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Today's
Stories
July
19, 2005
Bill
Christison
Bush's Itinerary: First Stop Syria,
Next Stop Iran
July
18, 2005
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Ward Churchill
M.
Shahid Alam
A Muslim Problem: Did Thomas Friedman
Flunk History?
Jude
Wanniski
Memo to Patrick Fitzgerald
Ron
Jacobs
A Weekend to Stop the War
Mike
Whitney
The Straight Line Between Falluja and King's Cross Station
William
MacDougall
From "Bring It On" to "London Can Take It"
Seth
Sandronsky
Temporary Recovery: New Frontiers in Labor Flexibility
Richard
Lichtman
The Consolations of George Lakoff
Paul
Craig Roberts
Can Congressional Republicans End
Bush's Wars?
Website
of the Weekend
Novels of the Neo-Cons
July
15 / 17, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Don't You Dare Call It Treason
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton
Paul
Craig Roberts
Economic Treason
Harry
Browne
"What They Do to Us, They Will
Do to You": Shell Oil in Mayo, Ireland
Uri
Davis, Ilan Pappe and Tamar Yaron
A Warning from Israel
Andrew
Rubin
End of the Enlightenment: an Open Letter to Stephen Plaut
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Ghost Battalions
J.L.
Chestnut, Jr.
Changes in Selma: Standing Up to Racism in the South
Fred
Gardner
A Professional Bust
Christopher
Brauchli
An Olympic Feat: How to "Double" Aid with No New Money
Chris
Floyd
The Great Iraq Oil Giveaway
Ben
Tripp
The Dark Incontinent
Col.
Dan Smith
General Abizaid, I'm Glad You Asked
Jason
Leopold
What Did Rove Say and When Did He
Say It?
Jack
Random
Miller Time
Norman
Solomon
War and Venture Capitalism
George
Ochenski
Liberate Montana's Rivers: Come One, Come All!
Website
of the Weekend
Vote for CounterPuncher David Vest
July
14, 2005
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton
Subcomandante
Marcos
This is What Will Do and How We Shall Do It: the Sixth Declaration
of the Selva Lacandona
Dave
Lindorff
No More Moral Relativism: the US is a Terrorist State
Joshua
Frank
Rove Agency: Liberals and the CIA
Jude
Wanniski
Those 8 Black Pages: What's the Real Story on Karl Rove?
Dave
Zirin
Storming the Castle
Kevin
Zeese
Exit Strategy: Within Reach?
Robert
Jensen
War Myths and the Press
Reza
Fiyouzat
A Worldwide Call to Free Akbar Ganji
Carol
Norris
Governor Paranoid: Schwarzenegger Comes Unhinged
Website
of the Day
Nate Osborn: Heroic Human Rights Activist and CounterPuncher
July
13, 2005
Brian
Cloughley
Cold Blooded Murders in Iraq
George
Galloway
We Can't Separate the London Bombings
from the Political Backdrop
Carlos
Fierro
A Supreme Waste of Time
Sarah
Knopp
Hate on the Border
Norman
Solomon
"Isolated Pockets of Problems": the Fake Optimism of
Washington's Warriors
Mickey
Z.
Water on the Brain
Jim
Minick
The Right Tree in the Right Place
Pat
Williams
American Indian Education for All
Andrew
N. Rubin
Life Behind the Wall: "We are
No Longer Able to See the Sun Set"
Website
of the Day
"London's Burning": the Mikey Mix
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.
|
July 19, 2005
A Decent Living, Living Decently
Get Back to
Where We Once Belonged
By
DAVE LINDORFF
Being of a contrarian nature, I'm going
to tread a bit off the beaten path and tackle the scare tactics
that are being pushed by both politician and the ever-rapacious
Wall Street regarding Baby Boomers and retirement.
The claim is that Social Security
is not going to be there for us future geezers, and that we,
like the proverbial grasshopper, have squandered our resources
enjoying life and will now have to pay for it with a miserable
old age of poverty and struggle--or at least with 10 harsh years
of intense enforced saving.
First of all, let's put to
rest the premises.
Whatever the Liar-in Chief
is saying on the stump, Social Security will be there for those
who will start hitting retirement age in 2011, and it will be
there for all those who follow them. The reason is simple: We
Boomers are so numerous and so versed in the politics of protest
(even if it has been a while) that we will make benefits be whatever
we think the need to be when it's our turn to collect. It may
well be that in the end this will wind up costing the next generation--our
kids, I might point out--a bit more in taxes. But who among them
is likely to begrudge their elders a decent retirement? And who
among them would want to be responsible for us financially all
on their own? (As often as younger people have been quoted complaining
about the amount of their SS taxes, have you ever heard anyone
complain about their parents' Social Security check being too
large?)
Second, most of us didn't "squander"
our earnings. Most of us, in fact, have been living through a
period of speed-up and payroll squeeze the likes of which has
not been seen since the Great Depression. When I was a child
in  the 1950s, one parent (usually the
father) was typically able to earn a decent living for a middle-class
family. By the late 1970s, when most of us Boomers were starting
our families, thanks to the Federal Reserve and corporate-dominated
government policies that gutted protection for labor organizing
(and to a somnolent, complicit and pro-war trade union movement
more concerned with preserving leaders' perks than with organizing
and fighting for genuine progressive politics), inflation was
allowed to outstrip wage gains. By the 1980s, it took two working
parents just to make ends meet in most middle-class families.
Since then, things have only
gotten worse, with most middle and working-class families now
sinking deeply into debt just to finance the basics.
The good news is that all this
need not mean the poorhouse for the '60s generation. Nor do we
have to start scrimping on ourselves and our nearly grown kids
to stave off disaster, as all the bank and brokerage ads keep
warning as they try to hustle us for our money.
All we need to do is go back
to thinking collectively, the way we used to do so easily back
in the day.
Remember those collective housing
arrangements, those ad-hoc "communes," those free-wheeling
living arrangements we used to enjoy when we were younger, before
we bought into the American Fantasy of the house, yard, two-cars
and personal swing set?
It's time to reject the atomization
of society that has been pushed on us by Madison Avenue, and
to get back to those happier, more communal days.
Forget nursing homes! We need
communes! By pooling our resources--our meager savings, our vehicles,
our Social Security checks, and our diminished but surely complementary
abilities and skills--we can live well on far less than what
the slick money managers at Citibank or American Express claim
we will need.
By returning to collective
thinking, rejoining food coops, planting gardens in community
plots, sharing cars and rides, etc., etc., we might also reconnect
with our political past, when we stood shoulder to shoulder against
the American war machine, against racism, against sexism, and
for a better, more progressive, more humane world.
As a generation, we may have
lost our way, but it's reversible. If we return to what we once
had, if we pick up where we left off, we might even start to
turn this rapidly decaying, anti-human, and increasingly fearful,
selfish, intolerant and undemocratic nation around, and make
it a livable place for our kids and our grandchildren.
Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing
Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new
book of CounterPunch columns titled "This
Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage
Press. Information about both books and other work by Lindorff
can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net.
He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com
|
