Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today's Stories
June 26 / 27, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
June 25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege: Bush
Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did
Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diane Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June 21,
2004
Gary Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June 19
/ 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation on
Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature
Col. Dan
Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June 18,
2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player &
Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| Weekend
Edition
June 26 / 27, 2004
Does Kerry
Dare?
American
Swadeshi
By
NIRANJAN RAMAKRISHNAN
Out
looking for a bike for my son, we found ourselves at a prominent bicycle
store in our town. The young man who waited on us was courteous, patient,
and seemed to know everything about every bicycle in the store -- except
for one aspect -- where the bicycles were made!
He
was uncharacteristically tentative when I asked him a question I have
begun to ask when buying anything, "Is it made in the USA?".
The response is rarely in the affirmative, and this no longer surprises
me. But I am still shocked every time by the evident lack of disquiet
over the fact. Shop assistants and customer service personnel simply
shrug their shoulders as though it had nothing to do with them; worse,
when they do venture a view, it frequently reflects a hapless fatalism.
"That's
the way everything is these days", said our bicycle expert matter-of-factly,
sounding more like a wizened old-timer than the lad of 25 he was, as
I read out from the phalanx of Schwinn's and Trek's, American icons
of old, in what sounded to me like a requiem for the US bicycle industry:
"Made in China"..."Made in China"..."Made in
China"... As he continued to indulge my curiosity in the best traditions
of American salesmanship, we discovered shortly that there was not one
American-made bicycle in the whole store! (In the spirit of full disclosure,
I should add that we did finally buy a Trek from him -- made in China.)
"Men
go on saving labor", wrote Mahatma Gandhi long ago, "until
millions are out of work". Change "saving labor" in Gandhi's
statement to "cutting costs", and you have a fairly good picture
of today.
As
I watch the pageant of jobs board a remorseless flotilla bound eastward,
nothing surprises me more than the good humored sense of inevitability
with which this is accepted. Fatalism is usually regarded as a facet
of the Orient. The word "Kismet", of Kipling fame, captures
the supposed mindset. In a seeming reversal of roles, it is the east
today which disdains notions of predestination (witness the surprise
rout of the favored globalists in India's recent elections) while the
unlikely denizens of Main Street, USA appear mired in an uncomprehending
funk. If you think that is an exaggeration, consider the following:
with all the ongoing discussion of unscrupulous business leaders shipping
jobs abroad, the United States Congress just passed a bill giving businesses
further incentives for doing more of the same! The passage of the bill
made a little splash on that day, mainly on Lou Dobbs' program, but
disappeared quietly into the night thereafter. The phrase 'taking the
people for granted' could not have found a more fitting explication.
Writing
in the Guardian some months ago, columnist George Monbiot predicted
that if you live in the Western Hemisphere and if your job depends on
a phone or a computer, it will, within the next decade, to have fled
abroad. What a shining example of abjectness! Nor is Monbiot alone --
every major politician in America tiptoes around the issue of job loss
with the mandatory incantation, "of course some jobs will go abroad,
that's inevitable". No one seems to ask, Why? What is so 'inevitable'
about the loss of millions of jobs?
In
his time, Gandhi did. He looked the biggest engine of economic pilferage
the world had seen, the British Empire, in the eye, and raised the call
of Swadeshi. Swadeshi, which means "of the nation", was a
campaign to push for the boycott of British cloth and other foreign
made artifacts, promoting the use of Indian-made (village made) goods.
It served not only to resuscitate India's cottage industries and reduce
unemployment in the villages, but also gave Indians a renewed spirit
of nationalism. Hand-woven cloth (khadi), in Nehru's picturesque language,
was the livery of India's freedom.
The
time is now ripe for an American Swadeshi movement.
During
Gandhi's movement in India, huge bonfires were made of British cloth
and fineries, and people felt honored to use homespun cloth. Imagine
the glory of an American politician who started a movement to "Buy
American". Such a politician would first of all perform a great
public service, by establishing the connection between our economic
behavior and its consequences -- a social lesson whose very loss is
one cause of such abject defeatism. This would be people's power at
its finest, wielded in their own interest and for the country as a whole.
Let no one doubt, the same profiteers who suddenly discovered the virtues
in "helping the third world" by sending American jobs abroad,
would switch just as quickly to the slogan of "standing by your
country" as soon as they discovered that "Made in America"
was the surest way to profit.
A
giant mantle awaits the leader who takes up such a campaign. The issue
touches every nook and cranny of America, and in the end, involves nothing
less than the country's sovereignty. Cast and led properly, it has the
potential to sweep everything before it -- Presidency, Congress, Senate
-- all.
Does
Kerry dare?
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede
Team CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax--Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links / |