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CHINA'S GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS

Peter Kwong gives us the "New China" without illusions: from the "millionaires' fair" in Shanghai, with $60,000 diamond-studded dog leashes to one of the most savagely repressed working class and peasantry on the planet. How China's leaders swapped Marx and Mao for Milton Friedman. Alexander Cockburn on What's wrong with the U.S. left. They're sitting in darkened rooms weaving conspiracy fantasies about 9/11; they're blogging; they're confusing a medium with a movement; they're not doing enough to stop the war in Iraq. John Ross takes us along the stormy trail of the Mexican election. 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.

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Today's Stories

July 22-23, 2006

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Indiscriminate Onslaughts

Uri Avnery
"Stop that Shit"

Gilad Atzmon
Israel's New Math

Robert Fisk
Elegy for Beirut

Ralph Nader
Here's How to Halt This Horror

Fred Gardner
The Double Standard on Depression

Christopher Reed
The Right's Use of Sexpot Schoolgirls

Dr. Susan Block
Bush's Fecal World

Najla Said
Do People Know How Much We Hurt?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Shame of Being an American

July 21, 2006

George Galloway
John Cornford and the Fight for the Spanish Republic

P. Sainath
Indian Prime Minister Faces the Dead Farmer Problem

Aseem Shrivastava
The Iraq War is a Huge Success

Alexander Cockburn
Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel: Everything You Need to Know

Website of the Day
FromIsraeltoLebanon

July 20, 2006

William S. Lind
Why Hezbollah is Winning

Robert Jensen
Florida Puts History on Probation

John Ross
AMLO Presidente!

Tom Hayden
I Was Israel's Dupe

Paul Craig Roberts
The Unfolding Horror Show

July 19, 2006

Patrick Cockburn
Massacres Soar in Central Iraq: Maliki Government Discredited

Trish Schuh
Israel Targets, Flattens Beirut TV Station HQ

Jonathan Cook
Is Israel Using Arab Villages As Human Shields?

Vicente Navarro
The Spanish Civil War, 70 Years On: The Deafening Silence on Franco's Genocide

July 17 / 18 2006

Mike Whitney
Israel's Shameful Attack on Gaza

Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land

July 14 / 15, 2006
Weekend Edition

Alexander Cockburn
How Venice is Dying

Tanya Reinhart
The IDF is Hungry for War

Robert Fisk
Beirut Waits: Is Damascus the Key?

Daniel Cassidy
How the Irish Invented Jazz

Winslow Wheeler
Pentagon Budget Gimmickry: When a Cut is Actually an Increase

Hugh O'Shaughnessy
In Amazonia: Slavery and Deforestation

M. Shahid Alam
Israel, the US and the New Orientalism

William S. Lind
Two Signposts in Iraq

Ramzy Baroud
Racism Plagues Media Coverage of Gaza Assault

Gilad Atzmon
Echoes of the Wehrmacht

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Railroading Your Rights

Samar Assad
A History of Israeli-Palestinian Prisoner Exchanges

Ron Jacobs
Japan and Pre-Emptive Strikes: Why Would They Want to Go There?

Lee Ballinger
A New Kind of Jim Crow?

Walter Brasch
A World Without Fajitas?: the Rightwing's Language Police

Dave Lindorff
The Bush Swingers?: They Broke the Law and People Died

Clifton Ross
Up from Below in Oaxaca

Tom Crumpacker
Planning for the Re-Colonization of Cuba

Ricardo Alarcon
The Mad Annexationist

William Hughes
Rev. Billy Graham: A War-Monger in the Pulpit

Susie Day
Bugging Hillary

Farrah Hassen
The Road to Gitmo: Dramatizing the Banality of Evil

Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Engel and Davies

July 13, 2006

Saul Landau
Lies as Patriotism?

Youmans / Erakat
Divestment, Corporate Engagement and Israel

Dave Lindorff
Cut and Run: a Winning Strategy

Ron Jacobs
Dogs of War Barking at the Moon

Col. Dan Smith
Iraq: Fool Me Twice

June 22, 2006

Marjorie Cohn
Friendly Fire Ambush

Winslow T. Wheeler
Lockheed, the Senator and the F-22

Tanya Reinhart
A Week of Israeli Restraint

Mike Marqusee
The Forest Gate Raid

William Blum
Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's

July 12, 2006

John Ross
Mexico Splits in Half: the Election Hits the Streets

John Stauber
The CIA Propagandist and Former Prankster Stewart Brand: John Rendon's Long, Strange Trip in the Terror Wars

Robert Boston
Top 10 Powerbrokers of the Religious Right

Wayne S. Smith
Bush's New Cuba Plan: Embargoes, Blacklists and Assassination Plots

John Graham
Secrecy and the Curtain of Oz

Ed Kinane
Arrested for Failing to Obey a Lawful Order to Cease Protesting an Unlawful War: My Statement to the US District Court

Kevin Prosen
Goodbye Mr. Zeidler, You Will Be Missed

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Latest Bueaucratic Obscenity

Website of the Day
Addicted to Oil: Starring GW Bush

 

July 11, 2006

Dave Lindorff
Does a State of War Give Bush the Right to Commit War Crimes?

Dave Zirin
Why I Wear My Zidane Jersey

Mokhiber / Weissman
Boeing's Criminal Agreement: Odd and Unusual

Amira Hass
A War on Families

Clare Hanrahan
The Last Free Fourth of July?

Brian Cloughey
Stop Blaming Pakistan

Felice Pace
The US Media and the World Cup

Raed Jarrar
Iraq: Raped

Website of the Day
Bad Boy of Gitmo

 

July 10, 2006

Paul Craig Roberts
Courting Doom with North Korea

Uri Avnery
A One-Sided War

Roger Burbach
Democracy Betrayed: Electoral Fraud and Rebellion in Mexico

Ron Jacobs
The New SDS: Toward a Radical Youth Movement

Joshua Frank
Sectarian Flames in Iraq

Missy Comley Beattie
Bush's Stunning Admission to Larry King

Alexander Cockburn
The War in Iraq: a Dreadful Mistake


July 8 / 9, 2006
Weekend Edition

Stephen Green
When War Criminals Retire

Paul Craig Roberts
Republic or Empire?: Lessons from Stanford

Greg Moses
Boots Down on the Rio Grande

Ralph Nader
The Wail of the Oceans

Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Election Lacks Credibility

Conn Hallinan
Dumping Musharraf: Is Pakistan Expendable?

John Chuckman
Afghanistan is No One's War

Fred Gardner
Big Pharma's Strange Holy Grail: Cannabis Without Euphoria?

Dr. Tod Mikuriya
Cannabis as a Frontline Treatment for Childhood Mental Disorders

Pierre Tristam
Missile Envy: Is N. Korea Bush's Most Reliable Ally?

Lucinda Marshall
Deep Sexing the News: the Rape of Iraq

David Swanson
Command Rape: the Ordeal of Suzanne Swift

Heather Gray
The Spiral of Violence: What the Dead Might Tell Us

Dave Zirin / John Cox
French Soccer and the Future of Europe: Le Pen's Racists vs. Zindane and Henry

Mark Engler
Mexico's Fear of Democracy: Elites, Fraud and the Status Quo

Michael Lettieri
Mexico: Don't Discount a Recount

Ron Jacobs
2008 Might Be Too Late: the Case for Impeachment Now

Jamal Juma'
Globalizing the Occupation

Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Engel and Kirbach

 

July 7, 2006

John Ross
Anatomy of a Fraud Foretold: Mexico's Surreal Elections

July 6, 2006

Nick Dearden
Profiting from the Occupation: the Corporate Interests Behind the War on Palestine

John Stanton
Nationalize the Defense Industry

Ralph Nader
The Politics of the Minimum Wage

Laray Polk
Cambodia Then; Gaza Now

Saul Landau
Who Mourned the Victims of the US Covert War on Chile?

Joshua Frank
Sweet Angst, Power Chords and Politics: Farewell Sleater-Kinney

William S. Lind
To Be or Not to Be a State? Hamas and 4th Generation War

Adelman / Lindorff
Impeachment Comes to Main Street, USA

Jonathan Cook
An Experiment in Human Despair

Website of the Day
Adulterers in Chief?


July 5, 2006

Mike Whitney
Is Cheney Betting on Economic Collapse?: the Veep's Curious Investment Portfolio

Saul Landau
False Axioms: Star Democrats and Iraq Massacres

Ramzy Baroud
And Israel Shall Be Safe Again

Missy Comley Beattie
An Axis of Nuts: Ready, Aim, Fear

Arthur Neslen
A Way Out of the Gaza Crisis?

Vincent Maruffi
Party Politics in Connecticut: Lieberman, Lamont and the Greens

Paul Cantor
Aberrations: Hell, High Water and the Moral High Ground

Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: Let's Be Honest About Food's Origin

David Price
Shouting Down Nazis in Olympia


July 4, 2006

Col. Dan Smith
Iraq and Independence Day: Lessons from the War of 1812

Chris Floyd
American Power in Mahmudiyah

Marjorie Cohn
Israel's Collective Punishment of Gaza

James Brooks
Israel 9,000 Palestine 1: Destroying the Gaza Strip

Medea Benjamin
"Dictatress of the World:" Has America Become JQ Adams' Worst Nightmare?

Matt Reichel
An Independence Day Lesson for the American Left from France

Elisa Salasin
Why I am Fasting Today

Rick Wilhelm
Will Lieberman Apologize to Ralph Nader?

Paul Craig Roberts
Rape, Lies and Murder

Website of the Day
A Mighty Handsome Family

 

July 3, 2006

Robert Bryce
Gaza in the Dark: Poor, Frustrated and Powerless

Dr. Bouthaina Shaban
"I Hope You're Not Here to Talk About the Palestinians"

Julia Olmstead
The Biofuel Illusion: Running on Top Soil

Dave Lindorff
The Real Meaning of the Hamdan Ruling: Bush Adm. Has Committed War Crimes

Andres Gomez
A Mockery of Justice

Alan Singer
Another Encounter with Chuck Schumer: Just as Hawkish as Hillary, But Nastier

Alexander Cockburn
Temple of Mammon, Planet of Doom


July 1/2, 2006
Weekend Edition

Paul Craig Roberts
Bush's Assaults on Freedom: What's to Stop Him?

Stephen T. Banko
Echoes from Vietnam; Nightmares in Iraq

Daniel Cassidy
How the Irish Invented Slang: the Bunkum of Bunkum (for Dizzy Gillespie)

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Class Behind the Muslim

Jeff Taylor
The Sandy Foundation of the White House: a Bible-Believing Christian's View of Bush

John Ross
Mexico: There's a Riot Going On

Greg Moses
Psycho-Management Hits Mexico's Maquiladoras

Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Elections: a Choice for Change

Justin E.H. Smith
Lethal Injection and Other Fashion Trends

Brian Cloughley
Different Worlds: When Liberation is Worse Than Oppression

Anthony Papa
Punishing Addiction: No Walk in the Park for Dwight Gooden

Mike Ferner
Getting Busted for Wearing a Peace T-Shirt

Jerry Tucker
Liberalism's Long Goodbye: McGovern Hoists the White Flag

Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta
Remembering the Marshall Islands

Phyllis Pollack
Roll Over Beethoven: Chuck Berry is Back in Town

Poets' Basement
Salasin, Swindell, Ferri-Smith and Engel

 

June 30, 2006

Marjorie Cohn
Supreme Rebuke: Bush Loses Gitmo Case

Heather Williams
Will Mexicans Ignore What Bolivians Learned?

Burbach / Cantor
Yellowback Democrats: the Party of Cut-and-Run (from Principle)

Nick Dearden
Crime in the Valley: Life on the Other Side of Palestine

Michael J. Smith
Under the Broadcast Flag: Intellectual Property as Intellectual Theft

Brian Concannon
The Return to Haiti: a Homecoming for Aristide?

Virginia Tilley
Israel's Appalling Act: Starving in the Dark

 


June 29, 2006

Bill Quigley
Gutting New Orleans

Ron Jacobs
Killing a Nation to Rescue a Soldier

Paul Craig Roberts
The High Price of American Gullibility

June 28, 2006

Jorge Mariscal
Mexican-American Soldiers, Iraq and the Politics of Immigrant Bashing

Greg Moses
Down in Pinal County: Where the Pun's on Us

Mark Weisbrot
Mexico: Their Brand is Crisis

Ramzy Baroud
Re-Interpreting Iraq: the Latest Propaganda Campaign

Dave Lindorff
Redacting the Constitution: Why Signing Statements Matter

William S. Lind
Neither Shall the Sword: War in a Fouth Generation World

Mike Ferner
50 Years Down the Wrong Direction: Taken for a Ride on the Interstate Highway System

Zoltan Grossman
Military Resistance: a Brief History

 


June 27, 2006

Marjorie Cohn
Playing Politics with Timetables

Benjamin / Jarrar
Leading Dems Froth Over Amnesty Plan

William Hughes
Roadmap to Starvation

Doug Giebel
Showdown in Montana: Burns vs. Testor

Uri Avnery
The World Cup and Middle East Peace

Alexander Cockburn
Hitchens Hails the "Glorious War"

 

June 26, 2006

Don Santina
American Rituals: Massacres, Baseball and Apple Pies

Ralph Nader
Beyond Binary Politics

Dave Lindorff
CounterPunch v. CounterPunch: Taking Impeachment on the Road

Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz
An Interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal on Hispanics and Latin America

Evelyn Pringle
Big Pharma's Big Graveyard: Drug Profits, Fraud and Death

Jonathan Cook
Israeli "Retaliation" and Double Standards

June 23, 2006

Youmans / Erakat
Divestment, Corporate Engagement and Israel

Dave Lindorff
Cut and Run: a Winning Strategy

Ron Jacobs
Dogs of War Barking at the Moon

Col. Dan Smith
Iraq: Fool Me Twice

June 22, 2006

Marjorie Cohn
Friendly Fire Ambush

Winslow T. Wheeler
Lockheed, the Senator and the F-22

Tanya Reinhart
A Week of Israeli Restraint

Mike Marqusee
The Forest Gate Raid

William Blum
Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's

June 21, 2006

Ramzy Baroud
Zarqawi's Death: Myth vs. Reality

Patrick Cockburn
Embassy Work as Death Sentence

Gary Leupp
Making the Case for Impeachment

Greg Moses
Elite Logic at the Border

June 20, 2006

Fred Gardner
The Long War on Aspirin

Omar Waraich
Ode to Joy: Watching Blair Sink

Christopher Reed
Japan Nixes Payments to Its Wartime Slaves

CP Newswire
Coca Cola Takes a Hit

Jonathan Cook
Israel Engineers Another Cover-Up

 

June 19, 2006

Bill Quigley
HUD's Bulldozers and the Poor of New Orleans

John Walsh
Tears of a Clown: Al Franken's War

Mike Whitney
The Zoom Lens War: Bush's Baghdad Photo Op

Alexander Cockburn
The Left and the Blathersphere

June 16 / 18, 2006
Weekend Edition

Kathy / Bill Christision
The Power of the Israel Lobby

Joseph Nevins
On the Migrant Trail: No More Walls, No More Deaths

Farrah Hassen
An Interview with Syria's Ambassador to the US, Dr. Imad Moustapha

Greg Moses
The Real Mission of the Uniformed Ghost at the Border

Nicole Colson
"There's No Hope at Gitmo"

John Scagliotti
How MoveOn Wastes Its Donors' Money

Mokhiber / Weissmann
Corporate Democrats

 

June 15, 2006

Kathy Kelly
Look Them in the Eye: Honest Abe and the Residents of Ramadi

Norman Solomon
Premature Triangulation: Hillary's Big Problem

Ron Jacobs
Publicity Stunts as Public Policy

Sam Bahour
Cover Up on Gaza Beach

Ramzy Baroud
Palestine on the Brink

CounterPunch Wire
Death Squads at Colombia's Universities

Gabriel Kolko
Why a Global Economic Deluge Looms

Website of the Day
Antje Duvekot: Music You've Been Waiting Years to Hear

 

June 14, 2006

Nicole Colson
"They Want the Fear Level at a High Pitch": An Interview with Lawyer Lynne Stewart

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Law and Order

Joseph Schechla
Bulldozing Palestine: an Open Letter to Caterpillar, Inc.

Michael Carmichael
Bolton at Oxford: Jeered and Taunted

Evelyn Pringle
Karl and George, the Teflon Partnership

Ward Churchill
My Trial By Media: Turning Quibbles Over Footnotes into Felonies

Rev. William E. Alberts
Decoding the Coders of Christ: Jesus the Political Insurgent?

Website of the Day
Marines Iraq Snuff Film

 

June 13, 2006

Medea Benjamin
Take Back America Suppresses Anti-War Dissenters at HRC Speech

Anthony Alessandrini
The Evil of Banality: the General, the New York Times and the Gitmo Suicides

Paul D'Amato
The Meaning of Haditha

Dave Lindorff
The Strange Death of Zarqawi: Was He Killed So He Wouldn't Talk?

John Ross
Elections and the World Cup: If Team Mexico Advances, Will Anyone Show Up to Vote for Lopez Obrador?

Gabriel Garcia
Venezuela and Drug Trafficking: Bush Bashes Chavez Despite Positive Results

Hilton Obenzinger
DIvestment is a Stand for Equality in Israel

Yitzhak Laor
The Secret of Authority

Juan Antonio Ocasio Rivera
Puerto Rico at the UN

Jennifer Van Bergen
The Story Behind Zarqawi's Death: What's the Legality of the Assassination?

Website of the Day
Paul Wright: a Real American Freedom Fighter

 

June 12, 2006

Paul Craig Roberts
Bush's Armageddon Wish: a Final End to History?

Patrick Cockburn
The US Already Misses Zarqawi

Mike Marqusee
Rebranding a Team: English Nationalism and the World Cup

Lee Sustar
"I Never Had the American Dream:" Left with No Future by GM and Delphi

Robert Fisk
Has Racism Invaded Canada?

Michael J. Smith
Enter Sandman; Exit Kosland

Felice Pace
NPR's Warped Covereage of the MIddle East

Jennifer Loewenstein
Setting the Record Straight on Hamas

Website of the Day
Our Way Home

 

June 10 / 11, 2006
Weekend Edition

Robert Fisk
Zarqawi's End is not a Famous Victory

Diane Christian
Zarqawi's Face

Joe Allen
The American Way of Atrocities: Marine Corps' Killer Virtues

Ralph Nader
Let Us All Praise the Dixie Chicks

Fred Gardner
Tylenol Toxicity Terror

Dave Lindorff
Nothing New About Haditha

Dave Zirin / John Cox
Will Racism Spoil the World Cup?

Dennis Perrin
Death is Patriotic: Necro-Porn, Live on CNN

Greg Moses
Militarizing the Border: Why Operation Jump Start Worries Me

John Chuckman
Terror in Toronto or Tempest in a Teapot?

Michael J. Smith
Babes in Kosland: Dem Blogfest, Day Two

Roger Burbach
Bachelet in DC: Chilean President Refuses to Back Down to Bush

Ira Moskowitz
Israeli Court Finds Mad-Dog US Prof Libeled CounterPuncher Neve Gordon

Sam Bahour
The Gaza Air Strikes: Begging for a Response

Seth Sandronsky
Grocery Chains and Bush's Ownership Society: Profits Fall, Stores Close

Michael Berg
A Father's Day Message: Both Parties Have Betrayed America

Kirsten Roberts
Desmond Dekker and the Music of the Shantytowns

Ron Jacobs
Who's Fooling Who?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Jones, Davies, Engel and Louise

Website of the Weekend
Miles and Trane, So What?

 

July 22-23, 2006

Bush's Fecal World

By DR. SUSAN BLOCK

Having only just escaped death a few weeks ago, I am now trying to focus on my healing process. I am attempting to follow my doctors' orders, manage my pain, build up my strength and think positive, healing thoughts. Therefore, I am trying to ignore politics. This was not too difficult in the hospital, where nobody talks about politics except to laugh about Rush Limbaugh’s latest drug problems.

But now that I’m home, talking to clients and writing a new book at the computer, I can’t resist surfing the web, and finding, to my predictable horror, that the world, or at least the Middle Eastern part of the world, is indeed blowing up like a 12-truck collision, or going to “shit” as our American president has so eloquently stated on the global stage.

With dozens of Iraqis getting killed each day, often by men in police uniforms, central Iraq is obviously boiling alive in a Sunni-Shia civil war. Of course, no one wants to declare this war, since that is a certain way to get oneself killed. Then again, going to work, getting groceries or just sitting in one's house huddled under one’s bed are also almost-certain ways to get oneself killed in this once fairly peaceful country that BushCo went and *liberated* into Hell.

Then there’s the “shit” between Israel and Lebanon, Israel bombing and slaughtering Lebanese innocents on a level that rivals the American bombing of Baghdad, as Hezbollah lobs Katyusha rockets into Northern Israel, killing civilians and wreaking havoc. In the past, an American president could come in and broker some kind of peace. It would be grudging and temporary, but at least it would save a few lives, humble the militants, and give the locals some breathing space. But the current American president is way too busy wriggling his middle finger up his ass, occasionally removing it to smell the situation which he then pronounces to be “shit.” Since he is doing as little as possible about this, as well as the other "shit" in Iraq, not to mention the toxic "shit," ie., waste, that is choking our environment, one can only assume our Commander-in-Chief is a coprophiliac (another fetish he has in common with der fuehrer).

How is a pain-riddled convalescent like me supposed to think positive, healing thoughts in a brutal, leaderless world like this? Being an agnostic, I’m not much for praying. And now that I’m home, I don’t even have my morphine to comfort me. So I just take my Vicodin, give occasional blowjobs, and hug the cuddly stuffed bonobo that my H got me in the USC gift shop. I look into his worried plastic eyes, and I hope for healing. If my body could achieve this miraculous recovery, maybe the world can too.

P.S. Multiple thanks, a big kiss and a bigger orgasm to everyone who has sent me “get well” emails, cards, toys, goody baskets, Speakeasy donations, and yes, even prayers. Though recent studies have shown that prayers don’t help and may even hinder the convalescence of the sick, it's the thought that counts, and I appreciate your positive, healing thoughts.

© July 19, 2006, Dr. Susan Block. For reprint rights, please email liberties@blockbooks.com.  Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, cable TV hostand author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. Commit Bloggamy with her at http://www.drsusanblock.com/blog/ Send comments to liberties@blockbooks.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"