Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
January 8, 2004
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
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.
|
January
8, 2004
Dr. Dean and the Godhead
Dean
Hits the Demagoguery Pedal...Hard
By LENNI BRENNER
The old saying is that Jesus doesn't vote in American
elections, but that's wrong. He's a registered Democrat. True,
he's too modest to run for President, but he just endorsed his
favorite disciple, Howard Dean. Or maybe its the other way around?
Dean was born into an Episcopalian family,
and even went to a Christian boarding school, but he ended up
marrying a Jew. His kids were raised Jewish. He left the Episcopalians,
in Vermont, over a subtle theological point: His pastor wouldn't
give some land for bike trail that Dean favored. So he joined
the Congregationalists but got pissed off at too many sermons
denouncing folks who only attend once a year, and stopped going
to services altogether.
Now he's running for President of the
land of the freak, home of the knave, so he's doing what other
politicians have done before him: nonstop pandering to any and
all religions.
In an interview a few months back, he
declared that "I don't think that religion ought to be part
of American policy." But in fact he had already shown that
it was part of his. In November 2002 he went to Israel and announced
that his "view" of the Israel/Palestine issue "is
closer to AIPAC's view," uncritical support for whoever
runs that country, than that of Peace Now, Labor Zionism's in-house
anti-war group. If elected, he  solemnly swears that he will
not meet with Arafat. He supports targeted assassinations of
Hamas leaders. He's for the Zionist security fence, and hailed
the bombing of Syria by Sharon: "If Israel has to defend
itself by striking terrorists elsewhere, it's going to have to
do that." In October he told the faithful at a New York
synagogue that he opposes giving East Jerusalem back to the Palestinians.
He started showing up in Synagogues on high holidays. He recited
the prayers, in Hebrew, over Hanukkah candles, in New Hampshire.
That may help him with the minority of
Jews still believing in Judaism, but Jews make up only 2% of
the population. As far as his party's strategists are concerned,
the name of the game is combining Zionist campaign funds with
Black votes, and then fighting tooth and nail against Bush for
every blessed Southern white Protestant voter. The New Republic
called him "one of the most secular candidates to run for
President in modern history." So now he's an out of the
closet Jesus freak. Turns out that he, like Bush, prays daily.
Last week he told the Boston Globe that
talking about God and Jesus are going to be key to his Southern
strategy. After all, Christ was "his model." Don't
we all know that "Christ was someone who sought out people
who were disenfranchised, people who were left behind. He fought
against self-righteous of people who had everything.... He was
a person who set extraordinary example that has lasted 2,000
years."
America being as full of religions as
a pomegranate is of seeds, he has loudly muttered "inshallah,"
God willing, while discussing foreign policy. But, with a bunch
of Midwestern and Southern primaries coming up, Jesus is in his
heart. "Don't you think Jerry Falwell reminds you a lot
more of the Pharisees than he does of the teachings of Jesus?
And don't you think this campaign ought to be about evicting
the moneychangers from the temple?"
His sudden pious public proclamations
naturally intrigued the reporters who accompany him while campaigning
and he was asked which was his favorite New Testament book. Without
hesitating he named "Job." Except that, as everyone
knows, Job is in the Old Testament, and he returned an hour later
to the reporters to say he had misspoken. Now, what does he like?
"Anything in the Gospels."
Perhaps readers may remember, with fondness,
his monkey chatter about winning over those kind hearts and gentle
people who fly the Confederate flag on their pick up trucks?
His present babble about Job and Jesus comes out of the same
kit. Modern 'mainstream' politics can no longer officially pander
to racism, so the 'consultants' of both parties have fallen back
on religion.
Dean has two kinds of liberal supporters.
Naive college kids are the foot soldiers of his campaign. They
lack the experience to grasp what he is doing with all his crap
about the Dixie flag and Jesus. But the editorial hacks at the
New York Times and The Nation know exactly what it means: President
Dean won't change anything important when it comes to race relations,
and he won't be found in the trenches when it comes to resisting
right-wing assaults on Jefferson's "wall of separation between
Church and State." This troubles them. But what choice do
these do nothings have? They don't have a party of their own.
Wool sellers know wool buyers. The Democratic hustlers understand
that, as long as Dean stays an inch to the left of Bush on Iraq,
he doesn't have to give liberals a damned thing. He can get caught
in bed with an underage, unconsenting lamb and they will vote
for him, some even voting for him because of the little beast.
The peace vote also divides into two
camps. Some liberals show up at anti-war demos. But most do nothing
beyond that to build the movement, except to publicly worry about
how ANSWER and other coalitions are too extreme, especially about
Palestine/Israel. It doesn't occur to these mental powerhouses
that there is something a wee bit wrong about telling people
to vote for a 'peace candidate' who has never in his life showed
up at even one anti-war march or civil rights demo.
The other grouping consists of serious
doers who organize rallies and marches. They have been inspired
by the wave of anti-Iraq war demos, here and world wide. But
now they, like the liberals, are confronted with the fact that
this year is an election year. Who is their candidate?
The truth is that they have none and
too many. Nader is an iffy-maybe possibility. But he isn't looking
for the Green Party nomination, he isn't clear on Palestine/Israel,
and is hardly building demos re Iraq. The Greens will probably
run a candidate, especially if Nader doesn't run as an independent.
ANSWER's leaders are in the Workers World Party. They will run
a candidate. So will the Socialist Workers Party, who were the
prime leaders of the Vietnam anti-war movement, but who haven't
done a thing to distinguish themselves since. The Peace and Freedom
Party is on the ballot in California, but it did miserably in
the gubernatorial race there, and it doesn't exist anywhere else.
The Socialist Party is running a candidate, but the party is
minuscule and invisible to the public.
So what do we do? Boycott the election?
Vote for one of the above? If so, which one? Or does it matter?
It is impossible to see a left candidate
winning. But Dean's gallop into unblushing demagoguery opens
up serious possibilities of educating the youth and other healthy
elements, in the anti-war movement and beyond. Ossified liberals
will denounce us if we tell people that a vote for Dean is unprincipled,
even if he were to win, and there is no assurance of that. But
so what? We will go on building the anti-war movement. And we
remind people, now, that the Vietnam era movement did get us
out of the war, even though the Democrats lost the 1968 and 1972
elections.
Now is the time to start organizing public
panels on what the left should do re the elections. Don't wait
for someone else to do it. All groups with credibility on either
the local or national level should invite the above mentioned
candidates, including Nader, to give us the reasons why we should
vote for them. And maybe, just maybe, they could also begin to
discuss building a serious party, opposed to the bipartisan demagogues
and imperialists.
Lenni Brenner,
editor of 51
Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis, can
be reached at BrennerL21@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|