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Today's
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March 22, 2004
Greg Moses
Lenni Brenner
Report from NYC: Old and Young
Parade for Peace
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
March 9, 2004
Greg Weiher
The
Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Tom Barry
Neo-Cons Target Syria
Sharon Smith
The Hypocrites in the Catholic Church
Robert Fisk
The Same Old Iraq
Doug Giebel
The Bush Strategy: Laughing All the Way
Ralph Nader
Pension Rights, the Trail of Broken Promises
Daniel Estulin
In Memory of Ricardo Ortega: a Great Journalist, Killed in Haiti
Dave Lindorff
Martha Stewart's Cloudy Day
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
Website of the Day
Imperial Armies in the Garden
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
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
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March
22, 2004
Report from New York City
Old
and Young Parade for Peace
By LENNI BRENNER
I'm a traffic surveyor by trade. Among other things,
I count pedestrians on sidewalks, vehicle flows, etc. So when
I go to a parade, political or otherwise, I try to make a professional
count or at least a professional estimate of how many people
were there. Today I stationed myself at Tin Pan Alley, 28th Street
& 6th Avenue, & watched the anti-war march.
It took 1 hour & 50 minutes to go
by. But there was 1 patch of 20 minutes where very few people
walked by, & another of 10 minutes. However, during the rest
of the time the marchers were in largish groupings. As the parade
went for dozens of blocks, with people waiting at numerous locations
for the parade to come by to join it, I must add in an estimate
for such people, etc. Thus calculated, I come to 60,000 demonstrators.
The cops said 30,000. They don't lie.
One traffic officer once said "Why would I bother? No one
will believe me, no matter what number I give out." The
problem with their calculation is that it tends towards the mechanical;
how many people can be in a given space at one time, etc. They
tend to miss the 'informal' parade. People walking with signs
alongside the march, on the sidewalk, folks leaving early to
get back to work, etc.
The march organizers estimated 100,000.
However, I have discovered Brenner's Law: All leftwing organizations
overestimate how many people come to their demos, all religions
overestimate how many people are in their flock. The operative
proverb is 'the master's eye fattens the horse.' In this case, that very slow
20 minute period rules out 100,000. Sixty-thousand is the number
that I give as a figure that I can defend before my professional
peers, other traffic surveyors.
The march was a success. There is no
doubt that the antiwar movement is the major player in campus
politics & will stay that way. Given the enormous percentage
of students in modern America, this assures that the future is
ours. However there were many older people, so in terms of age
the march was good in that respect as well.
There were 2 visible weaknesses. I saw
very few labor contingents, with less than 1,000 marchers behind
their banners. And Blacks made up no more than 5% of the marchers.
One reason for the low number is inescapable. Many of the marchers
were students coming from out of town, & they were mostly
white, thus lowering the Black percentage.
There were about 200 Haitians in 1 contingent.
But beyond that I saw hardly anything in the way of black contingents.
Most of the Blacks who came did so with their student group,
union, left organization, etc., i.e., in racially integrated
groups, or they march by themselves. By & large, the city's
black non-student youth didn't come. But every so often one,
two or three guys would come by, dressed in full poor young black
regalia, baggy pants, do rags or braids, & Co., carrying
signs or chanting, clearly part of the politics.
While there were hundreds of Muslim women
wearing black head scarves, there were more women wearing nothing
but secular clothing marching with pro-Palestinian contingents,
etc.
There was one problem that can be corrected.
The arrangement with the cops meant that people lined up for
several blocks, & listened to speakers before the march.
For most people, that meant listening to them over loudspeakers
on trucks along the waiting area. It doesn't work. Either you
are too far from the loudspeaker to hear clearly, or you are
too close & the damn thing is blasting in your ears while
you must stand there, waiting for the march to begin. My suggestion
is just have the loudspeakers in the immediate area of the speakers
& forget about the people waiting blocks away. People understand
that if they get there late they won't hear the speakers. As
long as they are part of a large march that is fine with them.
A number of groups did dances. Others
had bands with them. Individuals dressed in costumes, etc. Most
were very well received. The cops laughed. They put everyone
in a good mood. My only complaint is that there should have been
more of such groups, arranged by the central organizers, interspersed
among the marchers. Expecting good entertainment to keep coming
along serves to catch & hold the attention of the countless
thousands of people working, shopping, etc., along the route.
Standing in 1 spot, I saw little in the
way of counter-demos. Ten guys with rightwing signs, all of the
same format, entered the parade just as they got to me. "We
are for peace & against Communism, which killed 100 million
people." "We are against private property, except for
Islamic property rights." Their irony was utterly lost among
the signs around them.
Given the posters & chants, the bulk
of the marchers were supporters of Kerry. But it was obvious
that the politics of the marchers, including these people, are
to the left of Kerry. Prior to the demo there had been complaints
from United For Peace & Justice, & others, that the demo
was too pro-Palestinian, with ANSWER having signs saying end
the occupation, in Afghanistan, Iraq & Palestine. But, in
the crunch, Leslie Cagan & her supporters did indeed build
the march. There were many Americans, walking by themselves or
with friends, carrying Palestinian flags or signs denouncing
Israel. But frankly, knowing New York politics, I doubt if any
significant additional numbers of supporters of Israel, Jewish
or otherwise, would have come to the event, even if everyone
promised on a stack of Old Testaments not to denounce Israel.
The success of the event, with its failings,
tell us what needs to be done. For example, the movement can
only gain by publicly debating the issue of Palestine. The intimate
involvement of Neo-con Zionists in the Bush administration in
the planning of his invasion is now routinely discussed on major
media talk shows & it is ludicrous for any group to think,
under those circumstances, that an antiwar movement could stay
away from discussing their role. Full debate re Palestine will
attract new people who want to know what is going on.
There should be demos at the WTC site.
Endless numbers of tourists now visit it. There is already a
small survivor & relatives group there, passing out leaflets
complaining about a Bush cover-up re not relating to warnings
of an impending attack. But there is absolutely nothing visible
in the way of a full time anti-war presence.
Just as important, there is obviously
a need for daily tabling at key locations in Black neighborhoods.
And, as it is clear that the self-styled antiwar union leaders
are doing nothing to mobilize their ranks, such tabling should
be done outside union meetings.
The pols & the cops are getting ready
for giant demos during the Republican convention. Today there
were only 4 arrests, but they expect up to a thousand a day then.
Most of these will be in civil disobedience demos. These must
be handled very carefully. America is full of people who loath
Bush for many good reason, but who, for equally good reasons,
don't want to get arrested. This requires that CD demos be separate
from demos for this broader element.
In this world, numbers count. At this
point, 500,000 at a law abiding rally is a lot more than 10 times
more important than a CD demo of 50,000. CD events are fine in
so far as they act as advance promo for a huge march. But it
must be absolutely clear to everyone, marchers, cops, media,
that the main event will be as peaceful as today's success.
It is also to be understood that demos
are obligatory whenever Kerry comes to town. He was for the invasion
of Iraq & now he is pleading with the new Spanish government
not to get out. He is solidly behind Sharon, wall or no wall.
He isn't saying anything about the immense US involvement in
the civil war in Colombia.
Many of the 'anybody but Bush' people
will honestly feel that demos against Kerry on these issues would
be diversions from their fight 'against' Bush. But they are for
Kerry because they think he can beat Bush, while Nader &
other left candidates can't possibly win. That is true. However
these elements can't have it both ways. If they think Kerry can
win & they know he is wretched on these issues, then they
should want to let their winner know that he has to get real
on every issue. And the best way to let him know is to demonstrate
on those points at his appearances.
Someone can be satisfied with Kerry on
many or most issues & disagree with him on 1 or more questions.
They have to realize that, if they take that 1 issue seriously,
they have to take him on about it.
I'm an anti-capitalist anti-imperialist,
committed to equal rights for Palestinians. I would not be overjoyed
if young Deaniacs demonstrated re Palestine for 15 minutes against
Kerry & then walked inside & applauded him on other issues.
But I'm a big strong fellow & can endure such, while demonstrating
against him re Palestine, or whatever, even while supporting
him, would be a huge step forward for them. It will mean that
they take all their principles seriously & it will warn Kerry
that, if he wins & tries to give us a Bush-Lite administration,
which, essentially is what he is indeed about, that he will face
the same kind of committed opposition, from his own supporters,
that Bush faces.
I don't think anything can make Kerry
honest & intelligent. But demonstrations against him on Palestine,
or legal recreational marijuana, or whatever, will make him fearful.
And, as every reader knows, a Democrat afraid of the antiwar
movement, & especially his supporters in it, will have to
think twice about committing further crimes.
Lenni Brenner
is the editor of 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the
Nazis. He can be reached at BrennerL21@aol.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
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