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Today's Stories November 5 / 6, 2005 Niranjan Ramakrishnan Missing the Bus: When Conscience Bows to Calculation November 4, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Blood on the Tundra, Betrayal in the Rotunda: Losing ANWR Dave Lindorff A Majority Now Favors Impeachment: If He Lied, He Must Be Tried Phillip Cryan Crackdown in Colombia Christopher Brauchli Katrina and Tax Breaks for the Very Rich William S. Lind Exit Strategy: You Can't Stay the Course in a Lost War Daryl G. Kimball Of Madmen and Nukes George Beres Laurels for Negroponte? Peter Montague Why We Can't Prevent Cancer   November 3, 2005 James Petras The Libby Affair and the Internal War Saul Landau Torn Families and Shot Down Planes: a Cuba Story Rep. Cynthia McKinney An Occurrence at Gretna Bridge Michael Dickinson Bang! Bang! You're Deaf! Sonic Weapons Over Palestine Joshua Frank Sham Behind Closed Doors Remi Kanazi Dancing with Perseverance Reza Fiyouzat Taxation or Racketeering? Website of the Day CIA Leak Investigation: Bigger Fish, Deeper Water?   November 2, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Holy Alito!: Not as Crazy as Scalia, But Just as Bad Robert Oscar Lopez Saving Rosa Parks from American Hypocrisy John Walsh The Philosophy of Mendacity: From Leo Strauss to Scooter Libby Brian J. Foley Why Most Americans Don't Care About Gitmo (and Why They Should) Ramzy Baroud Rolling Back Syria M. Junaid Alam What Moral Values? Todd Chretien Judgment Day for the Governator Bruce K. Gagnon The Democrats' Slap Happy Day Website of the Day Hands Off Dave!   November 1, 2005 Ron Jacobs An Interview with Kent State's Dave Airhart Gary Leupp The Plame Affair Leads to Rome John Ross Days of the Dead on the Border Bill Quigley Why Are They Making New Orleans a Ghost Town? Joseph Nevins From a Boundary of Death to One of Life Dave Lindorff Thinking About Impeachment Linda S. Heard Bashing Syria: Another Trojan Horse from the UN? Heather Gray Thank You, Mrs. Parks Michael Dickinson To Di For: Charlie and Camilla Cross the Pond Jeffrey St. Clair Kent State: Wise Up and Back Off   October 31, 2005 Elaine Cassel Libby's Lies Mark Weisbrot Pop Goes the Bubble: Bernancke and the Fed Mike Whitney Carry On, Patrick Fitzgerald Norman Solomon After the Libby Indictment, the Press Acquits Itself Farooq Sulehria Trading Weapons While Kashmir Burns Nicole Colson Scapegoating Immigrants Madis Senner Dhafir Sentenced to 22 Years: Another Erosion of Civil Rights Paul Craig Roberts Scooter and the Neocons October 29 / 30, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair The Libby Indictment: Gotterdammerung for the Bushies? Peter Linebaugh The Wedges of Hephaestus Tim Wise Framing the Poor: Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media John Chuckman Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words Steven Higgs Green Hoosiers: Forging a New Democracy in the Heartland Brian Cloughley The Fifth Afghan War M. Shahid Alam Israel and the Consequences of Uniqueness Nikki Robinson Crack Down at Kent State Ralph Nader Let the PIRGs Begin!: Student Activism Thrives Joe DeRaymond Requiem for Bethlehem Steel? Joshua Frank Karl's Great Escape: Did Rove Rat on Scooter? Laura Santina Tongue-Tied on Iraq: Why Aren't the Dems Screaming Bloody Murder? Fred Gardner Death of an Organizer Michael Dickinson Insult Your Country Ron Jacobs Autumn in America Dr. Susan Block Fear and Sex: a Halloween Greeting Vanessa S. Jones Self-Portrait, 1994. Bronte Beach Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Marbet, Gardner, Ford, Albert, Engel, Krieger & St. Clair Website of the Weekend Red State Update   October 28, 2005 Jared Bernstein Inflation Up; Wages Down: Fastest Decline in Wages on Record Virginia Tilley Embracing the Anti-Aparthied Movement in Israel/Palestine Phil Gasper The Race to Execute Tookie Williams Jennifer Matsui It's Mardi Graft Time! Manual Garcia, Jr. Is the US Really Against Torture? Monica Benderman In the Name of Justice Jason Leopold Fitzgerald Focuses on the Forgeries Dave Lindorff Suddenly, Bush Endorses Right of Fair Trials Otober 27, 2005 Saul Landau The Scandal Isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War Stuart Hodkinson Bono and Geldoff: "We Saved Africa" Oh No, They Didn't! Ingmar Lee Stop the Troops!: No Glory or Honor in Iraq Lila Rajiva License to Bill: Gates Does India Ilan Pappe The Last Moment of Hope Niranjan Ramakrishnan Waiting for Fitzgerald Michael Donnelly Look Who's Talking Now: the GOP on Perjury Ron Jacobs Escape the Weight of Your Corporate Logo Cockburn / St. Clair White House in Meltdown   October 26, 2005 Kathy Kelly For Whom They Toll Gary Leupp Dialectics of the Plame Affair Mike Marqusee Empire of Denial Eric Ruder War Crimes in Afghanistan Patrick Cockburn Iraq: a Constitutionally Divided Nation Joshua Frank Fitzgerald v. the Bushies: Hold Your Elation in Check J.L. Chestnut, Jr. The Legacy of Rosa Parks Website of the Day Decent Work in America: the 2005 Work Environment Index     October 25, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Condi and Syrian Regime Change: Could Somebody Recommend a President? Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn Attack on the Palestine Hotel Conn Hallinan Sleight of Hand: Iran, India and the US Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Pulling the Court Strings Jackie Corr Barbara Bush: Poster Gorgon of the Houston Astros Robert Day Talk to Strangers John Sugg Judith Miller and Me   October 24, 2005 Dave Lindorff Revoke Judy Miller's Pulitzer Michael Donnelly Shades of Iran/contra Patrick Cockburn A Nation Stands on Trial Mike Whitney Apres Rove Norman Solomon Iraq is Not Vietnam, But... Bill and Kathleen Christison US Foreign Policy and Palestine   October 22 / 23, 2005 Alexander Cockburn When Divas Collide: Maureen Dowd v. Judy Miller Billy Sothern Letter from the Circle Bar, New Orleans Saul Landau Bush, an Assessment Ralph Nader An Open Letter to Bush on Harriet Miers Behrooz Ghamari Whose Justice Does Saddam's Trial Serve? Brian Cloughley Bush the Strategist: Pyrrhus Without a Victory? Diana Barahona Venezuela's National Workers' Union Fred Gardner Dershowitzed! Lee Sustar What the War on Terror is Really About Patrick Cockburn Murder of Saddam Trial Defense Lawyer Laura Carlsen Mexico City Seamstresses Recall 1985 Quake James Petras China Bashing and the Loss of US Competitiveness Joshua Frank Invading Iran: Who is to Stop Them? Manuel Garcia, Jr. Disasters are Us Michelle Bollinger When Abortion Was Illegal Missy Comley Beattie CSI: Iraq Kona Lowell Intelligent Design: Making High School Fun Ben Tripp Tanks for the Memories Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening To This Week Poets' Basement Albert and Engel Website of the Day Indictment Watch   October 21, 2005 Dave Lindorff The Democrats' Abortion Hypocrisy Winslow T. Wheeler Paying for Their Mistakes: Incompetence, Deception and the Defense Budget Col. Dan Smith The Destruction of the National Guard Norman Solomon Media at Crossroads: 25 Years After Reagan's Triumph Madis Senner Abusing Katrina Michael Donnelly Richard Pombo: DeLay in Cowboy Boots October 20, 2005 Dave Lindorff Impeachment Comes to NYC Ray McGovern 16 Fatal Words: Cheney's Chickens Come Home to Roost Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith Attack Syria? Invade Iran?: By What Constitutional Right? Patrick Cockburn Saddam Refuses to Recognize Court Kevin Zeese Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed? Ross Eisenbrey Millions Would Lose Pay and Protections Under Enzi Amendment Randy Shields James McMurtry Makes It in Dayton Justine Davidson Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Small Victory After Lucas Cranach Judy and Holofernes Joe Allen The Scandalous History of the Red Cross   October 19, 2005 Christopher Reed Koizumi and the Rape of Nanking Stephen Soldz Bush and Avian Flu: the Excuses Begin to Fly Chet Richards War and Intelligence Patrick Cockburn Saddam on Trial Scott Richard Lyons Multicultural Columbus? Ralph Nader An Interview with Rev. William Sloane Coffin Website of the Day Shocking Video: Why Birds May Be Taking Viral Vengeance on Humans   October 18, 2005 Chet Flippo Merle Haggard: "Let's Get Out of Iraq" Ron Jacobs Dual Devotions: the Catholic Church and the US Flag Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor A Tale of Two Cities: From DC to Toledo Dave Lindorff Judy Miller: Little Miss Run Amok Virginia Rodino A Winter Patriot: Reflections on the Antiwar Movement Thomas Healy The Weather in Goshen: Still Radical After All These Years Ralph Nader A New New Orleans Stephen Lendman The Sorrows of Haiti Patrick Cockburn On the Eve of Saddam's Trial: a Divided Iraq   October 17, 2005 Peter Linebaugh Spinoza and the Black Limos Norman Solomon Judith Miller, the Fourth Estate and the Warfare State Cockburn / Sengupta "If the Sunnis Don't Like It, That's Their Problem" Mike Whitney Miller's Confession: Last Gasp Before Indictments? Uri Avnery Iraq Now: What Awaits Samira? Harold Pinter Torture & Misery in the Name of Freedom Website of the Day Al Joudi v. Bush   October 15 / 16, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ayatollahs of the Apocalypse Patrick Cockburn "This Constitution Won't Get Me a Job" Saul Landau Two Terrorists and a Lush: Osama, Posada and Bush's Drinking Neve Gordon "Beyond Chutzpah": Exposing Grave Moral Distortions Moshe Adler Poverty in New York City Christopher Brauchli Lynndie England's Burden Diane Farsetta The Emperor Doesn't Disclose: the Fight Against Fake News Sam Husseini Notes on Current Reporting About Judith Miller Monica Benderman From Chaos to Conscience to Peace Mickey Z. POW Abuse by US: Nothing New Going On Here Douglas C. Smyth George W. Bush, the Honorius of Our Time Lee Sustar Will Delphi Bust the UAW? Fred Gardner Cannabinoids Arrive in Realm of Established Fact Elizabeth Schulte A Former Panther's Georgia Campaign: an Interview with Elaine Brown Joshua Frank Will the Democrats Save Harriet Miers? David Vest Down with Formalism! Up with Values! Ben Tripp Epistle II: the Reawakenign Poets Basement Engel, Albert, Ford and Louise Website of the Weekend The Hidden Canyon   October 14, 2005 Farrah Hassen A Somber Ramadan in Syria Ron Jacobs The Black Panthers: They Haven't Forgotten; Neither Should We Sasha Kramer USAID and Haiti: the Friendly Face of Imperialism? Katrina Yeaw The Student Struggle in Italy Nicole Colson Bird Flu: Militarizing Health Care Raúl Zibechi Survival and Existence in El Alto Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez and the Politics of Race Website of the Day LA Filmmakers Cooperative October 13, 2005 Jeremy Scahill Mr. Bush Goes to Tikrit (Sort Of) Jeff Birkenstein A Thoreau for Our Time: Why Cindy Sheehan Matters Brendan Smith / Jeremy Brecher Harriet Miers: Bush or the Constitution? Stan Cox Did You Know This About Iraq? Anis Memon The Curious Case of Russ Feingold Gary Leupp Miller, Libby and the June Notes Dave Zirin A Tribute to August Wilson Matthew Koehler America's Endangered Forests Werther The Two-Headed Monster Website of the Day Hurricane Song October 12, 2005 Omar Waraich Britain and the Quake: Mean and Stingy William Cook Voices Behind the Entombment Wall Phil Gasper Countdown to a Legal Lynching Dave Lindorff Impeachment Now and Then: Clinton, Bush and the Polls Matt Vidal Capital, Power and Class John Gautreaux New Orleans will Never be the Same Diana Johnstone Srebrenica Revisited: Using War as an Excuse for War Mark Weisbrot The IMF Has Lost Its Influence Brian J. Foley Gitmo Tribunals Endanger Public Safety Website of the Day Columbus Day Lies   October 11, 2005 Roger Morris / Steve Schmidt Strategic Demands of the 21st Century Lila Rajiva Live from New Orleans: Abu Ghraib Bill Quigley New Orleans: Leaving the Poor Behind Again Paul Craig Roberts Natural Born Liars Dave Lindorff Recruiters in Schools: No Lie Left Untried Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Suspect Thy Neighbor Mitchel Cohen Showdown at Chuck E. Cheese Tariq Ali Pakistan will Never Forget This Horror Website of the Day L'Heure Americaine   October 10, 2005 Cindy and Craig Corrie Rachel's Words Live Joshua Frank Washington's War Dems Gideon Levy The Beautiful Life Without Arafat Alan Wallis The Fight for Free Speech at Union Square Mickey Z. In Defense of Liars CounterPunch News Service Vermont Independence Convention Paul Craig Roberts The Police State is Closer Than You Think Website of the Day Dylan's Chronicles   October 8 / 9, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Rhetoric and Reality in the Business of Getting Rid of Black People Ralph Nader Katrina and the Growls of Greed Jennifer Van Bergen New American Law: Legal Strategies in the Dharfir Case Saul Landau An Oily Religious Dream Jeff Halper Setting Up Abbas Lenni Brenner The Millions More Movement and Zionism Nikolas Kozloff Bird Flu and Bush Brian Cloughley Training Soldiers in Iraq Alice Slater A Nobel Prize for Chernobyl? John Gautreaux A View from Cajun Country Fred Gardner Does the Controlled Substances Act Mean What It Says? Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Leveethan Approach M.G. Piety Rot in the Ivory Tower: Collusion, Cover-Up and Kierkegaard Tom Gorman The Hitchens Doctrine Mike Whitney Bunker Days with George Aseem Shrivastava Beyond the Wasteland: Lessons from Afghanistan Ben Tripp Religion, an Epistle Poets' Basement Albert, Engel and Ford   October 7, 2005 Larry Johnson The Plame Case: the Real Issues Will Youmans Why Do We Hate Our Freedom? Recruiters and Thugs on Campus Dave Lindorff Bird Flu: Evolution or Intelligent Design? Judith Scherr Haiti's Children's Prison Russell D. Hoffman Nukes for Peace, Revisited?: Nobel Prize Debacle Jared Bernstein Katrina and Jobs Jennifer Van Bergen New American Law: the Case of Dr. Dhafir Website of the Day FBI Witchhunt October 6, 2005 P. Sainath "Take That, Tom Friedman": Indian Masses Reject NYT's Neoliberal Idol Again Scott Parkin When Antiwar Activists Get Mugged Paul Craig Roberts Blundering into Syria Andréa Schmidt Haiti's Biometric Elections: a High-Tech Experiment in Exclusion Dave Lindorff Easy Money in the Big Easy Joshua Frank In Defense of Lew Rockwell M. Junaid Alam Jackboots at George Mason Matthew Koehler Cock and Bull on the Bitterroot Robert Pollin Is the Dollar Still Falling?   October 5, 2005 Heather Gray Militarization is Not an Answer for Reconstruction: the Case of the Philippines Robert Jensen Is Bush a Racist? Ramzy Baroud Bush's Final Choice: America or the Empire Col. Dan Smith Keeping Promises to Iraq: "Everything is Bad" Dave Zirin Barry Bonds Laughs Last Paul Craig Roberts Liberal Guilt? How the Neocons Took Over Alan Maass Doing the Right Wing's Dirty Work   October 4, 2005 Nikolas Kozloff Shocking the Two Party System: a Political Opportunity for Sheehan and the Antiwar Mvt. Mike Roselle Houston, You've Got a Problem Joshua Frank The Scoop on Harriet Miers John Chuckman War Porn: What the Gruesome Images Say Alan Farago Storm Warning for Jeb: Developers, Hurricanes and the Keys Mickey Z. An Interview with Thaddeus Rutkowski Christine & Ethan Rose Home Depot Exploits Hurricane Victims Gary Leupp An Earlier Empire's War on Iraq: a Lesson from Roman History Website of the Day Rodney Crowell on Bob Dylan   October 3, 2005 Vijay Prashad Desperation at Holyoke Paul Craig Roberts Condi Rice: Gunslinger Joshua Frank An Interview with Cindy Sheehan Seth Sandronsky The Hiring Crisis for Black Teens Jeffrey St. Clair The Great Green Scare             Subscribe Online

Half-way Home CounterPunchers! Annual Fundraising Appeal We interrupt your regular reading habits to bring you the following important announcement: CounterPunch needs your financial support! We're not in the habit of making idle threats and this isn't one. Either we meet our fundraising goal of $60,000 over the next three weeks or we'll be forced to drastically curtail the operation of our website. It's near the end of our year and the wolf is at the door. CounterPunch's website is supported almost entirely by subscribers to the print edition of our newsletter. We don't clutter the site by selling annoying popup ads. We tried getting money out of Google, but they gave us the boot. We aren't on the receiving end of six-figure grants from big foundations. George Soros doesn't have us on retainer. And we don't sell tickets on cruiseliners. The continued existence of CounterPunch depends solely on the support and dedication of our readers. And we know there are a lot of you. We get thousands of emails from you every day. Our website receives nearly 100,000 visits each day-and those numbers grow by the month. Of course, all these readers chew up a lot of bandwidth and that costs money. Through the Iraq war, the daily traumas of the Bush administration, hurricanes, earthquakes and the disappearance of the Democrats, many of you have found a refuge at CounterPunch and made us your homepage. You tell us that you love CounterPunch because the quality of writing you find here every day and because we never flinch under fire. We appreciate the support and prepared for the fierce battles to come as the Bush administration expands its wars abroad and at home. Unlike many other outfits, we don't hit you up for money every month...or even every quarter. We only ask for your support once a year. But we when ask, we mean it. Please, make a donation to CounterPunch today or purchase a gift subscription or a crate of books as holiday presents. To contribute by phone you can call Becky or Deva toll free at: 1-800-840-3683 Onward, Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva November 5 / 6, 2005 La Otra Campana The Zapatista Challenge in Mexico's Presidential Elections By JOHN ROSS This past October 1st, Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) cut the official ribbon on the 2006 presidential election year but the campaign has already been in high gear for many months now. The frontrunner, Andres Manual Lopez Obrador of the left-center Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) is methodically barnstorming the outer reaches of the republic drawing big crowds. and competing candidates for the presidential nominations of the once-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and President Vicente Fox's right-wing National Action or PAN Party are engaged in colorful slugfests full of invective and innuendo. In short, 2006 is shaping up to be a typical election year here. But "La Otra Campana" ­ The Other Campaign ­ could radically change these perceptions. The Other Campaign is the brainchild of the largely indigenous Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) whose Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle (the "Sexta") issued in June called for a new approach to doing national politics. The Chiapas-based Mayan rebels plan to carry the Other Campaign to the rest of the country from "the Rio Bravo to the Suchiate" during the 2006 electoral process in a drive to consolidate the non-electoral, anti-capitalist left. Instead of running candidates, the Other Campaign calls for the enactment of a new national constitution that would bar privatization of public resources and other neo-liberal outrages, and insure indigenous autonomy for Mexico's 57 distinct Indian peoples. The Other Campaign will also provide the EZLN with a platform from which to build an organization of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in every state in the Mexican union. In prototypical rebel style, the direction of the Other Campaign was determined by a series of xix meetings between the Zapatista high command and the EZLN's diverse constituencies ­ Indians, farmers, workers, social movements, the organized left, NGOs and autonomous collectives, and individuals - held in August and September in insurgent villages in the canyons leading down to the Lacandon jungle. The weekend gabfests, protracted interactions between generations, ideologies, cultures, and social classes, culminated in plenary sessions September 16th and 17th, attended by thousands (including the long­absent rebel leader Comandanta Ramona) in the autonomous municipality of Francisco Gomez. For those who could not physically make it to the jungle, the proceedings were broadcast live worldwide on the Internet. As of October 2nd, the last received totals, 181 indigenous associations, 68 left formations, 197 social organizations, 474 NGOs and collectives, and 1898 individuals and families had subscribed to La Otra Campana and committed themselves to making it work. The Other Campaign will kick off January 1st, 2006, the 12th anniversary of the rebels' 1994 uprising, when Subcomandante Marcos, the EZLN's charismatic spokesperson, plus an as-yet unselected 16-member "Sexta" commission will begin a six month swing around the nation. The Sup will travel unarmed or at least "only with the arms God gave me" but will remain masked and carry with him his trusty laptop and a selection from his extensive collection of Sherlock Holms' pipes. Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal has assured the EZLN that the Other Campaign will enjoy full freedom of transit. Who will provide security for the comandantes is one of many logistical issues still to be hashed out with the "mal gobierno" (bed government.) The Other Campaign marks the fifth time the EZLN has sallied forth to try and convince the rest of Mexico of the righteousness of its cause. The last time the Zapatistas ventured from their Chiapas stronghold was for the March of Those Who Are The Color of the Earth in 2001 when the rebels were rebuffed by the Mexican congress's gutting of an Indian Rights law for which the Zapatistas had long struggled. But the Other Campaign is far and away the most ambitious and protracted excursion to the outside world the EZLN has ever launched and is sure to generate as much opposition as it does empathy for the Indians. "We must prepare ourselves for repression" the Subcomandante wrote to his comrades recently, "we could be jailed, we could be killed. We may never return home" The itinerary of the Other Campaign is as meticulously plotted as Lopez Obrador's presidential campaign. The rebels will spend the first week of January building ties to struggle organizations in other regions of Chiapas, then move on to Tabasco, the Yucatan, and Veracruz before crossing the isthmus to Oaxaca, Mexico's most Indian state. From Oaxaca, the Other Campaign reaches into the central Mexican altiplano, arriving in Morelos, the home state of their namesake Emiliano Zapata on April 10th, his death day and the most hallowed date on the Zapata calendar. This first part of the Other Campaign's route was previously explored by the Zapatista comandantes during the Indian Dignity march of 2001. After spending the last two weeks in April in Mexico City and environs, the Other Campaign will head north state by state, working its way to the border by early June where meetings will be held with U.S. Mexican and Chicano activists who are preparing "La Otra Campana" on "El Otro Lado" (the Other Side.) Marcos has pledged that Mexicans in the U.S. will be a part of the Other Campaign. On June 24th, the EZLN will close the first phase of "La Otra" with a mass meeting in Mexico City before Marcos and his crew return to Chiapas to sort out the election results in July. If the above trajectory and the synchronization of dates with the electoral calendar lead the reader to confuse the Other Campaign with an electoral campaign, you may be excused. Actually, La Otra is much more of an anti-electoral campaign ­ the Other Campaign vs. Politics as Usual. The Zapatistas and their supporters will dog the political parties of which they have long been contemptuous ­ the EZLN thinks elections are for sale to the highest bidder and are not an accurate measure of democracy. Inevitably, somewhere out there on the campaign trail, the Other Campaign will cross paths with one or more big party candidates and the fireworks are sure to begin. Because La Otra is basically a battle for the hearts and minds of the Mexican left, the Zapatistas have lavished a lot of energy attacking Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the PRD. The EZLN, in turn, has been sharply rebuked for what AMLO's fans term "sectarianism" and worse, bettering the PRI's chances of returning to the presidency by draining votes from Lopez Obrador ­ the same argument U.S. Democrats used against Ralph Nadar in 2000. "We are not telling anyone who to vote for ­ or whether to vote at all" Subcomandante Marcos argues, "this is not an electoral campaign." The Other Campaign will focus equal energies on exposing PRI and PAN chicanery in the upcoming elections. Indeed, the dirty tricks and backstabbing scandals that are integral to the PRI, PAN, and PRD internal dramas could make the Other Campaign an appealing alternative to big party politics for many voters. A PRI return to power is a particularly alarming scenario for the EZLN ­ not only would it signal the vanishing point for Mexico's glacial "transition to democracy" but it is sure to bolster the standing of Zapatista-hating paramilitaries and hardliners inside the military. But the Other Campaign will not fold up its tents after the July 2006 presidential vote is in. Unlike the political parties, the Zapatistas have a longer-range political goal than taking power ­ organizing Mexico for a new constitution. After evaluating the July election results, a second set of comandantes will embark from Chiapas in September 2006 and not return until March 2007 at which point the successes and failures of the Other Campaign will be weighed. The Other Campaign is not just another kind of political campaign ­ it is literally a campaign of others. Diversity, bringing together the most marginated ­ Indians, gays and lesbians, the disabled, punks and anarchists - is the EZLN's source of unity and strength. Because the Zapatistas attract the most disaffected ­ the outsiders ­ it is literally a campaign of the "Others." The Zapatista ethos of building power down below but eschewing taking state power has currency in Latin America today. The triumphs of the electoral left as a response to the savage capitalism of the neo-liberals have failed to live up to their expectations. Unable to shake off the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the White House, Lula and Kirschner, Tabare Vazquez and next Evo Morales and Lopez Obrador have not and will not be able to deliver meaningful change. Hugo Chavez rules from the top down while the Zapatistas build from the bottom up. Latin America will be the setting for 12 presidential and parliamentary elections in 2006 and given the temper of the times, the EZLN's Other Campaign should have an echo far beyond the race foe the Mexican presidency. John Ross is currently on the road in California where he will present four seminars on rebel journalism at the New College (San Francisco) in October and November. Ross will also speak at a New College public presentation, "Our Dreams Are Not On The Ballot - The Other Campaign & The Mexican Presidential Elections" on Nov. 15th.   What You're Missing in the Special Expanded Print Edition The War So Far: a Failure Worse Than Vietnam by Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad "The need for the White House to produce a fantasy picture of Iraq is because it dare not admit that it has engineered one of the greatest disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater." Get the answers you're looking for in the 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! Get CounterPunch's Print Edition By Email! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Coming in the Fall from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Click Here to Advance Order Philosopher Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair