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Today's
Stories
January 10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's
Non-existent WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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January
10 / 11, 2004
Sweatshops and the
Music Industry
Cold
Sweat
By LEE BALLINGER
Race is still a major factor in the world, as
can be seen in everything from who goes to prison in the U.S.
to the economic gap between Europe and Africa. But the question
of race isn't as simple as it was during the 1980s, when a worldwide
movement surged against South Africa's racist apartheid regime.
That movement was strongly reflected
in music, first in South Africa, then in England, and ultimately
in the U.S. with songs by the likes of Stevie Wonder, the Winans,
and Gil Scott-Heron. The pinnacle of Western musical protest
came in 1985 with the "Sun City" project, which ignored
boundaries of race, genre, and nationality to create a record,
video, and book of searing anti-apartheid righteousness.
Today, under a predominantly black government,
South African poverty is worse than it was during apartheid.
Discrimination, now based on economics, remains intense. The
response of the South African government to the surging mass
movement against evictions and water and electricity shutoffs
has been to dismiss it as criminal behavior flowing from a "culture
of non-payment." In 2002, South African President Thabo
Mbeki shocked his disease-racked nation when he declared that
medicine which prevents mother-to-child transmission of AIDS
was undesirable because it forced the state to deal with healthy
orphans. Other than little-known artists such as South African
rapper Psyches, no one is making records about any of this.
The changing South African racial landscape
finds its reflection around the world, nowhere more clearly than
in the growing number of music makers, the majority of them black,
who have their own clothing lines. These entrepreneurs profit
greatly, albeit on other continents, from the miserable conditions
which have defined South Africa under both white and black rule.
Most prominent is Sean "Puffy"
Combs (aka P. Diddy). He declares that "I'm as pro-worker
as they get," yet an October report released by the National Labor Committee made
headlines when it revealed that much of Combs' annual $325 million
worth of shirts is made under sweatshop conditions at the Southeast
Textiles factory in Honduras. Then, on December 19, NLC announced
that Combs had brought about major improvements at the Honduran
plant, including union recognition, health care, and an end to
abuses such as unpaid overtime and contaminated drinking water.
This is good news, but does it let Combs
off the hook as a willing accomplice to sweatshop labor? The
tip-off should be that he refused to meet with NLC to discuss
the problems in Honduras until the story broke in the media.
The clincher is that other Sean John clothing is still made under
sweatshop conditions in China and Vietnam. When Combs ran the
New York City marathon "for the kids" on November 2,
his corporate sponsor was McDonalds, America's biggest sweatshop.
When P. Diddy co-hosted the American Music Awards in 2002, he
wore a different old school sports jersey every time he came
to the podium. Sports Illustrated says that on that night, "Retro
sports fashion became a full blown social phenomenon." These
fashions are made by Mitchell & Ness and sell for over $300
apiece. Did P. Diddy ask where they were made before he donned
and endorsed them?
The mask of feigned ignorance wears thin
in light of the political connections of the fashion financiers.
P-Diddy, Russell Simmons (Phat Farm), and Jay-Z (Roc-A-Fella)
have all been active in promoting Democratic candidates and in
pushing youth voter registration drives that are clearly designed
to function as an arm of the Democratic Party in the 2004 elections.
It was the Democratic Party which got
NAFTA passed. One result, according to Ooh Papi's "It's
Getting Sweaty in Here" on the excellent website playahata.com,
was that the Southeast Textile factory was moved from North Carolina
to Honduras, the better to help the likes of P. Diddy and Jay-Z
become billionaires.
Democratic Presidential candidate General
Wesley Clark-backed by Madonna and the Eagles and almost certain
to be endorsed by hip-hop capitalists if he gets the nomination-was
head of the U.S. Southern Command in Panama, which oversees the
U.S. military forces in Latin America which provide backing to
local sweatshop-friendly regimes. Clark has also endorsed the
School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, where, according
to Amnesty International, Latin American soldiers are trained
in torture and union-busting. P. Diddy's Sean John company recently
received an investment of $100 million from Ron Burkle, one of
the largest contributors to the Democratic Party and chairman
of Ralphs, California's largest grocery chain. Ralphs is one
of the companies which forced the ongoing strike of Southern
California grocery workers by demanding that its underpaid employees
pay up to $5,000 a year for health benefits.
One way to find out who knows what and
where they stand would be to do a reprise of the "Sun City"
project. Something along the lines of "Sweat City"
or "No Sweat." Everyone could be invited to participate,
including white artists with clothing lines such as Gwen Stefani
and Eminem, along with artists whose gear is made under good
conditions at SweatX in Los Angeles, such as Jackson Browne and
Carlos Santana. Ultimately, we're well aware that history-before
and after "Sun City"-shows that it must be musicians
themselves who initiate such projects. RRC, which was very proudly
involved in the "Sun City" effort, will do anything
we can to help.
Lee Ballinger
is co-editor of one of CounterPunch's favorite newsletters, Rock and Rap Confidential,
where this article originally appeared. For a free copy of the
issue, email your postal address to: RRC, Box 341305, LA CA 90034
or send an email to: Rockrap@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
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