua L. Dratel The Torture Memos Patrick Cockburn New Doubts About Allawi Robert Fisk "The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals" Uri Avnery The Stalemate Col. Dan Smith "W" Stands for Withdrawal Alison Weir Making America as "Secure" as Israel Alan Farago Heaven and Hell in the Everglades Ray Hanania Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified Voters Paul Craig Roberts American Police State Website of the Day Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors                         December 22, 2004 James Petras An Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre Historical Amnesia Omar Barghouti The Case for Boycotting Israel Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit Harry Browne Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge Richard Oxman On the Seventh Column Kathleen Christison Imagining Palestine Website of the Day FBI Torture Memos     December 21, 2004 Greg Moses The New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV Dave Lindorff Losing It in America: Bunker of the Skittish Chad Nagle The View from Donetsk Dragon Pierces Truth* Concrete Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam Patrick Cockburn "Things Always Get Worse" Seth DeLong Aiding Oppression in Haiti Ahmad Faruqui Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report Paul Craig Roberts America Locked Up: a System of Injustice                                         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

Weekend Edition March 12 / 13, 2005 Still Kicking US Culture in the Ass ZAP Comics Redux By RON JACOBS I've always been something of a comic book fan. Captain Marvel, Batman, Green Lantern, even Richie Rich and Archie. When I was 10 years old and was evacuated from the small military base I lived on in Peshawar, West Pakistan because of a war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, the thing I remember the best is the incredible number of comic books at the disposal of all the youngsters I was evacuated with. We spent hours reading comics that other military dependents and GIs had donated to us. When our plane stopped over in Tehran for a refueling on its way from Kabul, Afghanistan to Istanbul, Turkey the Red Cross and USO volunteers gave us each a bag lunch and three comics. Mine were two Supermans and a very old Captain Marvel. I don't remember the contents of the lunch at all. The first few days in Turkey, all of the boys over six years old slept in a barracks dorm on Karamursel Air Station. There were several hundred comic books strewn around the place. Unfortunately, we eventually had to go back to school and my comic reading time was cut short. Although I still read them when I could, my obsessive binge was curtailed. I regained some of that obsession the day I saw the first three ZAP Comix in a head shop in Germany. For those of you unfamiliar with ZAPs, they were the best of the underground comix that were published in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. R. Crumb, Denis Kitchen, Spain, S. Clay Wilson, Moscosco, Robert Williams and so on-all of the best artists filled the pages of these psychedelic, mind-bending, rude and antiestablishment exercises in expression. Part of the rebellion against the moralistic Comics Code that mainstream comics had to adhere to, underground commix laughed in the face of this attempt by the puritans to regulate what people could read. If someone was looking for a way to be offended, they could find it in ZAP. For the rest of us, ZAPs and their sister publications were cutting social and political criticism. Whether it was R. Crumb drawing and writing a story about Whiteman, the screwed-up representative of male middle-class America or S. Clay Wilson sharing his intricately drawn tales of brutality and excess among bikers and pirates, these comix rearranged the often-dull world we live in. They weren't light reading and sometimes not very pretty, but neither is the daily news. At least comix are fun. GIs loved Dopin' Dan, a hapless GI who fumbled his way through the man's army stoned on weed and whatever else was around. A Beetle Bailey for the Vietnam generation of soldiers, Dan's primary concern was staying alive, staying high, and making a fool of the lifers who tried to rule his world. Gilbert Shelton from Austin had his tales of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, three twenty something men who had dropped out of Middle America and moved to the hippie ghettoes. Their bumbling adventures avoiding cops, the draft, and work were not only humorous, they were what we were living. ZAP Comix combined such underground comix characters as Mr. Natural and Coochie-Cootie, The Checkered Demon and Trashman, Agent of the 6th International. The latter was an anarcho-syndicalist superhero created out of the cartoonist Spain's interest in politics and the anarchists of the Spanish Civil War. Often quite sexist in their portrayal of women, these comix reflected the society they existed in. The sexism did not go unanswered, however. Several women cartoonists began a series of commix they titled All-Wimmin Comix that saw the new world of the counterculture from a feminist perspective. Like much good satire, these comix used exaggeration to make their point. It was this exaggeration (that bordered on the grotesque at times) that got them in trouble with prudes of the right and the left. I recently purchased the most recent issue of ZAP-Number 15. Like its predecessors, there is something to offend anyone who wishes to be offended here. Heck, parts of it offend me. Is it for children, like other comics supposedly are? If your definition of children means those younger than high school age, my answer would be no, at least in most cases. Ken Kesey (an avid Captain Marvel fan) once noted in a published conversation with Paul Krassner that when his kids read underground comix, their style of play "turned inward." Kesey attributed this in part to the cartoonists' tendency to use their art as a way to work out some of their demons. Adults, argued Kesey, either had enough of their own demons to deal with or had built enough walls that enabled them not to take on someone else's. Children, on the other hand, don't have such walls. Despite this, I would rather see a ZAP comic in the hands of a child than support a call to limit their sales or censor their content. Content-wise, ZAP 15 takes on the new police state of the post 9-11 America. While satirizing US residents' fear of terrorists, Shelton, Crumb and the other artists in the collection take on the puritanical persuasions of the current administration and its manipulation of fear to create the police state it desires. Whether it's R. Crumb's autobiographical sketch of his neuroses, Spain's portrayal of the car-racing culture, S. Clay Wilson's grotesque artistry portraying the underside of human existence in no uncertain terms, or Gilbert Shelton's latest Wonder Warthog adventure where in the Warthog's alter-ego Hebert Desenex loses his job and his superpowers (gee what could that mean?) and then gets arrested for looking like a terrorist just because he's weird, ZAP 15 continues the grand underground tradition of getting under that bit of the Establishment's skin we all wear. . Despite the intention of satire (it is a comic after all), there are elements of this comic that are more real than fantasy, more truth than fiction. Than again, isn't that the nature of satire? To take the facts and make them so real (super real, in fact) that the truth comes through? Jonathan Swift did it back when he wrote "A Modest Proposal," and the aforementioned Paul Krassner made a publishing career out of it with his now-defunct magazine, The Realist. In other words, many a good satirist adopts the philosophy of "screw 'em if they can't take a joke." ZAP and its artists continue this tradition. Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's new collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu