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Sensational New Print Edition of CounterPunch Amazing Plan Surfaces: "We Need Ethno-Weapons!" David Price tells how top-flight US anthropologists eagerly obeyed US government's mandate to "think in a-moral terms". One scheme of OSS's willing executioners: target Japanese physical "weak spot", the respiratory tract, with anthrax germs. Gabriel Kolko asks What's so New About the Neo-Cons? If they had not existed, would the policies have been the same? Jeffrey St Clair digs up more dirt on Halliburton's secret history. Alexander Cockburn on why we need more "celebrity justice". Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Show the New York Times You Don't Believe a Word of It: CounterPunch's New 14 Per Cent Club T-Shirts Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories July 2 / 4, 2005 Laura Carlsen Zapatista's Red Alert   July 1, 2005 Christopher Brauchli With Friends Like These: Bush Buddies Karimov and Musharraf Pat Williams What Real Westerners Think About Bush's Pseudo-Cowboy Palaver Gary Leupp Summer Surprise? John Stauber Mad Cow in America: the USDA Continues to Lie John Chuckman The Blessings of Canada Justicia y Paz Colombia's Disappeared: Their Names, At Least! Cockburn / St. Clair It's Put Up or Shut Up for Bush and the Dems on the Supreme Court   June 30, 2005 Kathy Kelly An Open Letter to Carl Levin: Compassion for Iraqis John Stauber Oprah Not the "Only" Mad Cow in America Virginia Rodino All Roads Lead to Baghdad: Unity in the Anti-War Movement Jason Leopold Meet the New Chair of the FERC: James Kelliher, the Man Who Invited Enron to Write Bush's Energy Policy Dave Lindorff What Was Bush Thinking? Greg Moses Racism at Cape Cod Norman Solomon Memo to the Iraq War Joshua Frank Israel's Theocrats Alexander Cockburn The Political Function of PBS   June 29, 2005 Mike Schaefer How the Washington Post Lied About Its Own War Poll Roger Burbach / Paul Cantor Bush's Big Democratic Hoax in Iraq Sharon Smith Democrats Shift into Reverse Sam Husseini A Quick Way to End the Insurgency John Stauber Put a Photo of Mad Cow #2 on a Milk Carton Ahmad Faruqui Is Militarism Irreversible in Pakistan? Linda S. Heard Bush's Speech: the View from Cairo Stew Albert Chet Helms: a Rock and Roll Hero Ray McGovern Bush at Ft. Bragg: Stay the Crooked Course June 28, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts A Defeat Bred in Deceit Landau / Hassen Bush's Meddling in Internal Syrian Politics John A. Murphy Keeping Nader Off the Ballot: an Analysis of Political Profiling in Pennsylvania Mike Whitney More Lies from Rumsfeld: Those "Meetings" with Insurgents CounterPunch News Service JFK on Staying in Vietnam: Is Bush Reading from Kennedy's Playbook? Dave Zirin Pining for the Pistons Dave Lindorff Showtime in Washington Patrick Cockburn Iraq: a Bloody Mess   June 27, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Blood Sacrifices for Empty Slogans Mike Marqusee G8: Who are the Hijackers? Mark Scaramella When a Corporate Raider Claims Economic Hardship: the Court-Approved Lies of Charles Hurwitz Leigh Saavedra Press Apologists for Torture Kathy Kelly Where is the UN? June 25 / 26, 2005 Alexander Cockburn The Supreme Court's Jackboot Liberals Jennifer Van Bergen America's Parallel Legal Systems George Corsetti This Land is Their Land: Condemnation for Corporations Mark Chmiel / Andrew Wimmer Let's Open the Gulag: a People's Mission to Gitmo Kevin Zeese Counter-Recruitment: How to Keep the Military From Getting their Hands on Your Kids P. Sainath Russian Roulette in Vidharbha John Stauber How to Bury a Mad Cow Scott Handleman Gay in the Third World Tom Barry The Politics & Ideologies of the Anti-Immigrationists John Walsh Looking for Peace in All the Wrong Places Justin E.H. Smith The Hairless Apes of Kansas vs. the Reality-Based Community: Why Progressives Have a Stake in the War on Evolution Alan Wallis The Story of Pinky: the Drug Trade in My Neighborhood Ben Tripp Negative Space: an Artful Lesson Frederick B. Hudson Songs to Lose Your Loneliness By: the Raised Voices of Sweet Honey in the Rock Poets' Basement Gaffney, Engel, Davies, and Albert   June 24, 2005 Ray McGovern The Downing St. Fixation: Fixing to Fix "Fixed" Jorge Mariscal "They Only Call Us Americans When They Need Us for War": the Paradox of Mexican Americans in Iraq Desiree Hellegers Portland vs. the FBI Zeynep Toufe What Do the American People Know and When Did They Know It? Joshua Frank Call Him Senator Con Job David Lindorff Which Flag Would Jesus Burn? Michael Neumann Victory and Recruitment Website of the Day Gagging Dr. Dean   June 23, 2005 Christopher Brauchli Thomas Griffith and Rule 49: He Practiced Law Without a License; Now He's a Federal Appeals Court Judge Clay Conrad Killing Off the Jury with Tort Reform Standard Schaefer A Retort to Military Neo-Liberalism P. Sainath Vidharbha: No rains and 116F, But It Does Have "Snow" and Water Parks Mark Engler CAFTA Deserves a Quiet Death Norman Solomon Voluntary Amnesia in America Cockburn / St. Clair Frank Calzon Kathy Kelly Where You Stand Determines What You See     June 22, 2005 Kevin Zeese The Bush Administration's Psy-Ops on the American Public: an Interview with Col. Sam Gardiner William S. Lind Afghanistan: the Other War Arsalan Iftikhar Patriots Against the PATRIOT Act Dan Nagengast Give Populism a Chance: From France to Kansas David Krieger To the Graduates: We Live in an Interdependent World Kathleen & Bill Christison Tempest in Santa Fe: Confronting Israeli Myth-making     June 21, 2005 Brian Cloughley Destroy the Unbelievers! Mike Whitney President Disconnect Dave Lindorff Who Needs Big Bird, Anyway? Mark Weisbrot Bush's Lonely Campaign Against Hugo Chavez Matthew R. Simmons The Coming Saudi Oil Crisis Dave Zirin The Crass Slipper Fits: Ron Howard's Terrible "Cinderella Man" Virginia Rodino The Anti-War Movement and Impeachment Paul Craig Roberts A War Waged by Liars and Morons   June 20, 2005 Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Tariq Ali To the Gates of the Gleneagles Hotel! Mickey Z. WMDs American-Style: It's 60 Years Since Alamogordo William Blum Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends Gary Leupp Old News Indeed: In 1999, Bush Craved Chance to Attack Iraq Jason Leopold Someone Tell Bush Iraq Wasn't Behind 9/11, Before He Starts Another War Dave Lindorff Why the Media Should be Schiavo'd Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Uri Avnery Condi and Hamas Website of the Day Crimes Against Poetry   June 18 / 19, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Is the Jury Dead? Greg Moses Race Bias and the Death Penalty, One More Time Benjamin Shepard Arrested for Stickering, Biking and Other Misadventures: Creative Direct Action in the Era of the PATRIOT Act Stan Goff Stuff to Do to Stop the War: 95 Days to Pre-Nixonize George W. Bush Lee Sustar Does Iraq's Main Labor Union Support the Occupation? Jude Wanniski The Tipping Point: Getting Out of Iraq Diana Barahona Librarians as Spooks: the Scheme to Infiltrate Cuba Via Libraries Brian Concannon, Jr. Justice Dodge in Haiti, Again: Impunity and the Raboteau Massacre Fred Gardner How Many Wins Can We Take? Mike Whitney Gen. Tommy Friedman's Plan to "Win" the War in Iraq: Reinstate the Draft Ahmad Faruqui Star Wars or Earth Wars? Manuel García, Jr. De-Eichmannizing America Roger Howard Leave Iranian Politics to Iranians Ron Jacobs Eros and the Grateful Dead Ben Tripp Situation Desperate: Why Am I Not Pleased? Poets' Basement Louise, Albert and Engel Website of the Weekend Christ's Entry into Washington     June 17, 2005 Ricardo Alarcón Who Helped Posada Enter the US? Clay Conrad Medical Marijuana: Is Jury Nullification the Next Step? Marc Estrin Open-Ended Closure: the Death Penalty and the Culture of Victimhood Colin Brown Firebombing Fallujah: Pentagon Lied About Use of Napalm in Iraq Christopher Brauchli Pennies for Africa: Bush's Phony Money Joshua Frank Blue State Warriors: How Democrats Derailed the Peace Movement Norman Solomon The Killing Street Memo Mary Rizzo Who's Afraid of Gilad Atzmon? Bond / Brutus / Setshedi How Bono and Trojan Horse NGOs Sabotage the Struggle Against Neoliberalism   June 16, 2005 John Walsh The Iraq War Polls: Dems' Stance Even Less Popular Than Bush's Dave Lindorff Work 'Till You Die: the Bush Retirement Plan Adrian Lomax Torture in U.S. Prisons: Common, Lethal, Unreported Tom Crumpacker The CIA, Posada and the Bombing of Cubana Flight 455 Jeffrey Kolakowski The Kinsley Paradigm: Downsizing the Downing St. Memo Julene Bair Turning Off the Ogallala Spigot: Toward a New Way to Farm on the Great Plains Michael Dickinson As We Forgive Our Debtors: the Madness of Money Francois Houtart / Isabel Parra, et al. Against Terrorism; In Defense of Humanity: an Appeal Tom Barry Meet Bolton's Replacement: Robert "First Strike" Joseph     June 15, 2005 Stan Goff An Open Letter to US Troops on Loyalty Daniel Wolff The Palace at 4 A.M. Tim Wise Discover the Nutwork: David Horowitz and the Politics of Ad Hominem Distortion Ricardo Alarcón The New CIA Revelations About Posada Joshua Frank House Republicans vs. Bush: "This is Not a Conservative War" John Hilary Bloodsuckers' Summit: Why the Left Should Rendezvous at the G8 Norman Solomon Iran's Reformers: a Threat to Theocrats and Neocons Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey St. Clair Juries and Lynch Mobs Website of the Day What It Feels Like to be Tasered (Turn Up the Volume)     June 14, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Enabling Evil: Bush's Willing Executioners Forrest Hylton Stalemate in Bolivia Richard Gott The Crisis in Bolivia Fred Gardner The Raich Decision: All Power to the Feds Steve Breyman Doing the Right Thing is Also Politically Expedient Dave Zirin Sacred Hoops: Basketball in the Barrio Robert Kent Outsourcing Torture and the Stop-Loss Program Paul Craig Roberts Enabling Evil: Bush's Willing Executioners   June 13, 2005 Gary Leupp Another Damning Document Dave Lindorff The Inca and Us John Stauber Mad Cow USA: the Cover-Up Begins to Unravel Fred Gardner Supreme Indignity: Medical Pot Doctors Respond to Justice Stevens Evelyn J. Pringle TeenScreen: the Lawsuits Begin Norman Solomon Letter From Tehran Winslow T. Wheeler Neo-Con Unfurls the Big Picture   June 10 / 12, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Thomas Friedman's Imaginary World Sharon Smith Torturers and Liars: Masters of Deception Brian Cloughley "Support Our Torturers!" Chris Kromm Home Cookin': Pentagon's Base Relignment Plan Would Increase South's Share Heather Gray A Day in Mississippi: Some Things Have Changed; Some Remain the Same Kevin Zeese What the Left Must Learn from 2004: an Interview with Josh Frank Mickey Z. The Pentagon Papers, 34 Years Later Gary Leupp A Review of Sison's "At Home in the World" Eli Stephens The Asshole in El Paso: Why Posada Carriles Matters Nick Dearden A Scottish Band in the Occupied Territories Oscar Olivera Recovering Bolivia's Oil and Gas Robert Fisk Screening "Kingdom of Heaven" in Beirut Michael Dickinson Oh My God!: Gunning for Blasphemers Poets' Basement Engel, Albert, Louise, Ford Website of the Weekend Gravity's Rainbow, Illustrated   June 9, 2005 Len Colodny Felt Was Asked Under Oath in 1975 If He Was "Deep Throat" Christopher Brauchli From Baseballs to Hand Grenades Ron Jacobs Light a Candle; Curse the Darkness Dave Lindorff US Media Shamed by Brit Journalist Katrina Yeaw / Alex Schmaus Repression 101: Anti-War Students Sanctioned at SFSU Alan Farago Spin Machine Busts a Gasket in the Everglades: Fed Judge Whacks Jeb Saul Landau The Charmed Life of a Mass Murderer   June 8, 2005 Jim Hougan Strange Bedfellows Deep Throat, Bob Woodward and the CIA Alan Maass Is Bolivia on the Edge of Revolution? an Interview with Tom Lewis Jason Leopold Enron Lives!: Former Army Sec. White Wants Govt. Money for New Energy Scam Niranjan Ramakrishnan Exit Right, Advani: Unpardonable Acts of Statesmanship Dave Zirin The Rotting Soul of the 49ers Derrick O'Keefe Bush's Terrorist: the Case of Posada Carriles Diana Johnstone Non, Neen, Angelene! Why Defenders of the "Oui" are Wrong Website of the Day The Meatrix   June 7, 2005 Forrest Hylton Bolivia's Agony of the Stalement Continues Greg Moses / Susan van Haitsma Pushing Back the Violence Lenni Brenner What Madison Would Think About the Air Force Academy's Offical Fanatics Col. Dan Smith Liberation vs. Survival in Iraq Joshua Frank Dean at the DNC: the Establishment vs. the Elites Dave Lindorff Fair-Weather Allies: US Denies French Fighters Emergency Landing Rights Margot Veranes / Adrian Navarro Xenophobia in the Desert: Racist Fever Becomes Law in Arizona Michael Neumann Sharing Music: Property Gone Wild   June 6, 2005 Stew Albert Everybody Must Get Busted: Supremes Rule Against the Sick Paul Craig Roberts Federal Bureau of Entrapment Nicole Colson Inside Walter Reed Hospital Ali Khan Friendly Renditions to Muslim Torture Chambers Jason Leopold When Will Rumsfeld Be Indicted? Charles Walker Poff Rumsfeld, China and Hypocrisy Ramzy Baroud My Grandpa's Right of Return Rep. John Conyers Did Bush Deliberately Deceive America About Iraq? Evelyn Pringle TeenScreen's Top Pusher Gary Corseri 25 Reasons to Impeach Bush Website of the Day Save This 200 Year Old Burr Oak from Bible Thumpers with Chainsaws   June 4 / 5, 2005 Alexander Cockburn France's Magnificent Non! James Petras The Centrality of Peasant Movements in Latin America Robert Fisk Who Killed Samir? Patrick Cockburn My Father, Claud Cockburn, the MI5 Suspect Rev. William Alberts When Pride in Power Corrupts: the Story of a Methodist President, His Bishops and an "Incompatible" Lesbian Minister Saul Landau 40 Interns and a Mule: Will the Dems Ever Take Advantage of the Republicans' Blunders? Mario Lamo Jimenez Dante with a Brush: Botero Immortalizes Bush Dave Lindorff What is the Media Running From? Lance Selfa Why Bush is Getting Away with Murder Tom Crumpacker On the Use of State Terrorism: the Posada Precedent Joshua Frank How Beltway Dems Sank Dean for America Fred Gardner Don't Bogart That Taxable Commodity Michael Dickinson Roll Out the Barrel: Blood, Oil and Baku Roger Martin We Can See, But Not Far Enough Reza Fiyouzat Welcome to the Third World Ben Tripp Romance: Advice from a Pro Graeme Greenback Pardon Me, While I Piss on this Bible Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Albert, Engel, Smith       June 3, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Welcome to a Has-Been Country Joseph Massad Witch Hunt at Columbia Jeff Halper The Process of Transfer Continues Tom Barry The Immigration Debate: Whose Side Are You On? Bruce K. Gagnon Bush Seeks Military Control of Space: "It's Our Destiny" Joshua Frank Bombing Iran: Facts Don't Matter Mickey Z. Deep Throat as Sideshow Gary Leupp "Peddling Lies About How They Were Mistreated" Website of the Day Tattoo on My Heart: Warriors of Wounded Knee, 1973     June 2, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts The Slave Traders of the Gitmo Gulag Forrest Hylton Bolivia: the Agony of Stalemate Mike Whitney Post-Mortem on the 4th Amendment: Warrants without Judges Brian Cloughley Anarchy in Afghanistan; Ignorance in America Mazin Qumsiyeh A Two-State Solution is No Solution Russell D. Hoffman High Tension at San Onofre Norman Madarasz "Le Jolie Mois de Mai": the Meaning of the French "Non" Norman Solomon War Made Easy: from Vietnam to Iraq David Price The Shallowness of Deep Throat Website of the Day Fallujah on Film     June 1, 2005 James Petras Beyond Hypocrisy: the Deeper Meaning of Posada Justin Delacour Framing Venezuela: US Media Bias Against Chavez Edward Jay Epstein Was "Deep Throat" a Fictoid? Omar Barghouti / Lisa Taraki The AUT Boycott: Freedom vs. "Academic" Freedom Dave Lindorff When War Goes Off the Script Kevin Zeese Reality Check: Who to Believe on Iraq War and Gitmo? Jason Leopold When Presidents Lie William S. Lind Wreck It and Run     May 31, 2005 Sen. Mike Gravel Thank You, Mark Felt: We Need a New Deep Throat David Krieger US Nuclear Hypocrisy Tad Daley The Nuclear Me-Too Club Joshua Frank Pelosi at AIPAC: Israel Comes First Richard Gott Chavez Leads the Way Norman Solomon Time to Get Serious About Impeachment Tom Segev Our Man in the Territories Walter Brasch Killing Americans with Secrecy Diana Johnstone The French "Non"     May 28 / 30, 2005 Alexander Cockburn There's Their Way or the Galloway Richard Lichtman We Wuz Framed! the Consolations of George Lakoff Sharon Smith The Road to Abu Ghraib Paul Craig Roberts Bush Opts for Civil War in Iraq Dave Lindorff Whigged Out: the Dems Have Become Merely a Vestigial Opposition Party Ramzy Baroud Muslims Were Desecrated, Not Just Their Holy Book Brian Cloughley Why Are Nukes OK for You, But Not for Us? Fred Gardner Advice from a Lawyer About Medical Pot Lee Sustar Chavez Gets Proactive Joshua Frank Isikoff Comes Clean: "Nobody in the US Said a Word, Until the Riots" Justin E.H. Smith What About the People? a Report from Romania Jackie Corr A Montana History Lesson on Assfulness Michael Kimaid Bush as Ahab Toufic Haddad Lessons from the Reversal of the AUC Boycott Justin Taylor The Fear of Paul Virilio Amir Butler Searching for a Saladin Ben Tripp Insomnia and Sarcasm Poets' Basement Albert, Engel, Davies and Louise   May 27, 2005 Gary Leupp It Really is a Crusade! Daniel Estulin Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005 Kevin Zeese Iraq Withdrawal Vote: If Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones Can See the Light, Why Can't Nancy Pelosi? Robert Fisk Mubarak's Goon Squads Dave Zirin Why Pat Tillman's Parents Are No Longer Silent Website of the Day Stuckists                                                         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.     Subscribe Online

Independence Day Weekend Edition July 2 / 4, 2005 A Tale of Censorship, Fraud, Christian Family Values & Really Lousy Cable Service My Adelphia Story By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK Beware of Those Who are Holier than Thou, For Often They Are Fleecers of their Own Flocks Once upon a time, there was a wonderful little local cable TV company called Century Cable that serviced the liberal, cosmopolitan, Blue State community of West Los Angeles, California. Its public access station featured a wide and wacky array of free expressionists, political activists, wannabe TV stars, crazy kids, eccentric exhibitionists, controversial poets, videographic artists, never-ready-for primetime players, and horny housewives (like me). My show, like others, ran for several years, without censorship, happily broadcasting sex education to the good, famously open-minded people of Santa Monica, West Hollywood and surrounding neighborhoods who, if they didn't like it, could always change the channel. Then one day, sometime in the late 1990s, the Charles Keating of Cable TV, John J. Rigas, known for turning a $300 investment into cable behemoth Adelphia Communications Corp., swooped down like a hawk on a lamb and snatched up Century, as well as several other cable stations in Southern California and dozens more all over America. He came, he bought, he censored. Not violence, just sex. A man used to getting what he wanted if he tried hard enough, John Rigas tried mightily to make all of his newly acquired cable stations over into his image, or at least, the image he liked to portray, that of a "Family Values" man, a conservative, God-fearing paragon of Christian virtue. In that effort, he censored or took off the air Playboy, Spice, and any other shows that included nudity (except those on HBO and Showtime--money talks, of course), even the programs on Public Access TV, including mine. So, what's the big deal? Stuff is censored all the time on commercial TV. Since when does a horny housewife like me have a "right" to produce my own TV show uncensored by the station? The big deal is that THIS is Public Access. And yes, I do have a right. And so do you. Public Access is the lowly but precious alternative to commercial TV in America. It is not the voice of the community. It is the voices of individuals in the community. Public Access is the People's Broadcasting System, and the People have different points of view. According to law, when a company like Adelphia owns a cable station, they owe it to the community to provide access to the airwaves, so you and I and our neighbors can express ourselves and air our views through television. This is part of any cable company's broadcast license. According to the US Supreme Court's 1996 decision, Public Access programming must not be edited or censored by the cable station. That's the LAW. But the law never stopped John J. Rigas & Sons from doing whatever they wanted. This pious, Church-going, Family Values family followed their conscience--not the law--and it was their conscience that told them to cover up the sex on my show, as they masturbated their figures in their accounting office. Now, I didn't actually see them masturbate. I didn't even hear them. They wouldn't even return my phone calls when I wanted an explanation for their censorship of my programs.. But I do know one thing: Everybody masturbates. "If God had intended us not to masturbate, he would have made our arms shorter" is my favorite George Carlin maxim. Anyway, everyone does it; it's just a question of how and with what. There's the kind you do with your fingers...and then there's the kind you do with figures. Financial figures. The books But I am getting ahead of my Adelphia Story. At the time John Rigas and his boys were covering up various body parts on my show, I didn't know that they were also covering up the fact that they used Adelphia balance sheets as their personal piggy bank. Still, when I was handed my "censored" slips, calling my show "indecent" and "obscene," I knew I had to fight back. Unlike Playboy and most other content providers, I just couldn't slink away with my tail between my legs. Though John Rigas wouldn't let me show my tail or anybody else's on his recently acquired public access stations, he couldn't stop me from airing shows that had nothing but white letters on a black screen, saying stuff like: THIS IS WHAT CENSORSHIP LOOKS LIKE WELCOME TO FASCISM IN AMERICA JOHN J. RIGAS, CEO of ADELPHIA, is ILLEGALLY CENSORING THIS SHOW THE BLOCK CURSE IS UPON JOHN J. RIGAS DUMP ADELPHIA STOCK NOW! That last exhortation proved to be what the Wall Street Journal would later tout as my "prescient financial advice," even though I didn't know that the Rigases were not only covering up my bottom; they were covering up their own bottom line. But what about the Block Curse? I'm no Harry Potter, but I must say that The Curse has done some pretty serious damage to various enemies of liberty. Though, in the case of John J. Rigas & Sons, the sheer force of its cursedness even amazed me, when Adelphia stock (which I told you to dump!) plummeted into the muck as John J. Rigas & Sons were forced to admit that they were under investigation by the Securities & Exchange Commission, and then taken away in handcuffs, because they failed to report that they had used Adelphia to guarantee as much as $2.7 billion in their own private family-incurred debts. Yes, $2.7 billion, stolen from their stockholders and, indirectly, their subscribers. Now that's obscene. It's also Family Values at work. Family Values means family first, and the Rigases certainly did put family first. The Rigas Family, that is, and screw the community. Screw the community of stockholders they screwed out of their life savings. Screw the community of cable subscribers they screwed out of their right to watch the TV shows of their choice. Screw the community of their fellow Americans that they and their counterpart CEO-banditos at Enron, WorldCom, Halliburton, Imclone, etc. screwed out of multiple billions. Ironically, the Rigas Boys labeled my shows "indecent." They were big on morality and small on ethics. Morality--Family Values or Taliban Tradition--really has no place in business (like religion has no place in government), especially not in big business, which is supposed to serve lots of different people, many diverse families, many varied communities. Ethics has a vital place in business. But not morality, and certainly not moralizing. Fundamentalism is fundamentally bad for business. Censors aren't all fundamentalists. Censors come in many colors, from the Right, and the Left. But one thing they all have in common is that they try to HIDE THE TRUTH from YOU. Whether it's flesh or finances, censors don't want you to see it. Thus, it is not surprising when the biggest moral censors turn out to be the biggest fiscal frauds. Take Charles Keating, founder of Citizens for Decency through Law before he turned into the Citizen-Poster Boy for the American Savings & Loan Disaster. Then there were the Hunt Brothers, those Texas oil-rich, John Bircher Billionaires who went from being one of the wealthiest, most right-wing, Born-Again Christian families in America to declaring bankruptcy and being convicted of conspiring to corner the silver market. Now come the Rigas Boys, the sanctimonious swindlers. Censorship is one kind of cover-up; deceptive accounting is another. It's all about covering up figures. In my case, it was about covering up breasts, butts, vulvas and the occasional penis. They said they were cleaning up cable TV. Guess that explains the money laundering. The moral of My Adelphia Story is: Beware of Those Who are Holier than Thou, For Often They Are Fleecers of their Own Flocks. In this story, unlike so many stories, the criminals actually got caught and punished for their crimes. Last week, after a jury had found John Rigas guilty of bank fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy, U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand sentenced him to 15 years in prison (his son Timothy got 20 years). So goes the Fall of the House of Rigas. A Greek tragedy of hubris, avarice and hypocrisy, with my show as comic-erotic relief. But I'm of two minds about the ending of this Adelphia Story. Is it happy or sad? While a part of me is celebrating the final finish to the Fall of the House of Rigas (and the fact that I'm back on the air-without censorship-on several Adelphia stations), another part of me is wondering what good it will do our society to put an 80-year-old, cancer-racked human into prison for the rest of his life. Oh, I chortled along with Jimmy Breslin, over the internationally broadcast image of the hoary old hypocrite, having censored my TV shows on bondage, being handcuffed himself. And I gasped, along with the jury, at the tales of the Rigas Family heists, involving hoodwinking stockholders and stealing corporate funds to pay for fleets of fancy cars, private golf courses, plane trips, Manhattan apartments, vacations, Christmas trees flown from Coudersport to New York, and 100 pairs of the same bedroom slippers. I despise John J. Rigas for his greed and his sanctimony. But I wonder what good it will do anybody to put the old fart in jail now. In Italy, there is a law against imprisoning anyone over 80 years old. Why? Because a) it would probably kill them, b) they're not likely to commit crimes at that age, c) they're probably not going to be "reformed" in prison at that age, d) they're only going to cost the taxpayers money with all their physical ailments that would need to be taken care of in prison, and e) it's just unseemly (to the Italians) to lock up great grandpapa. To most Americans, this is a horrifying, immoral practice. How can you let a guilty person not go to prison just because he's old? But then, America doesn't mind locking up people for no good reason, helping to create a situation in which we have more folks in prison than any other country in the world. Our huge, burgeoning prison system is built on principles of revenge and punishment (and, increasingly, torture), rather than anything to do with reforming the prisoner or what's best for society. Revenge can be emotionally satisfying, but has no tangible social benefits. What would be best for society would be to strip John Rigas of his wealth, give his money to the poor, and then make the old hypocrite do "community service" in a lowly job at one of Adelphia's public access stations for the remainder of his days, scheduling shows like mine. Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, host of The Dr. Susan Block Show and author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. Visit her main website at http://www.drsusanblock.com. Send all comments, love letters, hate mail, questions, confessions and testimonials to her at liberties@blockbooks.com.