Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
January 17 / 18, 2003
Joe Quandt
Suicide
Bombers: The Clash of Absurdities
January 16, 2004
Kathy Kelly
A Visit
to Umm Qasr Prison
William S. Lind
More
Thoughts on 4th Generation Warfare
Gillian Russom
So.
Cal Grocery Strikers Speak Out: "We Need Action!"
Ari Shavit
Survival
of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris
Adi Ophir
Genocide Hides Behind Expulsion: a Response to Benny Morris
Dave Lindorff
The General's Henchman: Michael Moore Smears Kucinich
Steve Perry
Iowa Death Trip 2
January 15, 2004
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo
to the President: Your State of the Union Address
John Chuckman
Dry
Hole in the Oval Office: President from Podunk Drilling, Inc
Chris Floyd
Mind Over Matter
Gil-Scott Heron
Whitey on the Moon
Gary Leupp
The
Silk Road: Random Thoughts on the Bam Earthquake and Satan
January 14, 2004
Greg Moses
Happy
Birthday, Dr. King: To Write Off the South is to Surrender to
Bigots
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Supremes: Amputating the Bill of Rights
Dave Lindorff
Preview of Iowa? Pennsylvania Straw Poll Spells Trouble for Traditional
Dems (and Dean)
Jason Leopold
O'Neill Claims Backed by Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz War Letters to
Clinton
Alexander Cockburn
Bush,
Oil and Iraq: Some Truth at Last
January 13, 2004
William S. Lind
How 2004
Looks from Potsdam
M. Junaid Alam
Do Iraqis Have a Right to Resist?
Mickey Z
Snipers:
No Nuts in Iraq
Adolfo Gilly
Chonchocoro:
The Prisoner and the Presidents
Steve Perry
You Love God, Right?
January 12, 2004
Ben Tripp
No Stan
for the Kurds
Norman Solomon
The
Dixie Trap: Democrats and the South
Mike Whitney
O'Neill's Revenge
Jason Leopold
From the Very First Instant It Was About Iraq
Uri Avnery
Syria's
Peace Proposal
January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's
Non-existent WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
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.
|
Weekend
Edition
January 17 / 18, 2004
Governor Conan
Arnold
and Bush's Numbers Don't Add Up
By CAROL NORRIS
Arnold Schwarzenegger, recently announcing his
state budget proposal, has his hands where they shouldn't be
yet again--non-consensually groping the coffers of programs that
assist many of our most vulnerable.
But, enough of that. Schwarzenegger has
provided a "Car Tax Rate Calculator" on his website
www.governor.ca.gov.
He hopes you'll be so distracted adding and multiplying your
way into feeling good that he's turning things around, saving
you a few bucks, you won't even notice he is busily working to
cut services that will not only screw the poor, the elderly,
and the disabled, but you, me and your neighbor in the long run.
It's the same smoke and mirrors of Bush's
famous tax refund--it provides relatively small, yet concrete
"evidence" that he is really on the side of the people.
After all, we have our checks to prove it! Our refund check is
a shiny, little bauble to divert our attention from his budget
plans that are anything but "for the people," plans
that make those few hundred dollars we get a drop in the bucket
compared to what we'll pay in future social and economic costs.
For fun, let's look at a day in the early
political life of Schwarzenegger's economic policy doppelganger,
George W. Bush. Within hours of taking office, Bush repealed
an ergonomics regulation effort 10 years in the making that would've
created much-needed safer work environments for the average citizen
who finds herself in ever-increasing hazardous, stressful workplaces.
Arguing that companies, who can somehow afford to pay their CEO's
many millions of dollars in salary and bonuses even in the hardest
of times--hundreds of times the pay of the average worker--couldn't
maintain a profit with the added expense of maintaining a healthy,
ergonomically-appropriate work environment. Such a claim is not
only absurdly untrue, but its callousness should make your jaw
drop. The big, bad ergonomics regulation law was repealed and
your right to demand a reasonably healthy work environment all
but went down the tubes with it.
In a very similar move that might give
one pause, one of Schwarzenegger's first actions in his early
political life was to promise a "reform" in the worker's
compensation system--a very flawed system, to be sure. But, similar
to the repealed ergonomics law, the revamping of some of the
worker's comp system during the previous governor's tenure was
meant to better address the needs of injured workers, getting
them what they require so they can go back to work. Pro-worker:
gasp.
Schwarzenegger counters that pesky injured
workers, aided and abetted by their doctors and lawyers, seek
medical care too often, and as a result, businesses and beleaguered
insurance companies are losing their shirts. This is flatly untrue.
Yes, a very small percentage of individuals bilk the worker's
comp system, but that could be said of any system, like all those
naughty CEOs who bamboozled their employees and investors out
of their life savings with hardly a slap on the wrist, much less
any meaningful, sweeping reform of their system.
The truth is, in the latest third quarter
of 2003, Zenith, the largest Worker's Compensation insurer, saw
a 200% increase in profits. And, American Financial Group, poor
thing, only saw a 600% increase. Despite this astonishing profit,
they and other worker's comp insurance companies cry "hardship"
and lobby the governor for some relief, ultimately expecting
the worker to sacrifice. If you, Jane Worker, were as lucky as
American Financial group, and your income was $15 an hour, it
would've increased in just a few months to a staggering $900
an hour. But for the gain in profits insurance companies are
currently enjoying, you and I can only dream.
So, Bush repeals the ergonomics regulation
law, conceivably helping to create and/or maintain unhealthy
working conditions, spawning more injured workers who need worker's
compensation assistance. In turn, in California, Schwarzenegger's
worker's comp "reform" will create less assistance
and fewer rights for these injured workers, which in turn will
create more unemployment and fewer people to contribute to the
economy, creating a new host of economic and very real social
problems for them and you and me.
And as long as I digress, let's not forget
Bush's attempt to eradicate the longstanding worker's safeguard
of the 40-hour workweek. Despite some early defeats, it's still
alive and kicking under the radar screen. The aptly named Labor
Department is now trying to bypass Congress, pushing this eradication
as an administrative rule change, which doesn't need congressional
consent. The Labor Department has even gone so far as to publish
information for employers about how they can legally avoid paying
overtime to eligible low-income workers, many of whom depend
on this money to support their families.
With the likes of Bush and Schwarzenegger
at the helm, you and I have the very real potential to be forced
to work unsafely and while injured, with fewer rights, for more
and more hours with no comparable increase in pay. It's a worker's
nightmare come true. This kind of stuff isn't supposed to happen
in America.
In California, it isn't just the injured
workers, but the elderly, school kids, poor working moms and
the developmentally disabled folks who won't get some of the
quality programs and services they need if Schwarzenegger's budget
proposals are approved. His property tax revenue alone will rob
money from local governments and school districts. If one day,
God forbid, your neighbor's house catches on fire and there are
no firemen and women to come put it out, you'll know why.
After public outcry, Schwarzenegger did
backpedal a bit from cuts to the disabled, but cuts are still
there. And although he puts on an Academy Award winning populist
performance, calling vital social service programs "extras"
belies his true attitude and true ignorance. There are more examples
than I have hours in the day to explain how essential the programs
are in all the areas he proposes to cut, but let's take an example
from social services that I know firsthand to illustrate the
point: the mental health system, whose programs are also slowly
but surely being gutted (which began way before Schwarzenegger
came along).
Sam has been mentally ill and in and
out of homelessness for decades. He was finally put into one
of the few remaining day treatment programs that serve chronically
mentally ill adults, rather than doing what is becoming the standard:
going to a 5 minute, monthly visit to his psychiatrist who prescribes
medications and sends him on his way, fingers crossed. Day treatment
is a place to participate in psychotherapy groups, learn social
and practical skills and maybe even have a moment of fun, with
the ultimate goal of keeping folks out of the hospital.
In the program, he begins to move beyond
mere survival mode; he begins to have some hope. He translates
his newfound hope into a sense of self-efficacy and confidence
that he can manage his mental illness, take his meds, tend to
the daily activities you and I take for granted like going to
his medical appointments and making dinner. He then maintains
enough stability to get a part time volunteer job, which then
translates into a part time paid job. He is now earning a small
wage, able to buy and few odds and ends at the local store, and
he's paying some taxes.
His relative stability means that even
when he does hit a snag, he is better able to deal with it, rather
than, say, rant in the streets, which neither he nor you or I
want or enjoy. This equals fewer encounters with police. And
he isn't cycling through the very expensive psych emergency room,
an irreplaceable and crucial, yet very costly means of mental
health management nearly as often, nor is he frequenting the
similarly costly inpatient units. This, in turn, saves you and
me and our cities and states a hell of a lot of money in the
long run because our tax dollars pay for his visits. And because
Sam is using less of the precious ER and inpatient resources,
it frees the staff to provide these crucial services to more
folks who might otherwise be turned away, back onto the streets.
So, aside from being part of the foundation
of a just and truly compassionate society that lives its rhetoric,
maintaining vibrant social service programs is smart business.
It costs much less to provide Sam with preventative, stabilizing
social services on the front end, than it does to catch him in
the very expensive psych ER or inpatient unit when he is in crisis.
So, the reality is that with cuts in social services, like the
cuts in programs to safeguard workers, ultimately it's not only
"them," but also you and I who end up paying the price,
financially and socially.
Sam's scenario is just as profoundly
true for those whose programs Schwarzenegger proposes to cut--for
school children, struggling welfare folks, the poor, the physically
challenged, and the elderly, and it's also true for prisoners
and the developmentally challenged. Those who work in education
and social services know very well that like mental health clients,
students as well as clients and patients of all kinds (including
you and me) who are given adequate preventative and/or enriching
services and programs on the front end, services that offer purposefulness,
respect, financial or quality of life assistance and skills,
produce more stable, healthier, capable, happier people who require
fewer acute or intensive programs and services down the line,
services that are much more expensive. These programs aren't
"extras"; they're an essential part of long-term, effective,
smart treatment. (You'd think the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations
would understand preemption.)
It would be easy to dismiss this as a
bunch of bleeding heart psychobabble, if it weren't so true and
didn't have such long lasting sociopolitical and economic implications
and consequences. Taking an honest accounting of the cost/benefit
ratio of social service programs and all the "extras"
Schwarzenegger proposes to cut requires serious effort and, ultimately,
a changed outlook.
Change is what Schwarzenegger promised
us on his campaign trail over and over and over again. He said,
"In the election, Californians said they wanted action and
not politics as usual." But, although the vast majority
of us could really use any financial help we can get, a car tax
break for us on the one hand; while cutting social services and
education programs on the other, as he pushes a $15 billion bond
measure to balance the budget is a page from the well-worn, dog-eared
textbook: Politics As Usual 101.
Perhaps it's unrealistic to expect a
man who owns a gaggle of Hummers, wearing suits that cost more
than three months of most people's rent to truly have a clue
about the day-to-day challenges that those of us who need social
services face, despite his humble beginnings. But, you and I
have more than a clue. We don't need a calculator to figure the
cost of Schwarzenegger's proposed budget cuts; we know, as we
do with our president, that Schwarzenegger's Bush-style, big-business
actions don't add up to his populist words.
Schwarzenegger's campaign theme song
was We're Not Gonna Take It Anymore. He can pledge that he's
"the people's Governor" all day long, but if he continues
to play politics as usual that tune might well come back to haunt
him.
Carol Norris
is a psychotherapist, freelance writer, and member of CodePink:
Women for Peace, the international peace and social justice
group that has spoken out about Schwarzenegger's alleged sexual
misconduct. She can be contacted at writing4justice@planet-save.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|