Now
Available!
Dime's
Worth of Difference:
Beyond the
Lesser of Two Evils
Order Here!
Today's
Stories
October 26,
2004
Kathleen Christison
Why
I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't
October 25,
2004
Ralph Nader
Letter
from a Minnesota Highway
Werther
West
Texas Wahabbism
Dave Zirin
Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License
Omar Barghouti
Executing Another Child in Rafah
William J. Nottingham
Lori Berenson's Story
John Chuckman
A Foolish Consistency
Uri Avnery
On
the Road to Civil War
October 22
/ 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
You
Can't Blame Nader for This
Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions
Willliam A.
Cook
Killing for Christ
Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?
Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children
While Arresting Priest
Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really
Means
William S.
Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War
Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry
Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"
Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?
Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military
Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion
M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America
David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and
Kerry
David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs
Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story
Website of
the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling
October 21,
2004
Ben Tripp
The
Undecided Voter Examined
Joshua Frank
Kerry
and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green
Stan Cox
What
the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses
Bill Martinez
State
Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply
Mark Engler
The War and Globalization
Lina Britto
and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia:
a Year After the October Insurrection
Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
Jason Leopold
Sinclair
Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception
Jesse Sharkey
A
Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School
Students
Col. Dan Smith
Choking
Free Speech About the Draft
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion
David Vest
If
Bush Wins, Blame Me
Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny
Ron Jacobs
Time
to Kick It Up a Notch
James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?
Christopher
Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest
Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...
Website of
the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue
October 19,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
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.
|
October 26, 2004
Lessons for
2004
The
1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement
By
LENNI BRENNER
I read my 1st history book at age 7,
& since then I've only gotten worse. I never miss family
reunions. Its a bum day if I don't set foot in a museum. In Dallas
for a lecture, I hopped to the Kennedy assassination museum.
(I didn't tell them that I did it, saving that for a CounterPunch
scoop. I got away with it because I shot him with my little bow
& arrow & everyone is looking for the smoking gun.) So
spending a week in Berkeley during the 40th anniversary celebration
of the 1964 University of California Free Speech Movement was
natural for me.
In 1963, I was found guilty
in Berkeley of possession of a 'roach,' a butt of a marijuana
cigarette, maybe 1/2 inch in length. Possession then carried
1 to 10 in the penitentiary, but I was granted 3 years street
probation.
On 10/16/64, UC sent 2 campus
cops to testify against me at a probation revocation hearing.
I was accused of interfering with officers doing their duty during
a 9/30 sit-in at Sproul Hall, the administration building, &
then during a demo outside, the next day.
In that era, probation revocation
was at the discretion of the judge. Indeed a public defender
came to me & said "Lenny, I'm going to do the best I
can for you. But they have decided that you are going to prison."
I wasn't allowed to present any witnesses. So off I went, doing
39 months before I jail-house lawyered out.
I organized a 10/7 panel, "The
FSM and the 60s: Lessons for today," 1 of many talks during
the commemoration. I was the connecting link between the FSM
& today's red revolutionary issues. Michael Rossman of the
FSM-Archive authenticated me. He had written "Afterward:
The Betrayal of Lenny Glaser" (I then used my stepfather's
name) for The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in
the 1960s, published in 2002 by UC Press. It inspired me to begin
my new campaign, calling upon the new Chancellor to acknowledge
his predecessor's crime against me, for defending free speech.
The punishment I propose meets the crime. UC should put me on
faculty for 39 monthly history lectures.
Jack Heyman, business agent
for SF Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union, spoke about the then forthcoming 10/17 Million Worker
March in Washington. The local is another 60s connection. It
passionately supported the FSM & the civil rights movement
underlying it.
Alex Cockburn, co-editor of
CounterPunch, flew in for the panel. In 64, we had nothing in
the way of access to public opinion even remotely resembling
CP's 16 million plus hits in May. Everyone in media reads it,
as I know from reading about it in the right-wing press.
A young comrade forgot a bullhorn,
cutting down the onsite crowd. But, having attended days of FSM
Archives events & checking out Sproul Plaza's dozens of political
& religious tables, I doubt if amplification would have meant
a much bigger crowd. Unpolitical students passing by saw our
event, which looked like all other FSM panels. Why stop for more
same ol' same ol'?
Local media did show up. In
today's world that's more important than physical attendance.
The student run Daily Californian ran a pic of Rossman. Clark
Kent's Daily Planet - seriously! - an important part of the city's
political culture, showed me orating in fine form. The Berkeleyan
posted a full report.
"Star power for the event
- which carried the title "FSM and the Sixties: Lessons
for Today" - was supplied by British-born Alexander Cockburn,
a longtime columnist for The Nation and co-editor of the online
magazine CounterPunch. Sounding a theme that would echo throughout
the hour, Cockburn, who has lived in the U.S. since 1973, declared,
"Free speech is worth nothing unless it's militant free
speech, unless it's subversive free speech, unless it's organized
free speech." ....
Rossman recalled Brenner -
known as Lenny Glaser in 1964 - as a non-student "Marxist
agitator" who would stand near the Bancroft strip and rail
about the Pope, the Bay of Pigs, and marijuana, indifferent to
the fact that most pa ssersby thought he was "certifiably
crazy."
Both he and Brenner, who spent
39 months in prison after being arrested at a civil-rights demonstration
with a roach in his pocket, blamed interference from campus administrators
for the severity of Brenner's sentence. Brenner said he plans
to petition the university to hire him as a history lecturer
for 39 months as recompense.
"They will decide whether
they want me inside the tent as a lecturer, pissing out,"
he said, "or outside the tent as an agitator, pissing in."
Given other FSM events that
day for media to cover, the rally was a success. But there were
more significant positives & negatives about the commemoration.
Who didn't live thru the 60s
can't fully appreciate the impact of the FSM in its time. As
an imprisoned felon, I got what ordinary Americans only dreamed
about -- free medical treatment -- in Vacaville, the intake facility
for north state cons. When a dentist realized that I was in for
FSM involvement, he gathered every doctor & dentist in the
'joint.' Trust me. No one forgets 10 men in white coats marching
right to you. One of them announced, finger in my face, "we
don't want to hear any bullshit. What really happened in Berkeley?"
"Well, of course the administration
didn't call me up to explain why they did it. But we figured
that someone got Governor Brown to close us down for organizing
civil rights sit-ins in San Francisco & the East Bay."
The docs went off to the side
& huddled. The demanding doc returned to shake my hand.
That intense interest replicated
statewide. Most Americans had never heard of Berkeley. Suddenly
Mario Savio, the FSM's gifted orator, was listened to all over
the world. Abroad, decades after, when I said I lived in Berkeley,
educated people commonly said something about the FSM. The town
became the holy land for freedom fans everywhere.
Rightly so. Biblical god was
an idiot. His sacred real estate is in Palestine/Israel. A god
who didn't just create a world in a devil-may-care manner would
set it in the counties around San Francisco Bay. Everything,
from giant redwoods to the giant library at UC, drew intellectuals
to the region. The 1957 arrest of the publisher of Allen Ginsberg's
"Howl" (which, as a result, became the world's most
famous contemporary poem), the trial of Ron Boise, for wonderful
life-sized Kama Sutra sex sculptures, upstairs from 1 of my SF
civil rights sit-in trials; such shameful legal persecution actually
reveals the Bay Area as a pivotal location in the cultural/political
revolution, begun nationally in the 50s, in the wake of Supreme
Court's 1954 decision outlawing segregation in public schools,
but now mythologically proclaimed as "the 60s." The
FSM victory was a central event in a string of battles that culminated
in the complete defeat of legal racism, & Washington's stunning
Vietnam defeat.
But that was then. What no
one in 64 expected to see was the 10/8 rally in Sproul Plaza.
The central FSM drama had been the arrest of Jack Weinberg for
soliciting money for the civil rights movement. He was put into
a police car, but a spontaneous sit-down trapped it. Eventually
the roof was used as a FSM platform. This year there was a mock
police car & platform. Among the speakers was Chancellor
Robert Birgeneau.
He was at Harvard during the
FSM & sympathized with it. Later, in the South on a do-good
expedition, he ran into FSMers & admired them. So he was
delighted to be there in such an unexpected relationship to its
celebration.
I didn't catch more of his
talk. But he was sincere. Or else he's better than Hollywood.
I don't know his policies re academic unions & working conditions,
etc., but he isn't a police state scholar like 64's goons, who
tried to suppress the rights of the smartest youths in their
state.
This is important re formulating
my forthcoming brief, calling on him to acknowledge his predecessors'
guilt in locking me up. He's not automatically my adversary.
To be sure, he is surrounded by 26 Regents. Chaim Saban bought
his seat from the Democrats for $7 million, then the largest
political contribution in US history. "I'm a one-issue guy
and my issue is Israel." The 9/5 NY Times reports that "he
regularly spends hours at time on the phone with Ariel Sharon."
I can't imagine him being pleased to have the editor of "51
Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis" on his
campus.
But there is something more
important about today's Berkeley than my tale of woe, or the
new Chancellor. It tells much about the lasting impact of the
FSM.
The Mayor is liberal Democrat
Tom Bates. In January 03 he pled guilty to petty theft &
was fined $100. What did the Mayor of the city made famous by
the free speech movement steal? Nothing less than 2000 copies
of the Daily Cal. It had endorsed an opponent in a 2002 election.
Brazen to the end, he declared that he would sponsor legislation
making it illegal to steal newspapers.
I lived in the Bay Area for
20 years between 1959 & 1988. I once ran for Mayor against
his wife. It was obvious then that he was crazy with rage against
anyone who opposed him or her. He's not dangerous only because
he lacks enuf intelligence to pull a trigger.
That the citizens didn't march
in a body to city hall & stay there until he resigned, is
the punch line without a punch. The FSM had an enormous impact
on the campus. Freedom of speech was chiseled into stone, for
keeps. But most FSMers who stayed in Berkeley were content to
work within the Democratic Party with other liberals. Indeed
self proclaimed Democratic liberalism, identified with Black
civil rights or later progressive causes, still dominates the
town. But when a proposal to twin Berkeley with a Palestinian
refugee camp came up, Bates literally went ballistic, glowering
at me. No. I wasn't surprised when he later dishonored Berkeley.
In 1964, Democratic Governor
Pat Brown brought in state troopers to jail hundreds of students.
The school administrators & the pols were trying to crush
the Communist Party, Maoists, Trotskyists & 'new lefts,'
using the campus to organized gigantic off-campus sit-ins. But
a ban on everyone's free speech brought everyone into the movement,
especially liberal Democrats, & even youth for Barry Goldwater,
64's Bush.
Reunion brought several leftist
FSMers back to the town. No one identified as rightist at events
I attended. But liberals abounded. And Howard Dean was a guest
speaker. He will be recalled as the certain Democratic nominee,
the antiwar candidate endorsed by Gore & other hacks. Except
that he blew it when he tried to hustle the religious. A scribe
asked which New Testament book was his favorite: "Job."
No one in media has mercy for
simpleton demagogues. New Testament Job means that, young as
it is, the dumbest-politician-of-the-century title was already
decided. Dean was dead. But, like an Old Testament Jesus, he
rose from the grave, at the invite to the town that unofficially
but proudly calls itself the most Democratic city in the land
of the freak, home of the knave.
Panels all over the place,
I caught several. And I chatted with FSMers who introduced themselves
as being in crowds that used to listen to me orate. Of course
I always hang in with Brad Cleveland & other resident FSM
buddies. This visit I also had serious conversations with Trotskyist
comrades I hadn't seen in years.
This is just a planet. People
try to do something about noble ideas. Come back 40 years later
to the congregation after any major event. Only mere mortals
are present. Some learned from their common experience &
beyond, some haven't, some deteriorated.
Democratic liberals, then,
seemed the least sharp now. One such, at a panel, said he was
going to write Kerry after he won, asking for repeal of the entire
Patriot Act. I advised him:
"Don't say you are a liberal.
Kerry will fling your letter into the round file. Intelligent
politicians ask themselves 1 question when they encounter all
requests: If I don't give the beggar what he wants, what will
he do to hurt me? If you say you just voted for him, he knows
that the chances are overwhelming that you will vote Democrat
again in 2006, for fear of the Republicans, whether he repeals
some, all or none of the act."
Eyes popped open. Liberals
accept Kerry as a fraud. They tell me that it was understandable
that he moved toward "the center" to say foolish things
to win foolish votes. What they can't grasp is that Kerry sees
them like a wool seller see wool buyers, more fools to be hustled.
He knows his rabble. He knows that nine out of 10 middle aged
& elderly liberals never do anything between elections to
build an antiwar movement. Unless exposed from the left, they
will vote Democrat, out of fear of the GOP, until after Intercosmic
War lll. If he wins, big if, Patriot will be amended. But a police-spy
state America is & will be, regardless of who wins.
The key question is whether
these libs can be brought back from the dead? Can we awaken enuf
of them to build an antiwar movement that stays in the streets
& only supports antiwar candidates until the war it opposes
is over? There are hopeful signs. In one panel question period,
I rose in defense of Kerry. "Many liberals are upset because
he's against same-sex marriage. In fact he is married to Ariel
Sharon. In a Catholic ceremony: No Divorce!!"
Everyone laughed. Significantly,
Tikkun editor Michael Lerner, who I have critiqued before, with
good reason, rose to say that "this is the 1st time that
I ever agreed with Lenni Brenner." We met again, later in
the week, & continued our chat about doing something to Sharon.
FSMers, including most Jews,
never thought once In 1964 about Israel. Today Israel's Prime
Minister is a bogeyman who scares liberals as badly as Bush.
They know he is a war criminal, many times over.
Bush & Kerry compete for
Zionist votes & campaign contributions. Kerry has zero criticisms
of Sharon. But once the election is over, its put up or shut
up time for everyone. You are for Palestinian/Israeli equality,
everywhere in the country, or you are against it. You won't be
able to kid yourself. Many liberals can be moved against Sharon
& whichever ally of Israel is inaugurated in January. Some
will move an inch. More, particularly youth, will eventually
go the whole route.
Bipartisan Washington is in
a pit of its own digging. No ally of a Jewish state denying equality
to Palestinians - Arabs - will create a government that grants
social equality to Arabs & Kurds in Iraq. Similarly, forget
about democracy in Saudi Arabia coming from US pressure. Without
equality for all religions & none, for women, for Kurds,
for Sudanese Blacks, etc., the Middle East will be at war, which
means that Washington will be in it, at war. The key task before
leftists is getting our own act together, & building a principled
movement in the streets & electorally that can prod liberals,
young & old, into action against our bipartisan criminals,
Sharon, Saudia, et al.
ALAS!! THE COUNTRY HAS GONE
TO POT
Afghanistan & Iraq naturally
preoccupy Americans. Thousands died on 9/11. The WTC site is
a major tourist shrine. US troops are dying. But there is another
war, the drug war, that rarely gets the attention of US lefts,
even as Washington now controls Afghanistan, the world's largest
opium producer & source of Europe's heroin.
In 1964, I was a pariah on
the Berkeley left because I spoke out for legalization of pot
& peyote, prescriptions for heroin junkies under strict medical
supervision, etc., as well as for Black civil rights, But by
the time I got out of prison in 1968, every left in Berkeley
under 40 had tried pot.
I remember a 1969 party at
the 4 Hallinan brothers, 1 later San Francisco's District Attorney.
It was the nite before an antiwar demo that we knew was going
to be enormous. I was in the kitchen with the honchos of the
left groups organizing it. I looked across the serving bar into
the living room. Someone lit a 'bomber,' a giant pot cigar, &
sent it towards the kitchen.
Pained looks covered the kitchen's
faces until the airplane arrived. 'Should I violate party discipline
& smoke it?' Then the joint arrived. One of the Hallinans
puffed on it & everyone burst into laughter & smoked
it.
In 1964 the FSM abandoned me
when UC revoked my probation. Now here were leading FSM vets
smoking with me. I felt vindicated, even triumphant. The issue
was settled. But I was wrong. None of the 'revolutionaries' went
back to their outfit & insisted that it make drug law reform
a priority. To this minute I can't name a socialist group focusing
on building the drug law reform movement. But the FSM-Archive
is playing a progressive role today, because it deals with 1964's
issues. Rossman spoke at my rally & organized a drug law
reform panel.
The presentations were interesting.
Drug law reformers fall into 2 broad camps. There are those who
see the weed or peyote, LSD, ibogane, etc., as "Doors of
Perception" into a mystical world. And there are us who
scorn such notions. I've smoked pot with folks pushing ideologies
running from Anarchist to Zionist. Some were smart. But not because
of drug use.
Let's go further & be brutally
honest. Pot is dangerous. I now live in NYC. Mayor Mike Bloomberg
says he smoked pot. So did Governor George Pataki. Bill Clinton
came here. Newt Gingrich smoked it, as did Clarence Thomas &
Al Gore. Now High Times reports that Kerry "says he tried
toking a few times after returning from Vietnam, but the smoke
bothered him." Running mate John Edwards likewise has violated
the law.
Beware, youth!! Pot destroyed
all their brain cells. None grew back.
Be certain that no one in 64
ever thought that American pot heads would ever be arrested by
admitted ex-pot heads. We know they smoked weed because journalists
almost all puffed or still do, & automatically ask candidates
if they did, as youths. They answered yes because, by now, if
you say no, everyone dismisses you as a teacher's pet.
However, in a 11/03 Rolling
Stone interview, Kerry was asked if he was for decriminalization:
"No, not quite. What we
did in the prosecutor's office was have a sort of unspoken approach
to marijuana that was almost effectively decriminalization. We
just didn't bother with small-time use. It doesn't rise to the
level of nuisance, even. And what we were after was people dealing
with heroin and destroying lives, and people who were killing
people. That's where you need to focus."
In January, he opposed federal
prosecution of patients in states legalizing medical marijuana
use. Hardly daring. He isn't endorsing marijuana as therapy.
According to the Associated Press, "he wanted to wait for
the completion of a study to see what other alternatives might
be available ... before deciding whether to legalize it in all
states."
He supports partial repeal
of a 1998 provision to the federal Higher Education Act, barring
convicted marijuana & other drug offenders from receiving
student financial aid. Kerry's position is repeal "if the
offense is use, yes." But "if the offense is selling,
no."
Sounds good. But it sounds
just as good coming from Bush. Proverbially, even fools are wise
after the event. Both now realize that the public is in favor
of educating everybody, even criminals in prison. Why then make
it harder for a kid on probation to go to college by taking away
financial aid? So Bush also favors repeal of denying aid to users.
Denying financial school aid
to convicted dealers on the streets was ass-backwards. It punished
them for doing the right thing.
Kerry is, at best, marginally
better than Bush re medical pot, & almost as bad as Bush
re legalized recreational use, which also means legally growing
it. Even if Kerry made pot possession arrests a low priority,
it means users still won't be able to carry their private stash
with them on interstate buses or flights for fear of discovery
by pot sniffing dogs.
Illegal drug dealing economics
is well understood. Arresting pot dealers means the status quo
re fantastic prices users pay to surviving dealers for their
innocent pleasure. Banning a drug adds to the problems associated
with intoxicants.
No doubt many readers were
unaware of Kerry's positions re marijuana. Its not a bit of a
priority for him, but he can't get away from it on campuses.
He says just enuf to look open to reform. The question is why
don't the bipartisan pols, or at least a significant number of
them, call for outright legalization of pot, when use is so widespread
that no sane person thinks usage can be significantly reduced.
I've heard cops making arrests at civil disobedience pot legalization
demos apologize to the people they arrest.
Yet again, educated liberals
can't see that Kerry & Co. know that they are fools &
play with them accordingly. George Soros is a major drug law
reform funder. He is also for a secular society, & against
Sharon. But he spends millions against Bush, i.e., helping Kerry,
an opponent of legal recreational use, who denounced a federal
court for evicting God from the Pledge of Allegiance, who hangs
in with Sharon.
"In this world, the follies
of the rich pass for wise sayings." Sancho Panza's proverb
perfectly fits Soros. Kerry knows he's a mouse. He is that rare
billionaire content with little, which is all he will get from
Kerry re reforms he wishes. Substitute educated liberals for
the rich in the saying & you have the liberals at the FSM
commemoration, and in America at large.
As pot usage is so widespread
& cuts across all political & sociological lines, the
next question is who are the tens of millions who never smoked
it? For the most part, they are deeply religious, of all races
& ethnicity's. Some are rich, but most are typical working
people.
As nonusers, they equate pot
with other intoxicants & the dreadful statistics associated
with them, from alcohol on. My father was killed in a head on
collision with a drunk driver. That's common in the US of Automobile.
"Crystal" -- methamphetamine -- freakouts are common
in "dairyland," rural America. Gay weeklies are full
of articles about kids getting wacked out on meth & ignoring
everything about safe sex.
The puritans aren't folks who
read London Economist statistics reporting that, potheads are
typically the best drivers on the road. Guess why? They are cautious
because they don't want to be stopped by a cop. (On the other
hand, kids who mix drinking & weed rank among the worst.
We all know them. Party kids. But what should we tell them? Give
up pot or give up drinking?)
Everywhere, political parties
of the rich need a base among their common people. They can't
rule without passive or active support of significant popular
stratums. They seek ideological connections to the most backward
masses, who pose no threat to them. Racism is a no-no in today's
US. Neither plutocratic party openly courts white racism. But
both lust after Southern Baptist Convention voters, with full
knowledge that it was a mainstay of the Confederacy & the
KKK. Add on right wing Catholics, most Orthodox Jews, Mormons,
etc., & you got their mass base, particularly among the elderly,
& a whole lot of voters who don't want legalized marijuana,
even tho they know 'it goes on,' just as they are against same-sex
marriage, while knowing that no amount of amendments is ever
going to stop homosexuality.
But the toughest question is
why liberal drug law reformers rush to tell the public to vote
for a pot prohibitionist when, by the polls & our eyes, we
know that there are more than enuf potheads & other anti-prohibitionists
to build a mass movement that could shake the society re the
entire drug crisis? When there is more than one answer to a question,
historians say it is over-determined. But certainly prime among
explanations is the truth that they aren't challenged by the
'left,' those organizing antiwar demos.
In New York, Dana Beal, like
me, imprisoned in the 60s for pot, organizes annual legalize
pot marches. I counted over 1200 people, mostly youths, at the
2001 rally. Half were Black, which is more than can be said of
most left events in NY. Yet, beyond me, a speaker, there was
no left presence. None.
Demographers see millions of
working class youths outside the serious intellectual world.
For them, a party means the opposite sex, pot & music, not
lectures on 'How to build a Leninist Party.' If you want to reach
them with your great issues, you have to deal with their issue,
& as 1 black youth put it, being fucked-over by cops for
"doing something that can't hurt anyone but me," is
it.
I told them that they all remember
that Moses came down from the mountain, got pissed at the Hebrews,
broke his tablet, went back & carved another. Alas, in his
rush, he forgot the original 1st commandment: Thou shalt never
vote for thy jailers.
They liked that. One cried
out, "OK, who do we vote for? The Greens?" I answered
that who you can't vote for only opens the road to who you can.
Let me be clear. The radical
left's shift from recruiting in factories, to looking for support
for civil rights & antiwar agitation on campuses in the 50s
& 60s, was the matrix for the FSM. Campuses will continue
as the left's stronghold. But the uneducated go their own way.
So we must go after them. "We are all things to all men
that we may save some of them." So said Paul of Tarsus,
who converted to Christianity, a hole in the wall Jewish sect,
& in turn converted it into a cosmopolitan movement. We need
only change "men" to people & his message remains
the best strategy for getting out beyond the campus.
Agitate in unions? Of course!!
But most young workers aren't in unions. We need to set up literature
tables in places where they congregate. And what shall we say
that will interest them? A little birdie tells me that they are
more likely to listen to the left if it talks to them about legal
pot & the Iraq war, than if we talk to them about Iraq alone.
Does anyone think otherwise?
So that is what we must do,
& not just for young workers & not just re pot.
Who wins the election means
much & nothing. But 1 thing is certain. It will be soon seen
as the end of the road for liberalism. If Bush wins, then all
their huffing & puffing for Kerry came to nothing, &
they will be rightly condemned for being unprincipled, wasting
money & effort on a losing demagogue & imperialist. If
Kerry wins, the liberals will just as rightly be condemned for
being unprincipled, wasting money & effort on a winning demagogue
& imperialist.
Liberalism will lose, but radicalism
can only win, in the long run, if we clean up our act in the
short run & provide leadership to the youth & others
who will learn from their wasted efforts for a rogue, & want
to move on to principled politics, with a strategy to defeat
& replace the bipartisan capitalist hustle.
I can fight & win my campaign
for UC Berkeley to put me on as a history lecturer, pretty much
on my own, tho of course I'll keep CounterPunch's readers posted
on events. But on 2 issues, expect to be bombarded by articles
from me. The 1st is left regroupment. Everyone to the left of
the Democrats should at least establish a wide discussion of
the programmatic basis of unity. That should also be in CounterPunch.
The 2nd agenda point is developing
a full drug law reform strategy. Look at it this way: Can anyone
imagine a left party ever becoming a contender for power, much
less winning it in the US, that doesn't call for legal pot? Colombia
is only occasionally mentioned in left organs. But it is hardly
to be expected that an American left that rarely talks about
drug law reform in the US is going to devote much of its limited
energy to bringing Colombia to public attention.
American hard left blindness
to narcotic concerns carries over to the Afghanistan issue. It
now produces most of the opium for Europe's heroin. Leftists
talk about imperialism, oil pipelines, etc., but there is little
discussion about opium crops, & none about heroin addiction.
I read the gay press to follow the fundamentalist holy war against
Sodom & Gomorrah. Meth is a big worry for them. But I haven't
read a word about it in the left press.
The entire spectrum of American
politics, right to left, is in profound crisis. Bush is in over
his head in Iraq. Kerry wants to stay in up to his head. UC Berkeley
& most major colleges are in full ferment over the war. Professors
voting for Kerry is a certain symptom of their utter lack of
idealism, realism & energy. But students campaigning for
him is just a natural sign of their inexperience & frustrated
idealism. The only cure for inexperience is experience, or so
I'm told. Therefore, it is our job to get unity among our herd
of turtles -- all those to the left of the Democrats -- to take
advantage of Kerry's victory or defeat, to show them what the
implications of either are to the building of a movement against
the Iraq war, the drug war, etc. &, ultimately, to defeat
the capitalist parties that share criminal blame for them. They
can't run with the fox & hunt with the hounds & get anywhere.
Denouncing imperialists and the Washington drug warriors, until
election time, then voting for any of them, is counter productive,
as everyone with eyes to see will plainly see, after this election.
The FSM-Archive can make a
major contribution to the education of its vets, UC's contemporary
students & profs if, instead of having helium-heads like
Dean as unopposed invited guests, it organized debates between
campus Democrats & leftists on where do we go from here &
how do we get there. And, at the very least, a panel must, repeat,
must be organized on how to throw Bates out of office.
It is customary in these matters
to say that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat. But there
isn't the slightest proof that dead Democrats are the slightest
bit better than live Democrats. Generating a movement with a
serious program will have to sub for beating Bates to death,
after torture. Some will naturally resent giving up the time-honored
way of dealing out justice to an out-of-control Mayor. But that
is the high price we sometimes must pay for progress, even as
we wonder if it is worth giving up such patriotic traditions.
Lenni Brenner is the editor of 51 Documents: Zionist
Collaboration with the Nazis and a contributor to The Politics
of Anti-Semitism. He is presently editing Jefferson & Madison
on Separation of Church and State: Writings on Religion and Secularism.
It will be published by Barricade Books in late October. He can
be reached at BrennerL21@aol.com.
James Madison
to Thomas Hertell, December 20, 1819
I have been sometime a debtor
for your favor of Novr 11th accompanied by a copy of your expose.
It reached me at a time when my attention had some particular
calls on it; & I was so unlucky as to lose by accident, the
answer which I had prepared for a late mail.
I now repeat the thanks it
contained for your communication. I have read with pleasure the
interesting lights in which you have placed a subject, which
had passed thro' so many able hands. The task of abolishing altogether
the use of intoxicating, & even exhilarating drinks, is an
arduous one. If it should not succeed in the extent at which
you aim, your mode of presenting the causes & effects of
the prevailing intemperance, with the obligation and operation
of an improved police & of corrective examples, cannot fail
to recompense your efforts tho' it should not satisfy your philanthropy
& patriotism.
A compleat suppression of every
species of stimulating indulgence, if attainable at all, must
be a work of peculiar difficulty, since it has to encounter not
only the force of habit, but propensities in human nature. In
every age and nation, some exhilarating or exciting substance
seems to have been sought for, as a relief from the languor of
idleness, or the fatigues of labor. In the rudest state of Society,
whether in hot or cold climates, a passion for ardent spirits
is in a manner universal. In the progress of refinement, beverages
less intoxicating, but still of an exhilarating quality, have
been more or less common. And where all these sources of excitement
have been unknown, or been totally prohibited by a religious
faith, substitutes have been found in opium, in the nut of the
betel, the root of the Ginseng or the leaf of the Tobacco plant.
It would doubtless be a great
point gained for our Country, and a great advantage towards the
object of your publication, if ardent spirits could be made only
to give way to malt liquors, to those afforded by the apple and
the pear, and to the lighter and cheaper varieties of wine. It
is remarkable that in the Countries where the grape supplies
the common beverage, habits of intoxication are rare; and in
some places almost without example.
These observations, as you
may well suppose are not made for notice in a new edition of
your work, of which they are certainly not worthy, even if they
should not vary from your own view of the subject. They are meant
merely as an expression to yourself of that respect for the laudable
object of the expose, & for its author, of which sincere
assurances are tendered.
Weekend
Edition Features for October 16 / 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
/
|