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Today's
Stories
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
October 19,
2004
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
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.
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October 20, 2004
Using My Religion
How
Faith-Based Politicking Degrades Democracy and Christianity
By
Dr. TERESA WHITEHURST
Yesterday I opened the over-stuffed
kitchen cabinet at my parents' house in search of evaporated
milk, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but an industrial-sized
bag of non-iodized kosher salt. While my father's Great Depression-era
zeal for bargains has led to many strange purchases, this item
seemed particularly out of place: We're evangelical Christians.
For a few awkward moments,
the bag and I just stood there staring at each other in embarrassed
silence, neither wanting to say the obvious. As I closed the
door on that forlorn package, its pretty colors and bright star
of David overshadowed by mountains of mac and cheese, my thoughts
ran to something else that's been out of place lately, something
that's wonderful and appropriate in one setting, but hits a jarring
note in another.
Throughout this long and torturous
presidential campaign, something has been causing many Americans
of good will to feel uneasy, fidget, or get up to make a snack:
the sometimes solemn, often cynically manipulative insertion
of "faith" into virtually every campaign speech and
political discussion. Rock'em-sock-em Christian candidates trade
holier-than-thou barbs and jabber endlessly about that poor exhausted
word "faith", all in an effort to prove who's got the
biggest pipeline to God. Faith-based politicking is the crowd-pleasing
campaign smartbomb that's supposed to blast through every ounce
of reason in our heads, and pretty much force us to vote for
whichever man wins that round. It works because it scares people,
particularly religious people: As the thinking goes, and the
chain emails filling Christian voters, inboxes shout, Dare you
cast a vote against the Almighty?
Implying that one's values,
"character", and decisions come straight from God,
hence are inerrant and infallible, is a timeless and shameless
trick to short-circuit questions and prevail over others. But
when politicians get into this bad habit, Americans, including
those of us residing in the much-courted and much-maligned "evangelical
bloc", sense that something is terribly amiss.
While Christians of every denomination
are viewed by political strategists as mere sheep to be herded
this way and that, many of us are not fooled by all the threats
that we'd better vote for George W. Bush if we want to take communion
or get to heaven. We know, deep in our hearts and minds, that
our democracy AND our religion are tainted when preachers tell
us how to vote rather than how to be better Christians.
And those of us who were raised
in evanglical churches are especially suspicious--though we may
not say so for fear of making our neighbors or family members
angry--when candidates claim to be spokesmen for God, or imply
that they're something even more.
In the last debate, George
Bush said something that popped out at me like that bag of salt:
"I never want to impose my religion on anybody else. But
when I make decisions I stand on principle. And the principles
are derived from who I am. I believe we ought to love our neighbor
like we love ourself."
When I heard that seamless
transition from "who I am" to words normally attributed
to Jesus without any reference to the latter, I was reminded
of Mr. Bush's reply to the person in the audience at a campaign
stop who'd expressed gratitude that "God is in the White
House". The President didn't clarify or demur, "no,
no, I'm imperfect and a sinner like all of us, just an humble
public servant" or "I appreciate your sentiment but
remember I worship God but I'm not God--I'm only human"
or, even as Jesus said when he was given great praise, "Why
do you call me good? No-one is good but God alone." Instead,
Bush simply told the adoring man, "Thank you," saying
nothing to dispel the divine aura.
When I was growing up, preachers
had a word for the sin of identifying with, rather than merely
praying to or loving, God--a sin that any Christian, given enough
praise and power and narcissism, can commit if he's not watching
out for temptation. I shuddered, and got up to make a snack.
On my way to the kitchen I
heard him continue, "That's manifested in public policy
through the faith-based initiative where we've unleashed the
armies of compassion to help heal people who hurt. I believe
that God wants everybody to be free. That's what I believe. And
that's one part of my foreign policy. In Afghanistan I believe
that the freedom there is a gift from the Almighty. And I can't
tell you how encouraged how I am to see freedom on the march.
And so my principles that I make decisions on are a part of me.
And religion is a part of me."
Aside from all the armies and
the marching going on (the dismembered lyrics of "Onward
Christians Soldiers" make their appearance yet again), the
part that concerned me most was our President's assumption that
his principles, ergo his decisions on matters such as foreign
policy that have life-and-death consequences for innocent people
here and abroad, stem directly from God's own desires. If Mr.
Bush believes that God "wants everybody to be free,"
then we as voters must simply trust-have faith-that he's the
candidate who hears God correctly, and that he and God share
the same definition of "free".
If we stop to count the cost
of that freedom, or show the temerity to listen to God ourselves,
we might have qualms about Mr. Bush's policies. The unspoken
message is that we must vote for the most "godly" candidate
(at least insofar as we can judge by their words), or risk placing
ourselves in opposition to God.
Pummeled by relentless faith-based
claims, we the people are feeling a certain pressure to abandon
as hopelessly old-fashioned or even demonic the democratic notion
that we ought to "look out for the other guy", standing
up for our fellow Americans who follow a different God or prefer
no religion at all. This pressure is nothing new and is, historically,
where the trouble starts.
E.B. White, author of the beloved
children's book, "Charlotte's Web" and longtime "New
Yorker" columnist, writes: "The matter of "faith"
has been in the papers gain lately. President Eisenhowerhas come
out for prayer and has emphasized that most Americans are motivated
(as surely they are) by religious faith. The Herald Tribune headed
the story, PRESIDENT SAYS PRAYER IS PART OF DEMOCRACY. The implication
in such a pronouncement, emanating from the seat of government,
is that religious faith is a condition, or even a precondition,
of the democratic life. This is just wrong.
"A President should pray
whenever and wherever he feels like it (most Presidents have
prayed hard and long, and some of them in desperation and agony),
but I don't think a President should advertise prayer Democracy,
if I understand it at all, is a society in which the unbeliever
feels undisturbed and at home. If there were only half a dozen
unbelievers in America, their well-being would be a test of our
democracy, their tranquility would be its proof
"I hope my country will
never become an uncomfortable place for the unbeliever, as it
could easily become if prayer was made one of the requirements
of the accredited citizen. My wife, a spiritual but not a prayerful
woman, read Mr. Eisenhower's call to prayer in the Tribune and
said something I shall never forget. "Maybe it's all right,"
she said, "But for the first time in my life I,m beginning
to feel like an outsider in my own land.""
White wrote these words in
1956 ("Bedfellows", in "Essays of EB White",
Harper Perennial, 1992), and, sadly, his warning rings true again
in this election year of 2004. Americans, including and especially
evangelical Christians, ought to start standing up for true faith
and authentic democracy, protesting whenever the cornerstone
of our religion is used as a "wedge tool", or as a
platform for a "my God is bigger than your God" contest.
When faith is forced to play
politics, it inevitably loses something of the sacred, and becomes
an object of ridicule. If we,re to pray for something, let us
pray that politicians of every stripe will stop teaching our
children that faith and prayer are requirements for campaigning
and citizenship rather than spirituality, and that Christianity
is just one more hammer in the political tool chest.
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst is a clinical psychologist and writer.
Her most recent book describes the nonviolent guidance of children, Jesus on Parenting,
Baker Books, 9/2004.
You can contact her at DrTeresa@JesusontheFamily.org
Weekend
Edition Features for October 16 / 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
/
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