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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 Richard
Lichtman Sharon
Smith Dave
Lindorff Ramzy
Baroud Brian
Cloughley Lee
Sustar Joshua
Frank Jackie
Corr Michael
Kimaid Toufic
Haddad Justin
Taylor 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
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Weekend Edition A Report from RomaniaWhat About the People?By JUSTIN E. H. SMITH Bucharest. I was interviewed a few months back on Michael Slate's radio program at KPFK in Los Angeles. He had read a piece I wrote for Counterpunch defending the use of the admittedly overused label 'fascist' in reference to the Bush administration, and he invited me on the air to expatiate. Once there, I drifted into other historical comparisons. I said that the administration's talk about Iraq is often reminiscent of Moscow city-planning under Stalin, when maps were published including not just, as Stalin might say, 'actually existing' streets, polyclinics, and centers for natation, gymnastics, and other sub-branches of 'physical culture', but also those they had intended to build, under Stalin's orders, over the course of the next several years. My host interrupted me with what he took to be a whopping revelation: I had drifted too far, he declared, for, while fascists are bad, Stalin was, as he put it, and as he insisted the historical record would show at the end of days, 'on the side of the people'. I didn't get a chance to ask Mr. Slate what he thinks of Ceausescu. I arrived in the Eastern Bloc for the first time just a month after watching Mr. Ceausescu's execution on Christmas Day, 1989, at the hands of enraged Timisoara miners, on T.V., from the comfort of my parents' sitting room within the gates of a Palm Springs country club. Mom implored me to postpone my semester in Moscow until things settled down a bit. That's not, I insisted, how the dialectic of history works. And now I am in Bucharest, almost 16 years later, giving a few public lectures on topics that have nothing to do with politics, and touring the former dictator's 'House of the People', a kitsch and monstrous neo-classical palace on top of a hill in a central neighborhood he had bulldozed to make room for it, which now houses various government ministries for the promotion of commerce and for integration into the European Union, as well as a mediocre museum of national folk costumes and a rather worse exhibition of what I would describe as student-produced science-fiction/fantasy paintings. Ceausescu got it into his head to build the palace after visiting North Korea in 1971 and deciding that he might be the only communist dictator audacious and megalomaniacal enough to outdo Kim Il Sung. It is a ruin like any other, and it too has been covered over with its own Barbarian desecrations. There are ads all about for a sandwich company called 'Big Time', using the slogan 'meat me' and displaying a grotesque, photo- shopped face of a man with an outsized mouth. The only adaptation I've seen in the post-communist world to rival this place in its simultaneous embodiment of two different eras' different versions of vulgarity is the Atomic Energy pavilion of the Moscow All-Union Exhibition of the Achievements of the Peoples' Economy, where the people can now go to purchase low-end Chinese-made microwave ovens. But in defence of the present historical era, it is at least worth noting that there are now plenty of people milling about in the House of the People who are the undisputed descendents of those they must have had in mind when they started carrying on about 'le peuple' in France some centuries ago: chubby folks in shiny track suits, men with few remaining teeth, Icarus-busloads of domestic tourists who've brought packed lunches of hard-boiled eggs, black bread, and tomatoes to be eaten like apples. I recall visiting another institution ostensibly designed for the people: the Lenin Library in Moscow. It was January, 1990, and glasnost' was already in full swing. But, I was to learn, old habits die hard. I decided to test Gorbachev's rhetoric about openness by seeing if the old ladies assigned to guard the books could produced a copy of Freud's Totem and Taboo for me. I knew they had one in there somewhere, since back in California I had read about the early efflorescence of Freudo-Marxism in the glory days of the Soviet avant garde that would scarcely survive Lenin's death. They kept at least one copy in deep storage after Freud fell out of favor so that, at least on occasion, some designated hacks might haul him out and choose a few isolated, mistranslated, and decontextualized passages for derisive 'critique'. I was given to know very quickly that the Lenin Library is an institution the very purpose of which is to throw up obstacles at every step of a research project to prevent its purported users from getting their hands on the desired materials. If this is a library for the people, I thought at the time, I shall have to have my species membership looked into. Yes, I feel a deep and sincere sense of loss before the ruins of that half of the world that was swallowed up over night and covered over with vulgar advertisements for things no one needs in a meaningless English no one understands. But yes, I also think Stalinism reached a level of duplicitous doublespeak it would be difficult for the Bush administration to match. So was my casual shift from the one historical comparison to another justified? Of course, the facile elision of fascism and Stalinism is an exercise appropriate to intellects operating roughly at the level of Nicholas Kristof, or of some worn-out, 10th-grade world history teacher in the California public school system. There are important differences. Slavoj Zizek has sharply noted that Stalin, unlike Hitler, could appropriately applaud along with the crowd at his own public appearances, for what was being applauded was not the man, but the grand and inevitable sweep of history that had propelled this man to its fore. The actually existing conditions were the result of objective, scientific laws spelled out, but not willed into existence, by Marx himself. Stalin could not be blamed for what happens in accordance with the iron law of history. Nazism, in contrast, was the result of one man's bold and willful interruption of the normal course of history, rather than the continuation of this course. To this distinction, one might add that, while holocaust revisionists are a particularly despicable lot, gulag apologists have something about them that commands sympathy: they are delusional, but it is a beautiful vision of what history could have been that deludes them. Still, one had best limit one's apologies to on-air chatter at the obscure low end of the FM dial in places like Los Angeles, where one is free to flirt with revolutionary iconography without the slightest chance of ever being confronted with a real choice between pacifism and bloodshed, and where one can wax Stalinistic on the mic until one's hour is up and it's time for 'Spaceways', 'Inner Visions', or 'Aziatik Rhythmz'. In Romania, in contrast, where the Stalinist legacy lasted not until 1956, as in the USSR, but until 1989, it's too likely that the person to whom you are divulging your sympathies has parents who were placed in prison for years for some perceived counterrevolutionary faux-pas (like moving to an excessively Asiatic rhythm: witness Ceausescu's crackdown in the 1980s against followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi0, or loved ones who were shot in the town square in Timisoara during what is now universally referred to as the 'revolution' of '89. Around here, after so many decades of duplicity, invocations of 'the people' can't but ring false. This has nothing to do with ideology: this has to do with the way meanings attach to words in spite of what ideologues might want them to mean. For what is said of Woodrow Wilson --that he loved the people but hated people-- is assuredly a fortiori the case for the man whose House of the People would make any small child, of the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, avert her poor eyes in dread, and long for the sight of something warm and human. Justin Smith is a professor of philosophy and writer
living in Montreal. He can be reached at: justismi@alcor.concordia.ca
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