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June 24, 2002
Ben Sonnenberg
Ted
Hughes' Spell
June 22/23, 2002
Douglas Valentine
Sex,
Drugs & the CIA
June 21, 2002
Norman Madarasz
Brazil
Over England:
The Gaucho's Wild Ride
John Borowski
Stossel
and Disney's Crimes Against Nature
Chris Floyd
Southern
Cross: The US Takes Aim at Brazil
David Martin
Of Lies
and Oil: an interview with Rahul Mahajan
James T. Phillips
Serbian
Reservations:
Kosovo 2002
June 20, 2002
Chris Kromm
The South
at War: a Tour of the US Military/Industrial Complex
Jacob Levich
The War
on Terror is
Not a Suicide Pact
Mark Weisbrot
What
are They Doing to Argentina?
Jeffrey St. Clair
and Alexander Cockburn
Fire
Walk With Me:
Terry Lynn Barton and the Flames of Colorado
June 19, 2002
Gary Leupp
Red Targets in Terror War
Lenni Brenner
The Road
Forward for the
Palestinian Movement
Bernard Weiner
Inside
Cheney's Diary:
Cakewalking Through Minefields
Alexander Cockburn
The
Incredible Shrinking President
June 18, 2002
David Vest
Raise the
White Flag in Terror War?
Ben White
Is It Possible
to "Understand" the Rise in "Anti-Semitism"?
Edward Said
Palestinian
Elections Now
June 17, 2002
Jack McCarthy
Watergate
and All That
Philip Farruggio
A Maximum
Wage Law
Ron Sullivan
Law
and Orders:
The Assault on Trial by Jury
Rev. Charles Booker-Hirsch
Taking
on the School
of the Americas
Joan Smith
G.W. Bush:
The Man is Stupid
Dave Marsh
Corporate
Buy Outs and the Decline of Teen Jive
Robert Jensen
Rhetoric
Distorts Realities
June 15 / 16, 2002
Tanweer Akram
A Review
of Noam Chomsky's 9-11
Daniel Wolff
The Day
They Shot a Wolf in the Ghetto and What It Meant
Ralph Nader
A Corporate
Crime State
David Vest
Have You
Been Serviced?
Karl Kraus
A Minor
Detail
Alexander Cockburn
The
Terrorism of Everyday Life
June 14, 2002
Mark Weisbrot
US Trade
Policy:
"Do as We Say, Not as We Did"
Starhawk
The Boy Who Kissed the Soldier
David Krieger
Farewell
to the ABM Treaty
Tom Turnipseed
The Fear Factor to Promote
War and Trample Truth
Steve Perry
How the
Bush Adminstration Buried Coleen Rowley
June 13, 2002
Linda Belanger
Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict:
The Story Behind the Headlines
Amira Hass
Indefinite
Siege
Mokhiber / Weissman
Time to Put Lives Over Patents
Robert Fisk
Bush's Weird
War
Stanton / Madsen
Democracy
in Crisis:
What is to be Done?
Roldan Tomasz Suárez
Venezuela:
Five Facts
About the Coup
June 12, 2002
Fran Shor
Dirty Bombs, Blowback
and Imperial Projections
Dave Marsh
Shelley
Stewart, Radio and the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement
Chris Floyd
Murder, Inc.
June 11, 2002
Omar Barghouti
On Dance, Identity and War
Robert Fisk
The Bush
Afghan Gang:
Murderers, Gangsters, Stooges
Minerva Wright
The Donkeys of the Holy Land
David Krieger
Stopping
a Nuclear War
in South Asia
June 10, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
Executioner's Last Songs
June 8/9, 2002
Gavin Keeney
Mademoiselle
M.
Or Getting Screwed in Paris
Susan Davis
Sleepless
in the Suburbs
Curing Insomnia: a new use for The Nation?
George Sunderland
"Send
in the Weekly
Standard": The Screaming Pundits Assault Corps
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Published March 15, 2002
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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June 24,
2002
Bush: the Compassionate Exerciser
by Walt Brasch
George W. Bush, the self-proclaimed compassionate
conservative who doesn't want government intruding into private
lives, has just mixed government into private lives. In creating
a new initiative, spun out as "Healthier Us," he told
us heart disease is costing Americans about $183 billion a year
but by diet and exercise we can reduce not only heart disease
but also cancer deaths by one-third. Surreptitiously invoking
memories of Sept. 11, he slips past us that "a healthier
America is a stronger America." Bush wants us not only to
be "physically active every day," but to "develop
good eating habits [and] take advantage of preventative screenings."
He emphasizes he doesn't want Americans to smoke, do drugs, or
drink excessively, all of which he once did to excess.
Had the President just made the suggestions
to the American people, the people could accept or reject them.
Most of what is said and done in Washington, D.C., doesn't affect
too many people, anyway. But, Bush also "urged the folks
at work inside the White House to exercise on a daily basis."
He said that "as  an employer, I insist they take time
off, out of their daily grind, to get some exercise." Being
the compassionate conservative he is, he said the appointed staff--more
than 5,000 persons--"can do it anytime of the day, so long
as they get it done." His insistence probably also affects
his cabinet secretaries and their deputies and, for all we know,
just about any federal employee in any 8-by-10 office anywhere
in the country.
After all, aPresident/employer's "suggestions"
aren't really just "suggestions." His directive probably
doesn't apply to Vice-President Cheney whose working day is spent
hiding from terrorists while trying to remember what he did with
Halliburton, Enron, and the energy lobby.
The President's thoughts about preventative
treatment and routine medical screenings may be well-intentioned.
But most insurance companies won't pay for them, preferring to
pay $50,000 after an illness rather than $2,000 to prevent the
problem. It's just "cost-effective."
It's doubtful Bush will intrude upon
any industry's "rights" to continue to make obscene
profits. Nor is it probable he is concerned that 44.6 million
people, 16.8 percent of all Americans according to the Agency
for Health Care Policy and Research, don't have medical insurance,
mostly because they can't afford it. He definitely didn't say
anything about the one-third of all Hispanics and one-fifth of
all Blacks who don't have medical insurance. And, he never once
noted that when Hillary Clinton led a campaign to improve health
care and insurance coverage in America, the Republicans punctured
it with more holes than the vacuous comments made before Congressional
committees by the oil and energy lobby.
The President also didn't say anything
about the 730,000 Americans who were laid off in the first four
months of 2002, nor the 2.5 million Americans laid off in the
first year of his term, most of the layoffs resulting in higher
compensation for the executives and increased corporate shareholder
income. The President didn't mention that the unemployment rate
is now 5.8 percent--8.4 million Americans--up from 6 million
in October 2000, the month before the election, according to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Most of the unemployed,
just trying to survive, no longer have insurance or the means
to follow a healthy lifestyle, just as they and large segments
of the elderly and minority populations no longer can afford
the medications and health care they need.
Poverty also wasn't mentioned, but it
directly affects the health and welfare of Americans. There are
currently 31.1 million Americans living in poverty, up from its
lowest point in October 2000, according to the BLS. Persons without
adequate income and shelter can't afford adequate medical care,
nor do most have the will to begin and continue an exercise program.
George W. Bush, exhorting his White House
staff to exercise more because he found people who exercise are
"better able to communicate and happier on their job,"
exercises about 90 minutes a day, often with a three-mile run.
Perhaps it wouldn't be unreasonable to
ask the President--and all of his appointees--to spend the same
amount of time?-any time of the day they want to do it--to exercise
their minds. With a little bit of mind-stretching, the President's
Compassionate Conservative Corps might figure out how to help
all Americans get adequate medical coverage, while reducing poverty,
unemployment, and mass layoffs. There shouldn't be too many people
who object to that kind of governmental interference.
Walt Brasch
is former newspaper reporter and editor, and author of 14 books.
He is professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University. His
latest book is "The
Joy of Sax: America During the Bill Clinton Era." You
may write Brasch at wbrasch@planetx.bloomu.edu
Today's
Features
Ben Sonnenberg
Ted
Hughes' Spell
Douglas Valentine
Sex,
Drugs & the CIA
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