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Today's
Stories
October 18,
2004
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
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 18, 2004
A Wager on
the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Betting
on War
By
GREG BATES and DAVE LINDORFF
Greg Bates: In response to my piece analyzing
Dave's article arguing that progressive voters should vote Kerry,
Dave wrote me about Kerry:
"The guy may be a schmuck
and a lousy campaigner, but he's no dummy. I would bet you a
decent sum of money that if he pulls off a miracle and manages
to win this election, he'll find an excuse to pull the troops
out of Iraq very quickly. He's already saying the war was a diversion
and a waste and a mistake. That lays the groundwork for him to
come in in January, say Bush botched it, and that the solution
is to get out and pay money to help whatever puppet regime is
in there try to pull it together.
"It's a no-lose situation
for him. He gets out of the mess, which he blames on Bush, and
then he has four years--an eternity in American political terms--for
the public to forget that whole thing and move on to some other
important issue like Fox TV's next season line-up."
Of course, I couldn't resist
Dave's bait. In an effort to delineate and wager our differences
over Kerry, we've agreed to the following:
* If Kerry wins the election
and reduces troop strength to a token 5,000 in Iraq by January
1, 2007, Greg loses. More than 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq on that
date and Dave pays up. Wager: $200.
* If Kerry appoints antiabortion
judges during his first term, Dave pays $50. If Kerry appoints
none, Greg pays $50.
* Greg bet an additional $50
that Kerry proposes legislation to further curb civil liberties
during his first term. If Greg is correct, Dave pays up.
I see this bet as important
not because, if I am right, it proves there are no differences
between Bush and Kerry. There are lots of differences. But we
need to see Kerry accurately nonetheless, a prerequisite to building
those effective social movements to constrain him that people
are wishing I would concentrate on (instead of my focus on Nader's
campaign).
I base my prediction that Kerry
will keep troops in Iraq through that period (and longer if we
fail to turn up the heat through protest) on his own pronouncements.
He says he will reduce troop strength, and he may do so moderately.
But his entire framework for "winning the peace," as
he likes to call it, is in the context of an American victory
on his terms. His mentor, Kennedy, wanted out of Vietnam (a point
incorrectly used by conspiracy theorists to explain his assassination:
he was killed by those opposed to his plans to withdraw, so the
fantasy goes). Kennedy, like Johnson and Nixon after him, wanted
withdrawal based on victory. Today, both Kerry and Bush might
relish withdrawal-after victory.
I think Dave's argument about
the political expedience of a withdrawal by Kerry based on blaming
Bush or the mess is wishful thinking. Kerry will face pressures
to show he is not soft on terrorism, pressures far greater than
Bush faced. Therefore, I am guessing, Kerry will have little
room to pull out, even if he wanted to. But there's no sign that
he wants to cut and run in any case. As the Wall Street Journal
put it succinctly, the major difference between Bush and Kerry
on Iraq is restricted to an assessment of conditions there.
The threat Kerry faces that
he is soft on terrorism is the basis for my further bet that
he will propose legislation to curtail civil liberties in the
interest of heightening security. I could be wrong, but when
he is already claiming to have written sections of the Patriot
Act, I see no reason to hope for anything else from him.
Concerning anti-abortion judges,
I base my bet on Kerry's pronouncement that he is open to appointing
them, as long as they don't jeopardize Roe v. Wade. (That's an
absurd caveat: any appointment strengthens those opposed to choice
and at least indirectly threatens a decision already under siege.)
In short, all my bets take
Kerry at his word: when he says, in effect, "I am moving
right," you can count on him.
Dave Lindorff: I appreciate my editor Greg's bold
challenge to put our money where our mouths are.
For my part, I have no illusions
about Kerry's political stance. The claim being made by Bush
that he is the "most liberal Senator" in the Senate
comes from the National Review, a magazine so far to the right
that it needs a telescope to see the Democratic Party, and thus
has no depth perception. In fact, Kerry is more of a Clinton
without the charisma, or perhaps a Lieberman with a pulse.
I base my assumption that he
will get the U.S. out of Iraq, and in relatively short order,
on the fact that he has had the experience of Vietnam, a war
that he saw destroy the prospects of two presidents-Johnson and
Nixon. I cannot believe that, whatever his political worldview,
he would want to see a similar war drag down his own presidency-particularly
when his generals already are telling him that the war is unwinnable.
I also think that much of Kerry's
insupportable campaign blather is aimed at trying to attract
that little wedge of voters who are still undecided in this race,
and that, on bad advice, he is perceiving this group as being
kind of disaffected Republicans-thus his outrageous comments
like the one that he might appoint an anti-abortion supreme court
justice. That was absurd. Won't happen. When it comes time to
pick one, two or three justices, Kerry would pick moderate, pro-choice
jurists, probably with as little of a track record as possible
so as to get past a hostile Congress. There'd be no percentage
in his picking an anti-abortion judge. Clinton didn't do it,
and neither would Kerry. Pro-choice is one of the foundations
of what base the Democratic Party has and can't be sacrificed,
even by the DLC.
I'm less confident about civil
liberties under a Kerry presidency. Kerry voted for the outrageous
Patriot Act, and still hasn't condemned it, and he allowed the
DNC to have a razorwire cage for protesters, aping the Bush strategy
of fencing in protest.
On balance though, I expect
to net at least $200 on this gambling venture.
We'll see.
Both:
Despite our differences, our
similarities are striking. Dave thinks Greg's hope for building
a third party that could one day seriously challenge the Democrats
is wishful thinking. Greg thinks Dave's hopes for Kerry are
wishful thinking. Let's hope our judgments about each other's
hopes are wrong-that Dave wins the bet and that Greg's faith
(and Dave's fondest wish) for a real Third Party alternative
developing all happen.
We've agreed that, whoever
wins, the money will be donated to Partners In Health, a superb
organization based in Boston and around the world battling the
AIDS and tuberculosis now engulfing places like Haiti, Peru,
and sub-Saharan Africa. We hope others might join in forming
their own bets, and donate the winnings similarly.
If Bush wins the election-all
bets are off.
Greg Bates is the founding publisher at Common
Courage Press and author of Ralph's
Revolt: The Case For Joining Nader's Rebellion. He can be
reached at gbates@commoncouragepress.com.
Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing
Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new
book of CounterPunch columns titled "This
Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage
Press. Information about both books and other work by Lindorff
can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net.
He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com
Weekend
Edition Features for September 18 / 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Forgeries,
Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery
Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Bush's Mask of Anarchy
Patrick Cockburn
Into the Abyss: the Week Iraq's Dream of Peace Fell Apart
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture)
Joe Allen
The Comrades Kerry Abandoned: the Real Story of Vietnam Vets
Against the War
George Corsetti
Poletown Revisited: Finally, Some Vindication
Scott Handleman
The Knock-Knock of a Sledgehammer: Sequestered in Nablus
Richard Ward
Two Weeks in Beit Arabiya
Conn Hallinan
Ashcroft and Indonesia
Lori Smith
Health Care in America: And Then I Got Sick...
Dave Zirin
Hold the Booyah!: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East
John L. Hess
Rather Will Take the Heat, As Bush's War Deteriorates
Brian J. Foley
W is for Wimp: So Why do Manly Men Love Him?
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman and Osama bin Laden: Odd Juxtapositions
Poets' Basement
Vest, Landau & Albert
Website of the Weekend
Eye on the NYTs
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