Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
May
4, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Privatized Torture
May
3, 2004
Virginia
Tilley
Let the Wall of Silence Fall
May
1 / 2, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
An Army in Disgrace, a Policy
in Tatters, the Real Prospect of Defeat
Robert
Fisk
"Good Guys" Who Can Do No
Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
Watching Niagara: Stupid Leaders,
Useless Spies, Angry World
Heather
Williams
Gringo, We're Going Home: Latin
American Troops Flee Iraq
Diane
Rejman
An Army Vet on Torture in Iraq:
Abu Ghraib as My Lai?
Diane
Christian
Blood Spilling: Osama, Bush and
Sharon Speak the Same Language
Patrick
Cockburn
Seems Like Old Times in Fallujah
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Torturous Logic: Shocked,
Shocked, Shocked
Chris
Floyd
Suicide Bomber: Neocons, Nihilists
and Annihilation
April
29 / 30, 2004
Dave
Zirin
A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome
Death of Pat Tillman
Kathy
Kelly
The Warden's Tour
Greg
Weiher
Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the
Banality of Evil
Michael
S. Ladah
Terrorism and Assassination: the
Ultimate Depception
Patrick
Cockburn
The Fallujah Mutinies
April
28, 2004
April
28, 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
Meet Congressman Know-Nothing:
Tom Tancredo
Wendy
Brinker
The Politics of the Numb
Faisal
Kutty
The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence
John
Chuckman
Seeking the Evil One
Mike
Whitney
Flag-Draped Coffins and the Seattle Times
Tom
Mountain
Rwanda and the F***** Word
Graeme
Greenback
The Iraqi Alamo: a CNN/CIA Production
Tracy
McLellan
The War Comes Home
M.
Junaid Alam
We are the Barbarians
William
Loren Katz
Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson
April 27, 2004
James
Davis
The Colombia 3 Acquitted
Dave
Lindorff
Chalabi as Prosecutor
Bruce
Schneier
Terrorist Threats and Political
Gain
Cockburn
/ Sengupta
British Generals Resist Calls for
More Troops to Aid Americans in Iraq
Walt
Brasch
Presidential Letters: The Day I
Was Asked to Feed an Elephant
Saul
Landau
The Empire in Denial and the Denial
of Empire
April 26, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops
Prepare to Enter Najaf
Wayne
Madsen
Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR?
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
Elaine
Cassel
Lies About the Patriot Act
Mickey
Z.
Inspired by Pat Tillman?
Greg
Moses
Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit
Gila
Svirsky
Anarchy in Our Souls
Uri
Avnery
Vanunu and the Terrible Secret
April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
April 23, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal
Dave
Lindorff
Imagination Deficit Disorder
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster
Norman
Solomon
Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?"
Cynthia
McKinney
All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization
CounterPunch
Wire
A Bitch Called Wanda
Karyn
Strickler
Sierra Club, Inc.
Hammond
Guthrie
Yellow Caked in the Face
Paul
de Rooij
Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary
of the Iraqi Occupation
April 22, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
When Terror Came to Basra: "I
Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire"
Tanya
Reinhart
The Wall Behind Disengagement
Lance
Selfa
Why is Kucinich Still in the Race?
Josh
Frank
Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq
William
S. Lind
Why We Get It Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Undoing the Latches
Robert
Jensen
Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank
John
L. Hess
The New York Times from 30,000 Feet
April
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Yeats on Iraq
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's Taliban Drug Deal
William
A. Cook
George 1 to George 2
Jack
Random
Iraq and Vietnam
Jean-Guy
Allard
Alarcon Meets the Editors
Mike
Whitney
Charade in the Desert
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes Can
Help Washington Now
April 20, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Bush and Kerry Share a Problem
Stan
Cox
Wal-Mart's Magic Numbers
Bruce
Anderson
On Listening to Air America
Joseph
Kalvoda
Czech Mate for Condi
Greg
Moses
Yesterday's Intelligence
Stan
Goff
The Democrats and Iraq
Website
of the Day
Santorum Happens
April 19, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The "Central Hand" of the
Resistance
Mike
Whitney
Bob Woodward's Imperial Trifles
Douglas
Valentine
52 Pick-Up and the 100-to-1
Rule
John
Chuckman
The Sharon Annex: Evil Does Often
Triumph
Doug
Giebel
Welcome to the Club
Rahul
Mahajan
Hospital Closings and War Crimes
April
16 / 18, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Bush Legitimizes Terror
Saul
Landau
Subverting Brazil and Cuba
Dave
Lindorff
Paying for War: $2,150 per Family
and Counting
Brandy
Baker
Fallujah's Collateral Damage
Mickey
Z.
The Left Attacks from the Right
Bruce
Jackson
The Bush Press Conference: Gott Mit
Uns
Norman
Solomon
How the "NewsHour" Changed
History
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the
World: Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes
Reporting in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion
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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May
4, 2004
Indecent Insurgents
Watch What You
Say
By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK
What do Howard Stern and Muqtada al-Sadr
have in common? Both were censored by the US government, Stern
for "indecency," Sadr for "insurgency." The
"in" words.
Both are charismatic egomaniacs
revered by loads of young, testosterone-pumping guys who, for
various reasons, don't get laid enough. Both haven't been taken
too seriously by their professional peers. Now, thanks to the
brass-knuckled hand of American expurgation, both are enjoying
the dubious honor of being living martyrs in their respective
cultures.
Censorship works in mysterious
ways
The methods used are, of course,
slightly different. Sadr required Censorship by Force. Just bring
in the troops and shut his rinky-dink paper down, officially
because "it didn't print the truth." Unlike most American
tabloids and Fox TV News, Sadr's lies were "anti-American."
So Bremer's boys stopped the presses. This proved to be an important
lesson in American-style democracy for Iraqis and the world.
It was also a rallying point for bloody Shiite uprisings from
Baghdad to Kufa.
With Stern, it was Censorship
by Fining. Fine the distributor (in this case, Clear Channel)
enough cashola (in this case, $475,000), and it will drop its
most popular performer like a radioactive douche-bag. Then presto-chango:
Clear Channel dumps Stern from its six stations. All gone!
Amazing how easy censorship
is when you can Fine & Force your way around town. Intoxicatingly
easy, not to mention empowering and fun! After a few "successful"
shutdowns, any industrious bureaucrat would be eager for more.
It's hard to say which is more fun to silence: indecency or insurgency.
So, who's next? Tony Soprano or Al-Sistani? Or maybe your private
telephone calls.
Censorship is *in.* Whether
you call it suppression, spin control, lies or bullshit, Americans
at home and abroad are gobbling it up as the cure to all our
terrors. The buzz is that it's also a sure-fire way to get incumbents
re-elected, not to mention make homicidal maniacs appear moral,
stop crime, support the troops, heal the sick, win the peace,
and keep our children innocent forever.
Used to be that censors had
to be kind of sneaky. No more! We're at a point when many can
say: I'm for censorship, and I'm proud! I believe in the healing
power and glory of massive repression, and I am not ashamed!
Hallelujah!
Pat Boone is so proud; he's
singing it loud. "Censorship is healthy for any society,"
Boone boomed while in Washington recently, "and that goes
for arts, entertainment, anything. (Of course) it must be majority
approved."
Boone doesn't get that the purpose of Freedom of Speech is for
the sake of the minority, not the majority. Or maybe he does.
As for championing Freedom
of Speech, well, that's downright un-American these days. After
all, America is up against terrorists, predators and perverts!
"I don't think censorship
is a bad word, but it has become a bad word because everybody
associates it with some kind of restriction on liberty,"
Boone continued in defense of Americans' right to be repressed.
If "censorship has become a bad word"--like that naughty
Anglo-Saxon gerund that ejaculated from Bono's foul peace-mongering
mouth on our sacred boob tubes from those Godless Golden Globe--
then perhaps we need to censor the word "censorship."
Why, let's call it "liberty" instead. After all, war
is peace, Saddam is Osama, liberation is occupation (actually,
with Bush's New POW Porn release, liberation is humiliation),
and we're destroying our freedoms in order to save them.
Of course, Boone and Bono are
small bananas in the censorship game. Shortly after 9/11, "The
Day that Made Civil Liberty Loss OK," White House Press
Secretary Ari Fleischer blew the lid off the Lust to Censor when
he warned comedian Bill Maher and his ill-talking ilk, as well
as "all Americans that they need to watch what they say,
watch what they do."
At first, the White House censored
Fleischer's remarks, a bold move considering there were umpteen
journalists with various recording devices in the room when he
made them. Then, they seem to have decided, what the hell, let
this be a warning to traitorous libertines and terrorist comedians
everywhere.
Many Americans have accepted
Ari's warning as a mantra. We watch what we say. We watch what
we do. Some of us have even taken it a step further: We are
watching what we think. Or maybe we're just not thinking.
The evidence is in the polls that show that a large percentage
of American registered voters are self-censoring the news that
WMDs have not been found in Iraq, nor have any links been made
between Saddam and Osama, even though these facts have been broadcast
everywhere, even on Fox. In other words, they believe that WMDs
have been found in Iraq, and that Saddam's connections
with al-Queda have been proven. This is self-censorship
at its zenith.
For such Americans, it seems
that pride is more important than truth. Pride feels good, solid,
empowered. Truth is a lot more dicey. If you want to be proud
to be an American, you simply ignore the facts, give up a few
measly liberties, and "stay the course." Ignorance
may or may not be bliss, but it is full of pride. Far better
to be dumb and proud (like Dubya!) than smart and depressed or,
even worse, vilified. We all heard how the "President"
disdainfully dismissed that reporter who dared to compare one
war (Iraq) to another (Vietnam) as traitorously loose-lipped.
"That analogy is - sends the wrong message to our troops
and sends the wrong message to the enemy" the President
said, his small but proudly deceitful smile reassuring Americans
that they will never have to face the truth as long as he's in
charge.
Watch what
you say.
After all, our government is.
Ayatollah Asscraft has more power to watch and listen in on what
we're saying, thanks to the Patriot Act, and he'd like to watch
some more. Being a bit repressed themselves, censors tend to
be avid voyeurs.
Asscraft's been censoring since
he was knee-high to his daddy who rubbed the Spirit of Censorship
into his dandruff along with the Crisco. He already used some
of that Crisco to craftily screw Americans in the ass with Patriot
Acts I and II. Now he's throwing a dollop in a pan and preparing
to fry up the porn industry, starting with Extreme Associates.
This is what he promised to do before he got slightly distracted
by catching people who look like terrorists and covering up the
right breast of the Spirit of Justice.
But he's got competition for
the Anthony Comstock Award for Stifling Free Speech from younger,
hipper, born-again censors like FCC Chairman Michael Powell (also
obsessed with covering right breasts) who used to call himself
a Libertarian and now is Stern's nemesis. Since Little Powell
couldn't cover up the boob Janet had already flashed, he's satiating
his thirst for censorship with fining radio "shock jocks"
for flatulence jokes that just a few weeks before were considered
in tune with "community standards."
When attempting to defend our
Freedom of Speech, we in the Sex Industry have often warned:
First they censor sex, then its politics. But they're
already censoring politics. Why can't we see the flag-draped
coffins of America's military dead? Because the Bushites believe
it's not good reelection politics to show them.
Of course, we can see
the flag-draped coffins, thanks, in part, to Tami Silicio, a
Kuwait-based cargo worker whose photograph of bright, festive,
beautifully-wrapped gift boxes of dead U.S. soldiers was published
in The Seattle Times and then quickly made the rounds
of the rest of the world's media (except Fox). The Times received
Silicio's photo from a stateside friend, and Silicio then gave
the paper permission to publish it, without compensation. Silicio's
boss at Maytag Aircraft fired her, as well as her newlywed husband
David Landry (presumably for guilt-by-marriage). We the People
should thank Silicio for risking her livelihood to show us a
basic truth of this war that the Pentagon wouldn't permit us
to see.
The Information Age has zero
tolerance for censorship. It's very nature poses serious challenges
to the current lust for full-on suppression. Internet technology,
created (ironically enough) by the U.S. Military, now moves much
faster and smoother than government censorship.
But then, it's not just the
government. The Spirit of Censorship is sweeping the land, accompanied
by its muses, Pride and Faith. Vigilante censors have sprung
up around the country. Some smear for the Wall Street Journal.
Others just send nasty emails or make threatening phone calls.
They use whatever weapons they can in their Censorship Crusade.
After all, there is so much to censor! So many "disgusting"
pictures, so many "bad words," so much awful truth.
As those of you who know me
know, the vigilante censors went after yours truly, (see "Saddam's
Sex Therapist & the Rape of Free Speech"), trying to
terrorize me into silence. Ironically enough, when I wrote "Rape
of Iraq" back in April of 2003, I was just using "rape"
as a metaphor for the wanton brutality of the Anglo-American
invasion. My would-be censors accused me of writing that American
troops were literally raping Iraqi women, which I hadn't, in
fact, written.
But silly me, little did I
realize they were literally raping the men! Now that I've viewed
some of the "shocking" scenes from Bush's POW Porn,
I see that the Rape of Iraq is happening not just in a metaphorical
sense, which is bad enough, but in small prison cells once used
by Saddam for rapes and other abuses. Now, in pictures which
the Pentagon tried to censor but ultimately couldn't, we see
that in those same cells, U.S. troops have been stripping, torturing,
humiliating and raping Iraqi detainees, making them "assume
the position" as their fresh-faced all-American captors
grin and flash the thumbs up-just like their jauntily flight-suited
Commander-in-Chief gave a thumbs-up on board the U.S.S. Lincoln
one year ago: Mission Accomplished indeed. More graphic pictures
of real rape and torture are still being censored. Maybe those
will be released later-in the Director's Cut.
They might not have been released
at all, if not for the Internet. As CBS's "60 Minutes II"
was mounting their feature on these bizarre, pre-interrogation,
"softening up" techniques, the Defense Department asked
them to delay the broadcast, "given the danger and tension
on the ground in Iraq." Cravenly, CBS agreed. They "honored"
the government's lust to censor over the public's right to know.
Then, to the Defense Department and CBS's horror, the photos
began to "circulate" through other media that, unlike
"60 Minutes II," didn't "honor" the US government's
desire to censor images of our adorable young boys and gals in
the Armed Forces getting indecent with insurgents. Honor? Why
honor the people in charge of these "appalling" hooded
naked prison orgies?
So here we are, spending our
hard-earned tax dollars to try to censor Howard Stern at home,
while splurging on Bush's U.S. Army Reality-Show abroad, produced
by the US Army.
Bush's POW Porn may have escaped
the censors, but the Man Who Calls Himself President censors
himself seamlessly. Self-censorship feels strong, smut-free,
doubtless and pure. Hitler was the Master of the Art of Self-Censorship,
otherwise known as delusion. Self-censorship helps you stay resolved,
because when you censor yourself, you don't do a lot of thinking,
or explaining.
"I don't feel like I owe
anybody an explanation," Bush II revealed to his favored
scribe Bob Woodward, and that was in the positive book. Then
in the second, more critical Woodward chronicle, we learned that
the Bushites were diverting funds earmarked for Afghanistan to
preparations for an invasion of Iraq without mentioning this
to Congress.
Watch what you say. This is the kind of self-censorship
that moves billions. The Shrub's rendition of his idol Teddy
Roosevelt is: Speak Equivocally. and Carry a Big Dick (Cheney)-and
no recording devices--when you have to talk to nosy folks
like the 9-11 commission.
Censorship does come at a price--obviously
to the censored, but also to the censors. It makes enemies where
once you had friends. Take Stern and Sadr. Stern was once a cheerleader
for the Bushites. When the Twin Towers collapsed, Dick One and
Dick Two, cut down by the fiery sword of the Malevolent 19, Stern,
like so many American guys, felt more than grief-stricken; he
felt castrated. He directed all his wounded anger against the
towel-heads of terrorism and threw his support squarely behind
the Bushites, especially during the invasion of Iraq.
Sadr also started out as a
potential Bush supporter, at least to an extent. After all, Saddam
killed his dad (like he tried to kill Dubya's!), and murdered
or drove into exile several other close relatives. Maybe Sadr
and Stern were considered snot-nosed, smart-mouthed punks, but
they weren't sworn Bush's enemies, not at first. Then both committed
the cardinal sin of criticizing the Great Pretzel Swallower and
his imperial emissaries. Thus, the guillotine of censorship came
down upon their tongues. Now they are enemies of Bush and creating
heaps of trouble in their respective neighborhoods of angry young
men.
Earlier this year, pausing
for a telegenic moment between bloodbaths and lies, Bush announced
that he'd like to add a new Constitutional amendment banning
same-sex marriage. It's a long shot, yes, but this administration
has pulled off some astounding sleight-of-law stunts. So hey,
if we wind up adding a new one, why not just dump the first one?
Who cares about the First Amendment besides a few perverted Jews
and crazy Arabs anyway? Let 'em fight it out with bombs and bullets
instead of filthy, dangerous diatribes and smut.
Yeah, yeah, today's smut could
be tomorrow's "Tropic of Cancer." To which a good censor
would say, "Recuse me? Who wants cancer? "
And yes, yes, the combination
of vague, virtually unknowable FCC rules and crippling punishments
is already having a chilling effect on American news and entertainment.
To which the censor replies, "So what? We need a nice cold
shower after all that hot smut."
Say it loud,
America: I'm ignorant and I'm proud.
Pat Boone could sing that one.
Or Ted Nugent.
Speaking of smut, Stern is
only the most famous sex talker to be muzzled right now. But
all kinds of talk about sex is being silenced these days. Women's
health workers in clinics all over the world are being censored
by the Taliban Bushites. They can't tell their patients about
contraception, let alone abortion, let alone give them a little
basic, life-saving, sex education. They can only recommend "abstinence,"
lest their American funding be cut. Hey, clinics are even easier
to censor than radio conglomerates!
I'm not weeping for Stern or
Sadr, not yet. Stern is still on 35 stations, and Sadr's squatting
on some prime real estate in Najaf (which the Americans are now
afraid to enter openly), as of this writing. In fact, both dudes
have gotten some excellent political mileage from having their
outlets shut down. American censorship has actually rendered
each a lot more respectable than he was before. Sadr and Stern
are manning their battle stations, one group brandishing rifles,
the other, their own dicks--and maybe their votes. Hey, if guys
think with their dicks, why shouldn't they vote with their dicks?
It's the rest of us that suffer a little more repression every
time something is censored. After all, we're the ones who are
denied the information or entertainment. And though we may not
miss Stern's sophomoric sphincter jokes or Sadr's foaming-at-the-mouth
religiosity, the next voice to be censored could be yours.
Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, cultural commentator,
host of The Dr. Susan Block Show and author of The
10 Commandments of Pleasure. Visit her website at http://www.drsusanblock.com
Send all hate mail, love letters, commentary, questions and confessions
to her at liberties@blockbooks.com
© April 18, 2004, Dr.
Susan Block
For reprint rights, please contact rox@blockbooks.com
It is the ethical responsibility
of each individual person, soldier, aid worker, contractor and
diplomat to make sure that the people are not censored. Send
us your photos and we will publish them, with or without credit,
according to your request.
Weekend Edition
Features for April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
|