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Today's
Stories
November
11, 2004
Mark
Scaramella
Kerry's Enablers: the Clinton
Cult Factor
November
10, 2004
Joshua
Frank
The Bright Side of Bush's Reelection
Mickey
Z.
The Worst President Ever?: Bush +
Clinton = Bubya
Stan
Goff
Debating a Neo-Con
Mike
Whitney
Exit Ashcroft
Dave
Lindorff
Taking a Leak on the Bush Bulge
Ghada
Karmi
After Arafat
Fr.
Gerard Jean-Juste
Letter from a Haitian Jail
Rev.
Bob Jones, III
A Letter to President Bush: "God Has Granted America a Reprieve"
Bernestine
Singley
Tampa Vote: Dispatches from the Ground
Website
of the Day
Free Camilo Mejia
November
9, 2004
Meredeth
Kolodner
Rebuilding the Anti-War Movement
Saul
Landau
The Appeal of George W. Bush: a Mystery for the World to Solve
Brian
Cloughley
Diego Garcia and Freedom, Bush-Style
Charles
Glass
US is Failing the Test of History in
Iraq
Robert
Fisk
Arafat Died Years Ago
Paul
Craig Roberts
The American Century is Over
Adam
Federman
Witch Hunt at Columbia: Middle East Profs Smeared as Anti-Semites
M.
Junaid Alam
The Discredited Logic of ABB
Tony
Kevin
Fallujah and the Making of a War Crime
Pierre
Tristam
Zealots on the Mount: Get Voltaire on Speed Dial!
Patrick
Cockburn
Crushing Fallujah Will Not End the
Iraq War
Website
of the Day
Don't Blame the Voters!
November
8, 2004
Roger
Burbach
Out of the Ashes: Bush Win is a Defeat
for Democrats, Not the Left
Dave
Lindorff
Lessons from a Quagmire: Fallujah, the Hue of Iraq
Greg
Moses
After the Morning After: On the Homefront of the Civil War
Greg
Bates
Nader's Election Legacy: Something to Stand On
Michael
Donnelly
The Hit-and-Run Left: From ABB to CYA
Nick
Schwellenbach
Gutting FOIA: the Harm of Too Much Secrecy
Adam
Jones
Men vs. Civilians in Fallujah
Amelia
Peltz
Note from Palestine: This Is Not the Time for Despair
David
Swanson
The Media Black Out on Vote Fraud
Brian
Rainey
The Devil Made Them Do It? Elections, Religion and the American
People
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Landau, Hamod
Website
of the Day
A Report on the US Supply of Toxic Weapons to Iraq
November
6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Don't
Say We Didn't Warn You
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Green Out
Carl
G. Estabrook
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Saul
Landau
Che: the Man and the Movie
Gary
Leupp
Let There Be Conflict!
Ben
Tripp
You Call This a Party?
Paul
Craig Roberts
The October Numbers: Continuing Stress on the Jobs Front
Jordan
Green
Heroin, Cocaine and Espanola, NM
Fred
Gardner
Haul of Justice
J.A.
Miller
Cults of the Jealous God: the Balfour Decision Reconsidered
Ramzy
Baroud
Life Without Arafat
Dave
Zirin
Out at the Ballgame: Pro Sports and the Gay Athelete
Ron
Jacobs
The Arrow on the Doorpost
Robert
Oscar Lopez
How White Liberals Became a New Racial Minority
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The November Surprise
Dave
Lindorff
Silver Linings
Richard
Oxman
Invitation to the Bodily Snatched
John
Whitlow
Value Wars: the View from Lexington, Kentucky
Rahul
Mahajan
Fallujah and the Reality of War
Leila
Matsui
Political "Ju-On": Carrying a Grudge
November
5, 2004
David
Vest
The Not-Bush Brothers: a Fond Farewell
Elizabeth
Boylan
The Dems and Faith-Based Politics
Conn
Hallinan
War Crimes and Iraq
David
Zonsheine
Poetry and the Courage to Refuse
Cynthia
McKinney
It's a New Day!
Elaine
Cassel
Running from the Religious Right
Chris
Geovanis
First Protect Your Vote: Lessons for Democrats on Fixing Elections
from Chicago
Rob
Ritchie
Election 2004 by the Numbers
Jo
Guldi
The Beast of History is In
November
4, 2004
Sharon
Smith
The Self-Fulfilling Prophesy of Lesser-Evilism
CounterPunch
Wire
Bush Voters: 2000 v. 2004
Ben
Tripp
My Fellow Americans...Get Stuffed!
Michael
Donnelly
Why Not Blame Rosie?
Vijay
Prashad
An Election of Homophobia and Misogyny
Jules
Rabin
De Profundis: the Morning After
Robert
Jensen
Politics and Professions of Faith:
"Your Rich Men are Full of Violence"
Zoltan
Grossman
Blue State Secession: the Only Solution?
Jonah
Birch
1968 and Today
Dave
Lindorff
What Went Wrong?
Jack
McCarthy
I Knew It Was Over When Michael Moore Showed Up: He Was For Nader...Before
He Was Against Him
Donna
J. Volatile
Ahoy Kerrycrats! Welcome to Our Nightmare
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bright Side of Black Tuesday
November
3, 2004
James
Hodge / Linda Cooper
The CIA and Abu Ghraib: 50 Years of
Training Torturers
Ann
Harrison
The Ghost Votes in the Machine: Voting Snafus Across the Nation
Greg
Moses
Blues for Fallujah
Anis
Memon
The Moral (Values) of This Election
Mickey
Z.
Post Mortem
Josh
Frank
The Dems Should be Ashamed
Chris
Floyd
No Ways Tired: Defeat, Dissent and the Bush Machine
spArk
Smoke Signals from Portland: Karmic Blowback and the Democrats
Friedrich
von Schiller
Folly, Thou Conquerest
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Democrats in End Time: Who to Blame
Now?
November
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Democratic Elections in Historical
Perspective: The Wrong Side Wins
Lance
Selfa
Selling the War on Terror
Laura
Carlsen
The US Elections and Latin America: Can the US Ever be a Good
Neighbor?
James
Davis
To Control the Event: Attention Bicyclists
Richard
Oxman
Getting Up with Osama
Dr.
Ira Kay
A Mental Map of the Bush Presidency
Jesse
Walker
Frankenstein v. Chucky: the Halloween Election
Thomas
C. Mountain
Election '24, Deja Vu?: LaFollette, Nader, & the "Most
Important Election of Our Lifetimes"
November
1, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and
Blew It
Dave
Lindorff
Bulgegate Confirmed; Press Yawns
Greg
Bates
Nader Voter Survey Results
Roger
Morris
Novel Politics: Only Fiction Can Do
This Election Justice
Diane
Christian
Death Tolls
Lenni
Brenner
Secularists Be Warned: Christlike Kerry Roams Spiritual Universe
Christopher
C. Conway
Can the Left Sink Any Lower?
Francis
Boyle
Legal Elites and the Iraq War: the Nazis Had Their Law Professors,
Too
Jason
Leopold
Rummy's Failed War Plan
Website
of the Day
Dylan Resurrects "Masters of War"
October
30 / 31, 2004
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The Long March and the Million Worker
March
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Spartacus Tells All
Bruce
Anderson
Notes from the Big Empty: When the Hippies Invaded NoCal
Vicente
Navarro
They Worked for Franco: How Sec. of State Cordell Hull and Nobel
Laureate Camilo Jose Cela Collaborated with the Fascist Regime
Robin
Blackburn
How Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security
Greg
Bates
A Question of Character: What Makes Nader Tick?
Nancy
Welch
The American Health Care Crisis: an Interview with Dr. David
Himmelstein
William
Lind
Election Day: Which Menendez Brother Will You Vote For?
Brian
Cloughley
Uzbekistan and Bush Hypocrisies
Suzan
Mazur
Oops They Did It Again: the NYTs the Paper of Record and Rip-Offs
Greg
Moses
Standing at the Graves of Iraq
John
Chuckman
Osama's Endorsement
Richard
Oxman
Why Not Accept Osama's Offer?
Ken
Avidor
Landscape of Fear: When Ugly is Suspicious
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Bush, Ba'ath and Beyond
Hope
Bastian
Strangling Cuba's Economy
P.
Sainath
Tower of Gabble: Toward a Sustainable Rhetoric
Dave
Zirin
Bush League: Why MLB Owners Support the Prez
Jon
Swift
The Dry Drunk Thang: Put a Cork in It
Ron
Jacobs
The Joke's on Me: a Review of Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1
Alexander
Billet
Taking Theatre Back: Are the States Ready for "Stuff Happens"?
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Laymon, Norris, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Weekend
The Origins of Halloween
October
29, 2004
Harry
Browne
No Justice for Peace Activist in County
Clare
October
28, 2004
Forrest Hylton
"The Gas is Ours:" Bolivia's
Ghosts of October
Col. Dan Smith
Rebellion
in the Ranks
Alan Maass
Jon Stewart v. the Pundits
Ron Jacobs
Ecstasy
in Red Sox Nation
Alexander
Cockburn
Kerrycrats and the War
October
27, 2004
Jules
Rabin
Crammed with Distressful Politics
Dave
Lindorff
Bulgegate: the Lies Continue
Katherine
Van Tassel
On the Home Front: Both Parties
Ignore Working Parents
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
October 26,
2004
Brian Cloughley
Three
Weddings and Lots of Funerals: Atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan
William Blum
Fear
Factors
Lenni Brenner
The
1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Lessons for 2004
Ben Tripp
The
Chicken Salad Election
Fidel Castro
After the Fall
Greg Bates
The Nation's Flawed Calculus
Walter Brasch
Gag the Public: the War on Dissent
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
An Open Letter to Pat Buchanan
Mickey Z.
Rumble in the Jungle at 30: Ali, Foreman and the Congo
Amir Taheri
The Boom in Conspiracy Theories
Alexander Billet
Say It Ain't So, Bruce!: the Boss Endorses Kerry
Doug Giebel
The Religion of G.W. Bush
Kathleen Christison
Why
I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't
October 25,
2004
Ralph Nader
Letter
from a Minnesota Highway
Werther
West
Texas Wahabbism
Dave Zirin
Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License
Omar Barghouti
Executing Another Child in Rafah
William J. Nottingham
Lori Berenson's Story
John Chuckman
A Foolish Consistency
Uri Avnery
On
the Road to Civil War
October 22
/ 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
You
Can't Blame Nader for This
Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions
Willliam A.
Cook
Killing for Christ
Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?
Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children
While Arresting Priest
Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really
Means
William S.
Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War
Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry
Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"
Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?
Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military
Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion
M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America
David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and
Kerry
David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs
Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story
Website of
the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling
October 21,
2004
Ben Tripp
The
Undecided Voter Examined
Joshua Frank
Kerry
and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green
Stan Cox
What
the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses
Bill Martinez
State
Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply
Mark Engler
The War and Globalization
Lina Britto
and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia:
a Year After the October Insurrection
Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
Jason Leopold
Sinclair
Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception
Jesse Sharkey
A
Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School
Students
Col. Dan Smith
Choking
Free Speech About the Draft
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion
David Vest
If
Bush Wins, Blame Me
Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny
Ron Jacobs
Time
to Kick It Up a Notch
James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?
Christopher
Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest
Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...
Website of
the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue
October 19,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
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?
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.
|
November 11, 2004
Heaven's Footsoldiers
Escape the Dog Patch
Hung
Over in the End Times
By
JOE BAGEANT
Since George Bush's reelection, the
Christian nutjobs have mounted an assault on my block. In the
five years I've lived in this neighborhood I've never had so
much as one Jehovah's Witness knock at the door. But last Saturday
morning my neighbor Tinka-the-wool-weaver called to warn of approaching
Bible thumpers working the doorbells on my side of the street.
Sure enough, out the window were two women in long skirts with
bad Bible hairdos headed my way. "Incoming Jesus freaks
at nine o'clock high!" I yelled to my wife. We jumped back
into bed and let'em pound on the door and drop tracts in the
mailbox while Barb read the Washington Post and I caught
anther 20 zees. That, we thought, was the end the end of it.
But next day while walking my dog Bingo---a black pisshound of
dubious origin---a white van cruised alongside us slowly, as
if confused about directions. I asked if I could help, and BAM!
I should have know better. It was evangelist sucker bait. The
Christian church logo on the driver's baseball cap (any time
you see a cross, flames and a sword in a logo, run) told me I'd
stepped into a fundamentalist ambush. The driver had one of those
delirious smiles only a fundie can muster, and that glint of
mad zeal that gives one the heebie jeebies. I yanked Bingo away
from a good piss and we wheeled off. "Jesus wants you to
have a nice day," I heard over my shoulder, thinking to
myself, "Then why inna hell don't you make like Jesus and
let me have one." Somehow I suspect we've not seen the
last of these god-crazed bastards and that Bingo and I will have
to start taking our walks in the alleys instead of the streets.
And maybe move the weekend cocktail hour up to 3 PM just to spite
the fundies.
As the elections proved for
once and for all, Christian fanatics are plenty thick in the
good ole U S of A these days and can no longer be written off
as Dogpatch religionists. Historically, they have always been
around and in about the same numbers too, just less visible.
But currently they are hopped up about god giving them their
own president and even their own political party. Of course in
a country limited to two parties---the Republican Party of Heavy
Imperialism and Democratic Imperialism Lite---this spells trouble
for those of us who do not handle snakes or wash other people's
feet during church services. It is one thing for them to have
it in for their enemies, and quite another to have their own
president, cabinet, Supreme Court, and newly established Department
of Fatherland Surveillance backing them up. Not since the days
of Andrew Jackson's populist hog and hominy presidency have these
people seen one of their own farting at the Oval Room desk. And
as usual, the fundies have blood in their eye, this time for
liberal humanism, free thought, Trojan rubber products and the
number 666.
Given the near-fascist nature
of U.S. governmental behavior lately, I do not think it is overstating
the case to observe that we liberals seem to have become, at
least to some degree, the new Jews of the rising Republican Reich.
You remember the old German theme about a certain kind of people
being responsible for everything wrong with an otherwise perfect
white Christian society. It took a Republican mind to figure
out that "elite" liberals constituted exactly such
a threat to our national way of life. Remember that the German
public saw the Jews as being against its "values" too,
and that they had declared cultural and legal war on the Jews
long before Hitler came along to galvanize the most nationalistic
elements among the German people. Just as the Jews were used
in Nazi Germany to rally Christian Germans, American liberals
were used in the last election by the ultra-right to rouse Fundamentalist
Christians---people who were previously uninterested in the GOP
political agenda but got quite excited when it was pointed out
to them that their anti-Christ was, lo and beshit! right among
them. A godless homo-loving stem cell sucking liberal elite right
here in Riverdale! The fact that we are at least one half of
the population prevents us from being an "elite" somehow
escaped everyone in the excitement.
In Germany it came down to
jealousy of the Jews' success in capitalist society by a group
of Christian white people who believed they had been excluded.
In America it came down to supposedly being culturally excluded
by the liberal elite, plus the voting rights of fetuses and allowing
gay people to wear wedding rings. We can safely assume the fetuses
don't really care one way or another. The gays are still pissed.
In both cases however, the German and the American, Christianity
is a form of political ideology masquerading as religious faith,
deploying the ultimate force of government to root out the "evil"
and dominate with its own particular delusion.
Meanwhile, it's hard to tell who is controlling whom. Do the
Christian Fundamentalists in this country now have significant
control of the Republican Party? Or were they simply duped into
backing the latest U.S. capitalist imperialist grab for empire
and exploitation of ordinary working Americans. My guess is that
the big Republican capitalists do not give a fuck, so long as
they can grab the money and run when the lights are shot out,
and that the Christians don't care as long as they get a shot
at swapping the Constitution with the Bible.
On one hand the Republicans
want to own the world. On the other the godwacks want to dominate
it, or destroy it if they can't: "Ya bow to my god buddy,
or we blow this whole pop stand off the maptake everybody outstartin
with the Middle East." As near as I can tell, fundamentalists
in every religion have this in common---destroying the world
to bring on their brand of paradise. The majority of Americans
disagree with Christian or Jewish fundamentalist ideas, but there
is no way to call the fundies on it because their agenda is couched
in religious language and symbols. And we all know for crap sake
that America stands for religious freedom. Even fruitcake religious
freedom. So we do not challenge the Christian or right wing Zionist
freaks among us (It's open season on Muslims however.) We few
who do challenge religion are declared satanic secular humanists,
anti-Semitic or anti-Islamic. All of which works well for only
one group---the rightwing political crazies who, in their quest
for oil, capital, territory, or whatever, use god rhetoric to
drive these zealots like a pack of blind slobbering dogs. This
story is so old that it is sometimes hard to have much faith
in the human race at all, isn't it?
The Sacred
Screwjob
It was recently pointed out
to me by a psychotherapist that each of the three major Middle
Eastern Bronze Age religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam,
has a screwjob that is central to its narrative---a messiah,
or prophet who got the schnickle while here on earth. He is symbolic
of the travails in our own graceless, uninspired lives. But as
luck would have it, those prophets and messiahs left a divine
promise of redemption from this earthly life of car payments,
bitchy wives, kids on dope, or in the case of the Christian fundies,
the utter boredom of being a religious zealot. It is called Faith.
The faithful can identify with the founding patriarchs, and be
redeemed by surrender to Jesus, a jihad, or a covenant,
a b'rith. A redemption fulfilled, unfortunately, at the
end of the world. So the best hope is the end of all life on
earth. (You never catch a break from these people.) But it is
the only deal on the table for most of poor suffering humanity.
Freud would have said this
magical thinking and heavenly spook stuff is our cultural ideal,
the glue that gives us a common identity and holds us together
as a people. Our mythology. Which would have been just fine with
most of us if the fundamentalists could leave it at that. But
ignorant mouth breathing fundamentalists who cannot read without
moving their lips take it all literally as a reading of history,
one that harkens them to political action. Myth as charter. When
your mythology happily calls for the end of the world to bring
on a paradise no one has ever seen, well, it makes for some piss
poor politics. I think we can all agree on that. And as if that
weren't enough of a headache for the rest of us, it calls for
our conversion to their delusion, elsewise be destroyed
as infidels. You are either with them or against them. Most of
us would rather be away from them, but the world is too
small to run from these days.
At the same time, the faithful
presume themselves to be aggrieved holy victims, every last damned
one of them. And when you are a victim, whether it be of the
removal of the Ten Commandments from your white cracker court
house by onanist liberal heathens "frum up nawth,"
or the refusal of the Great Satan Kansas School board to add
humus and sheep's eyes to the school lunch program, you are entitled
to revenge in the form of taking down the entire world. What
the hell? God is gonna do it anyway at the end time, which anybody
who reads the Good Book knows is any day now. Just look around
at the amount of thigh showing these days, or the lesbians jumping
little school girls in the Oklahoma high school restrooms (according
to republican Senate candidate Tom Coburn.) Sure signs of the
end times. About the only thing all three gods agree on is that
exposed belly buttons and young folks having too much fun leads
to the end of the world. So blow it the fuck up now. Start a
nuclear war, then watch Jesus return to earth and turn feckless
liberal eyeballs to jelly. Just like in the Left Behind
series. And even if these turn out not to be the end times (again)
what the hell good is a religion if you don't get to kill somebody
or at least have a certified infidel to make miserable?
None of this would be possible
without religious ecstasy---otherwise known as psychotic hysteria.
Always there is a hysterical conversion in which you get taken
up in jihadist frenzy, or born again and never have to take responsibility
for your own life or happiness, never have to think---which I
must admit is halfway attractive to me, but I'd rather get drunk
to do it. Once you succumb to religious delusion, thinking is
replaced by incomprehensible texts, magical images and exhortations.
Best of all, you do not have to die. Not really. When the Rapture
comes, you go floating right up out of your car, sailing heavenward
naked as a jaybird and bathed in that Cecil B. Demille lighting
(When the Rapture comes, I'm getting a brand new Volvo from one
of these floaters. Hey buddy, leave the keys in the ignition.)
Or you pop right up out of the grave looking like you did when
you were twenty one. Or wake up with Allah and a couple dozen
virgins with you-know-what on their minds.
Christian
dialogue my sweet ass!
But to be more serious for
a moment, and a damned brief one I promise. You cannot talk to
these people and you cannot reach them with words or language.
Not unless it is Biblical or Koranic or otherwise scriptural.
Dialogue is impossible even though, publicly at least, they claim
to want dialogue. (Take it from me. What they want is to convert
you. I've wasted years on that dialogue gig.) Their only language
is religious rhetoric and that's damned narrow stuff. Combined
with the emotionalism of the born-again consciousness state,
it reduces them to incomprehensible psychotics, especially when
they feel threatened, which is constantly. Calm psychotics, but
delusional and unreachable people nevertheless. I have hundreds
of emails from liberals who were born into fundamentalism whose
parents have cast them out of the family, so be assured they
will have no trouble persecuting secular humanist strangers,
given the chance.
As a life long student of human
consciousness through both the literature of consciousness plus
countless homegrown experiments with every kind of mind bending
dope I could get my hands on, let me say this: Religious fundamentalists
experience archaic states of liminal consciousness of a type
long atrophied or lost to most of us. Vestigial ecstatic states
such as adoration, and ecstatic rapture, states that probably
still reside down inside human hardwiring, but are little accessed
by modern humans. States that lie outside reason and logic, and
are indeed antithetical to them. Thus, there can be no dialogue
because that which is not born of reason cannot be reasoned with.
These people not only do not negotiate, they cannot even hear
you. Most liberals have yet to figure this out.
But most liberals will never
figure it out because they will never set foot in a fundamentalist
church. It's one of those things you have to experience to understand,
maybe even be born into. For example, having been raised in fundamentalism,
I am still prone to those states, which is why I do not go to
church with relatives of friends here. Given enough of that electrifying
overamped spiritual group think fervor, I'm as likely as anyone
there to speak in tongues. My heart always pounds and I always
break into tears. You probably would too, given enough exposure,
though I'm sure you don't believe it. It is some primitive social
submersion thing and you are not as strong as you might think.
Something ancient and primary happens when one is "seized
by the holy spirit," a group psychosis that over time cannot
be resisted. And it has nothing to do with how smart you think
you are, which is why so many reasonably educated people seem
to fall under its spell. There is a powerful sense of emotional
and spiritual release, beautiful anxious joy and well-being,
and yes, love. The fundamentalists of course attribute this to
the spirit of god. But I have also experienced it on LSD in settings
that permitted self-examination of the phenomenon, and I would
have to say there is a cultish element of mob psychology involved
in the Christian findamentalist manifestation of this state.
Cultish especially in the sense that you have to stay with the
cult (congregation) to sustain the fundamentalist consciousness
state. Otherwise it wears off---you "fall away from God's
church." Each fundamentalist church is its own cult, (which
is why there are so many fractious doctrinal disagreements between
them) and the benefits are sustainable only as long as one is
a cult member. This is also why each church perceives itself
as being outnumbered, stranded in the secular world around them.
They are. However, in their cultural isolation---and by culture,
I mean real culture, not the culture industry crap---they perceive
themselves as threatened, so they go on the offensive. The only
thing threatening them is the ordinary changing world, which
they see as evil because A-it does not adhere to a 2000 year
old world view, and B-everything is reduced to good and evil,
period.
My friend, Scott Ross, talk show host on Pat Robertsons's Christian
Broadcasting Network, (don't laugh, he's got 50 million viewers,
knows Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan and is married to one of the
Ronettes) recently proved to me once again that not all fundamentalists
are bent on world domination (called dominionism in fundie speak.)
It is only fair to say that fundamentalists fall along a spectrum,
and not every fundamentalist, as the milder ones are quick to
point out, is spoiling for a world war to bring on Armageddon.
However, the same nihilistic eschatological theme runs throughout
fundamentalism (you are born shit in the eyes of god and unless
you cop to His program, you will remain shit, after which you
will become a sack of burning shit in hell.) binding their outlook
and, as we have seen, their political agenda. Their differences
with us are the difference between the blackest Old Testament
doomsday thinking and that of the Great Enlightenment, with which
began the unraveling of these ancient hardassed religious regimes
(in Europe at least.) Maybe I should put it more simply: Old
Testament Christianity is an essentially blood worshipping, war
making religion (whose symbol is a bloody man on a wooden pole)
and I have seen too many times that when they get anywhere near
politics they fuck over anyone who resists seeing things their
way. As for the supposedly more moderate fundamentalists, you'll
never hear one of them speak up against such outrages. They vote
with the mob. (Sorry Scott.)
There should be some logical point to this rambling screed, but
I cannot think of one, other than this: Don't kid yourself about
making peace with these people. And for god's sake don't believe
the pundit's horseshit as to it being about "values."
It is about a minority among us who want to stamp out all the
advances made during the Enlightenment---take us back to Biblical
Law, wars and rumors of wars. And it is about a band of dyspeptic,
neoconservative money grubbing bastards who knew how to exploit
our most ancient and destructive legacy, the war making Calvinist
fundamentalism brought here by the Scots Irish and still smoldering
across the heartland. By now most of you who live where you can
buy a copy of the New York Times without special
ordering it, or feel free to walk down the street arm in arm
with a lover of another race, are starting to wake up. All I
can say is that you have worse enemies than you know, and they
will still be around next election. If there is one. And they
can crush us if they manage to align themselves with the same
kind of oppressive bastards they did this time. Which they will.
They never cease, proof of which is that what we saw last November
was the culmination of twenty years of organizing. What to do
about it is still being debated, but to my mind, publicly calling
these people what they really are would be a damned good start.
I am often accused of middlebrowing
some very complex topics, politics and religion chief among them.
I don't deny the charge honey child. But most of the world's
big issues are over my head. Yours too, I'm willing to bet. Fortunately
though, we can find solutions for the smaller abuses the fundamentalists
vest upon us. Take those Pentecostal door thumpers intruding
upon my Saturday morning hangover. It seems my dog Bingo has
a bladder problem and excitedly pisses on the shoes of visitors
at my door. I just can't wait until the next fundie comes a knocking.
Joe Bageant is a magazine editor and essayist
living in Winchester, Virginia. He can be reached at bageantjb@netscape.net.
Copyright Joe Bageant 2004.
Weekend
Edition Features for October 30 / 31, 2004
November
6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Don't
Say We Didn't Warn You
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Green Out
Carl
G. Estabrook
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Saul
Landau
Che: the Man and the Movie
Gary
Leupp
Let There Be Conflict!
Ben
Tripp
You Call This a Party?
Paul
Craig Roberts
The October Numbers: Continuing Stress on the Jobs Front
Jordan
Green
Heroin, Cocaine and Espanola, NM
Fred
Gardner
Haul of Justice
J.A.
Miller
Cults of the Jealous God: the Balfour Decision Reconsidered
Ramzy
Baroud
Life Without Arafat
Dave
Zirin
Out at the Ballgame: Pro Sports and the Gay Athelete
Ron
Jacobs
The Arrow on the Doorpost
Robert
Oscar Lopez
How White Liberals Became a New Racial Minority
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The November Surprise
Dave
Lindorff
Silver Linings
Richard
Oxman
Invitation to the Bodily Snatched
John
Whitlow
Value Wars: the View from Lexington, Kentucky
Rahul
Mahajan
Fallujah and the Reality of War
Leila
Matsui
Political "Ju-On": Carrying a Grudge
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