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Today's Stories November 2, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Holy Alito!: Not as Crazy as Scalia, But Just as Bad November 1, 2005 Ron Jacobs An Interview with Kent State's Dave Airhart Gary Leupp The Plame Affair Leads to Rome John Ross Days of the Dead on the Border Bill Quigley Why Are They Making New Orleans a Ghost Town? Joseph Nevins From a Boundary of Death to One of Life Dave Lindorff Thinking About Impeachment Linda S. Heard Bashing Syria: Another Trojan Horse from the UN? Heather Gray Thank You, Mrs. Parks Michael Dickinson To Di For: Charlie and Camilla Cross the Pond Jeffrey St. Clair Kent State: Wise Up and Back Off   October 31, 2005 Elaine Cassel Libby's Lies Mark Weisbrot Pop Goes the Bubble: Bernancke and the Fed Mike Whitney Carry On, Patrick Fitzgerald Norman Solomon After the Libby Indictment, the Press Acquits Itself Farooq Sulehria Trading Weapons While Kashmir Burns Nicole Colson Scapegoating Immigrants Madis Senner Dhafir Sentenced to 22 Years: Another Erosion of Civil Rights Paul Craig Roberts Scooter and the Neocons October 29 / 30, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair The Libby Indictment: Gotterdammerung for the Bushies? Peter Linebaugh The Wedges of Hephaestus Tim Wise Framing the Poor: Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media John Chuckman Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words Steven Higgs Green Hoosiers: Forging a New Democracy in the Heartland Brian Cloughley The Fifth Afghan War M. Shahid Alam Israel and the Consequences of Uniqueness Nikki Robinson Crack Down at Kent State Ralph Nader Let the PIRGs Begin!: Student Activism Thrives Joe DeRaymond Requiem for Bethlehem Steel? Joshua Frank Karl's Great Escape: Did Rove Rat on Scooter? Laura Santina Tongue-Tied on Iraq: Why Aren't the Dems Screaming Bloody Murder? Fred Gardner Death of an Organizer Michael Dickinson Insult Your Country Ron Jacobs Autumn in America Dr. Susan Block Fear and Sex: a Halloween Greeting Vanessa S. Jones Self-Portrait, 1994. Bronte Beach Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Marbet, Gardner, Ford, Albert, Engel, Krieger & St. Clair Website of the Weekend Red State Update   October 28, 2005 Jared Bernstein Inflation Up; Wages Down: Fastest Decline in Wages on Record Virginia Tilley Embracing the Anti-Aparthied Movement in Israel/Palestine Phil Gasper The Race to Execute Tookie Williams Jennifer Matsui It's Mardi Graft Time! Manual Garcia, Jr. Is the US Really Against Torture? Monica Benderman In the Name of Justice Jason Leopold Fitzgerald Focuses on the Forgeries Dave Lindorff Suddenly, Bush Endorses Right of Fair Trials Otober 27, 2005 Saul Landau The Scandal Isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War Stuart Hodkinson Bono and Geldoff: "We Saved Africa" Oh No, They Didn't! Ingmar Lee Stop the Troops!: No Glory or Honor in Iraq Lila Rajiva License to Bill: Gates Does India Ilan Pappe The Last Moment of Hope Niranjan Ramakrishnan Waiting for Fitzgerald Michael Donnelly Look Who's Talking Now: the GOP on Perjury Ron Jacobs Escape the Weight of Your Corporate Logo Cockburn / St. Clair White House in Meltdown   October 26, 2005 Kathy Kelly For Whom They Toll Gary Leupp Dialectics of the Plame Affair Mike Marqusee Empire of Denial Eric Ruder War Crimes in Afghanistan Patrick Cockburn Iraq: a Constitutionally Divided Nation Joshua Frank Fitzgerald v. the Bushies: Hold Your Elation in Check J.L. Chestnut, Jr. The Legacy of Rosa Parks Website of the Day Decent Work in America: the 2005 Work Environment Index     October 25, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Condi and Syrian Regime Change: Could Somebody Recommend a President? Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn Attack on the Palestine Hotel Conn Hallinan Sleight of Hand: Iran, India and the US Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Pulling the Court Strings Jackie Corr Barbara Bush: Poster Gorgon of the Houston Astros Robert Day Talk to Strangers John Sugg Judith Miller and Me   October 24, 2005 Dave Lindorff Revoke Judy Miller's Pulitzer Michael Donnelly Shades of Iran/contra Patrick Cockburn A Nation Stands on Trial Mike Whitney Apres Rove Norman Solomon Iraq is Not Vietnam, But... Bill and Kathleen Christison US Foreign Policy and Palestine   October 22 / 23, 2005 Alexander Cockburn When Divas Collide: Maureen Dowd v. Judy Miller Billy Sothern Letter from the Circle Bar, New Orleans Saul Landau Bush, an Assessment Ralph Nader An Open Letter to Bush on Harriet Miers Behrooz Ghamari Whose Justice Does Saddam's Trial Serve? Brian Cloughley Bush the Strategist: Pyrrhus Without a Victory? Diana Barahona Venezuela's National Workers' Union Fred Gardner Dershowitzed! Lee Sustar What the War on Terror is Really About Patrick Cockburn Murder of Saddam Trial Defense Lawyer Laura Carlsen Mexico City Seamstresses Recall 1985 Quake James Petras China Bashing and the Loss of US Competitiveness Joshua Frank Invading Iran: Who is to Stop Them? Manuel Garcia, Jr. Disasters are Us Michelle Bollinger When Abortion Was Illegal Missy Comley Beattie CSI: Iraq Kona Lowell Intelligent Design: Making High School Fun Ben Tripp Tanks for the Memories Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening To This Week Poets' Basement Albert and Engel Website of the Day Indictment Watch   October 21, 2005 Dave Lindorff The Democrats' Abortion Hypocrisy Winslow T. Wheeler Paying for Their Mistakes: Incompetence, Deception and the Defense Budget Col. Dan Smith The Destruction of the National Guard Norman Solomon Media at Crossroads: 25 Years After Reagan's Triumph Madis Senner Abusing Katrina Michael Donnelly Richard Pombo: DeLay in Cowboy Boots October 20, 2005 Dave Lindorff Impeachment Comes to NYC Ray McGovern 16 Fatal Words: Cheney's Chickens Come Home to Roost Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith Attack Syria? Invade Iran?: By What Constitutional Right? Patrick Cockburn Saddam Refuses to Recognize Court Kevin Zeese Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed? Ross Eisenbrey Millions Would Lose Pay and Protections Under Enzi Amendment Randy Shields James McMurtry Makes It in Dayton Justine Davidson Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Small Victory After Lucas Cranach Judy and Holofernes Joe Allen The Scandalous History of the Red Cross   October 19, 2005 Christopher Reed Koizumi and the Rape of Nanking Stephen Soldz Bush and Avian Flu: the Excuses Begin to Fly Chet Richards War and Intelligence Patrick Cockburn Saddam on Trial Scott Richard Lyons Multicultural Columbus? Ralph Nader An Interview with Rev. William Sloane Coffin Website of the Day Shocking Video: Why Birds May Be Taking Viral Vengeance on Humans   October 18, 2005 Chet Flippo Merle Haggard: "Let's Get Out of Iraq" Ron Jacobs Dual Devotions: the Catholic Church and the US Flag Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor A Tale of Two Cities: From DC to Toledo Dave Lindorff Judy Miller: Little Miss Run Amok Virginia Rodino A Winter Patriot: Reflections on the Antiwar Movement Thomas Healy The Weather in Goshen: Still Radical After All These Years Ralph Nader A New New Orleans Stephen Lendman The Sorrows of Haiti Patrick Cockburn On the Eve of Saddam's Trial: a Divided Iraq   October 17, 2005 Peter Linebaugh Spinoza and the Black Limos Norman Solomon Judith Miller, the Fourth Estate and the Warfare State Cockburn / Sengupta "If the Sunnis Don't Like It, That's Their Problem" Mike Whitney Miller's Confession: Last Gasp Before Indictments? Uri Avnery Iraq Now: What Awaits Samira? Harold Pinter Torture & Misery in the Name of Freedom Website of the Day Al Joudi v. Bush   October 15 / 16, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ayatollahs of the Apocalypse Patrick Cockburn "This Constitution Won't Get Me a Job" Saul Landau Two Terrorists and a Lush: Osama, Posada and Bush's Drinking Neve Gordon "Beyond Chutzpah": Exposing Grave Moral Distortions Moshe Adler Poverty in New York City Christopher Brauchli Lynndie England's Burden Diane Farsetta The Emperor Doesn't Disclose: the Fight Against Fake News Sam Husseini Notes on Current Reporting About Judith Miller Monica Benderman From Chaos to Conscience to Peace Mickey Z. POW Abuse by US: Nothing New Going On Here Douglas C. Smyth George W. Bush, the Honorius of Our Time Lee Sustar Will Delphi Bust the UAW? Fred Gardner Cannabinoids Arrive in Realm of Established Fact Elizabeth Schulte A Former Panther's Georgia Campaign: an Interview with Elaine Brown Joshua Frank Will the Democrats Save Harriet Miers? David Vest Down with Formalism! Up with Values! Ben Tripp Epistle II: the Reawakenign Poets Basement Engel, Albert, Ford and Louise Website of the Weekend The Hidden Canyon   October 14, 2005 Farrah Hassen A Somber Ramadan in Syria Ron Jacobs The Black Panthers: They Haven't Forgotten; Neither Should We Sasha Kramer USAID and Haiti: the Friendly Face of Imperialism? Katrina Yeaw The Student Struggle in Italy Nicole Colson Bird Flu: Militarizing Health Care Raúl Zibechi Survival and Existence in El Alto Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez and the Politics of Race Website of the Day LA Filmmakers Cooperative October 13, 2005 Jeremy Scahill Mr. Bush Goes to Tikrit (Sort Of) Jeff Birkenstein A Thoreau for Our Time: Why Cindy Sheehan Matters Brendan Smith / Jeremy Brecher Harriet Miers: Bush or the Constitution? Stan Cox Did You Know This About Iraq? Anis Memon The Curious Case of Russ Feingold Gary Leupp Miller, Libby and the June Notes Dave Zirin A Tribute to August Wilson Matthew Koehler America's Endangered Forests Werther The Two-Headed Monster Website of the Day Hurricane Song October 12, 2005 Omar Waraich Britain and the Quake: Mean and Stingy William Cook Voices Behind the Entombment Wall Phil Gasper Countdown to a Legal Lynching Dave Lindorff Impeachment Now and Then: Clinton, Bush and the Polls Matt Vidal Capital, Power and Class John Gautreaux New Orleans will Never be the Same Diana Johnstone Srebrenica Revisited: Using War as an Excuse for War Mark Weisbrot The IMF Has Lost Its Influence Brian J. Foley Gitmo Tribunals Endanger Public Safety Website of the Day Columbus Day Lies   October 11, 2005 Roger Morris / Steve Schmidt Strategic Demands of the 21st Century Lila Rajiva Live from New Orleans: Abu Ghraib Bill Quigley New Orleans: Leaving the Poor Behind Again Paul Craig Roberts Natural Born Liars Dave Lindorff Recruiters in Schools: No Lie Left Untried Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Suspect Thy Neighbor Mitchel Cohen Showdown at Chuck E. Cheese Tariq Ali Pakistan will Never Forget This Horror Website of the Day L'Heure Americaine   October 10, 2005 Cindy and Craig Corrie Rachel's Words Live Joshua Frank Washington's War Dems Gideon Levy The Beautiful Life Without Arafat Alan Wallis The Fight for Free Speech at Union Square Mickey Z. In Defense of Liars CounterPunch News Service Vermont Independence Convention Paul Craig Roberts The Police State is Closer Than You Think Website of the Day Dylan's Chronicles   October 8 / 9, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Rhetoric and Reality in the Business of Getting Rid of Black People Ralph Nader Katrina and the Growls of Greed Jennifer Van Bergen New American Law: Legal Strategies in the Dharfir Case Saul Landau An Oily Religious Dream Jeff Halper Setting Up Abbas Lenni Brenner The Millions More Movement and Zionism Nikolas Kozloff Bird Flu and Bush Brian Cloughley Training Soldiers in Iraq Alice Slater A Nobel Prize for Chernobyl? John Gautreaux A View from Cajun Country Fred Gardner Does the Controlled Substances Act Mean What It Says? Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Leveethan Approach M.G. Piety Rot in the Ivory Tower: Collusion, Cover-Up and Kierkegaard Tom Gorman The Hitchens Doctrine Mike Whitney Bunker Days with George Aseem Shrivastava Beyond the Wasteland: Lessons from Afghanistan Ben Tripp Religion, an Epistle Poets' Basement Albert, Engel and Ford   October 7, 2005 Larry Johnson The Plame Case: the Real Issues Will Youmans Why Do We Hate Our Freedom? Recruiters and Thugs on Campus Dave Lindorff Bird Flu: Evolution or Intelligent Design? Judith Scherr Haiti's Children's Prison Russell D. Hoffman Nukes for Peace, Revisited?: Nobel Prize Debacle Jared Bernstein Katrina and Jobs Jennifer Van Bergen New American Law: the Case of Dr. Dhafir Website of the Day FBI Witchhunt October 6, 2005 P. Sainath "Take That, Tom Friedman": Indian Masses Reject NYT's Neoliberal Idol Again Scott Parkin When Antiwar Activists Get Mugged Paul Craig Roberts Blundering into Syria Andréa Schmidt Haiti's Biometric Elections: a High-Tech Experiment in Exclusion Dave Lindorff Easy Money in the Big Easy Joshua Frank In Defense of Lew Rockwell M. Junaid Alam Jackboots at George Mason Matthew Koehler Cock and Bull on the Bitterroot Robert Pollin Is the Dollar Still Falling?   October 5, 2005 Heather Gray Militarization is Not an Answer for Reconstruction: the Case of the Philippines Robert Jensen Is Bush a Racist? Ramzy Baroud Bush's Final Choice: America or the Empire Col. Dan Smith Keeping Promises to Iraq: "Everything is Bad" Dave Zirin Barry Bonds Laughs Last Paul Craig Roberts Liberal Guilt? How the Neocons Took Over Alan Maass Doing the Right Wing's Dirty Work   October 4, 2005 Nikolas Kozloff Shocking the Two Party System: a Political Opportunity for Sheehan and the Antiwar Mvt. Mike Roselle Houston, You've Got a Problem Joshua Frank The Scoop on Harriet Miers John Chuckman War Porn: What the Gruesome Images Say Alan Farago Storm Warning for Jeb: Developers, Hurricanes and the Keys Mickey Z. An Interview with Thaddeus Rutkowski Christine & Ethan Rose Home Depot Exploits Hurricane Victims Gary Leupp An Earlier Empire's War on Iraq: a Lesson from Roman History Website of the Day Rodney Crowell on Bob Dylan   October 3, 2005 Vijay Prashad Desperation at Holyoke Paul Craig Roberts Condi Rice: Gunslinger Joshua Frank An Interview with Cindy Sheehan Seth Sandronsky The Hiring Crisis for Black Teens Jeffrey St. Clair The Great Green Scare             Subscribe Online

Red Alert for CounterPunchers! Annual Fundraising Appeal We interrupt your regular reading habits to bring you the following important announcement: CounterPunch needs your financial support! We're not in the habit of making idle threats and this isn't one. Either we meet our fundraising goal of $60,000 over the next three weeks or we'll be forced to drastically curtail the operation of our website. It's near the end of our year and the wolf is at the door. CounterPunch's website is supported almost entirely by subscribers to the print edition of our newsletter. We don't clutter the site by selling annoying popup ads. We tried getting money out of Google, but they gave us the boot. We aren't on the receiving end of six-figure grants from big foundations. George Soros doesn't have us on retainer. And we don't sell tickets on cruiseliners. The continued existence of CounterPunch depends solely on the support and dedication of our readers. And we know there are a lot of you. We get thousands of emails from you every day. Our website receives nearly 100,000 visits each day-and those numbers grow by the month. Of course, all these readers chew up a lot of bandwidth and that costs money. Through the Iraq war, the daily traumas of the Bush administration, hurricanes, earthquakes and the disappearance of the Democrats, many of you have found a refuge at CounterPunch and made us your homepage. You tell us that you love CounterPunch because the quality of writing you find here every day and because we never flinch under fire. We appreciate the support and prepared for the fierce battles to come as the Bush administration expands its wars abroad and at home. Unlike many other outfits, we don't hit you up for money every month...or even every quarter. We only ask for your support once a year. But we when ask, we mean it. Please, make a donation to CounterPunch today or purchase a gift subscription or a crate of books as holiday presents. To contribute by phone you can call Becky or Deva toll free at: 1-800-840-3683 Onward, Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva November 2, 2005 Schwarzenegger and the Special Election Judgment Day for the Governator By TODD CHRETIEN Californians will vote November 8 on a string of right-wing referendums put on the ballot with the support of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger came up with the special election idea soon after defeating Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in the November 2003 recall election. Although Democratic Party lawmakers, who hold the majority in the state legislature, went along with Schwarzenegger's demands to rescind driver's licenses for undocumented workers and slash the public education budget--measures that would affect mainly the powerless--they balked at proposals that would endanger their own incumbent power. Bolstered by high approval ratings during his first year in office, Arnold decided to "go to the people" to override the legislative opposition. Back in February, the Field Poll reported that 56 percent of California's supported the governor. By September, that number had sunk to 36 percent. Instead of Schwarzenegger overriding the legislature, it looks like the voters are about to override the Governator's administration by rejecting his referendums and turning him into a weak, lame duck governor. What happened? The backlash started a year ago when members of the California Nurses Association (CNA) protested Schwarzenegger at a speech he was giving supposedly to honor women's rights. The nurses were angry that he had just signed an executive order overturning a new state law designed to reduce nurse-to-patient ratios and raise the standard of patient care. Faced with the CNA challenge, Arnold yelled out that the nurses were "a special interest who don't like me because I am always kicking their butt." This was too much for most Californians, especially considering the number of women who came forward during the recall election to say they had been victims of Schwarzenegger's groping. Setting an unusually aggressive tone for labor leaders, CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro organized nurses to protest Schwarzenegger everywhere he went. The nurses also spent millions on advertising and won a major victory when a judge reinstated the reduction in hospital staffing ratios. Soon, teachers, firefighters and other public employees were joining in. The high water mark was a protest of over 30,000 union workers and students in Sacramento last spring. Since then, everywhere Schwarzenegger goes, dozens or hundreds or even thousands of protesters dog him. As his poll numbers slipped through the spring, Arnold upped the ante, adopting an even more confrontational style and moving to the right. He calculated that by appearing "strong," he could stoke his Terminator movie popularity and go back on the offensive. Faced with a continuing budget deficit, Arnold demanded even more cuts than the Democratic majority in the legislature was prepared to give, although they gave him plenty. During the budget fight, Arnold engineered a campaign to put four ballot measures up for a vote in a November 2005 special election. All are designed to weaken the institutional power of the legislature's long-term Democratic majority. -- Proposition 74 would increase from 2 to 5 years the time it takes for public school teachers to get tenure and job security. This measure would devastate public schools by dramatically increasing teacher turnover and severely weakening the power of the teachers' union to protect its members. As a major attack on a union whose leadership showers Democratic legislators with contributions (for very little in return), Schwarzenegger calculated that he could intimidate other unions to boot. -- Proposition 75 targets all public-sector unions, requiring them to get written approval from each member to use dues money for political purposes. Like the attack on teachers, this measure aims to cripple the union movement's capacity for political campaigning. No similar restriction would be imposed on corporate donors. -- Proposition 76 would simultaneously grant the governor executive powers to cut the budget by declaring a "fiscal emergency" and reduce the constitutionally guaranteed percentage of the state budget dedicated to public education. -- Proposition 77 would give three retired judges the power to redraw legislative districts in California. Arnold wants to follow the Texas example and eliminate as many safe Democratic Party seats as possible, tipping state government in favor of suburban Republican voters. Despite the fact that polls showed little enthusiasm for the special election, Schwarzenegger plowed ahead. As his popularity faded, he tried to save himself by playing the anti-immigrant card. When the vigilante Minutemen Project organized armed racists to "patrol" the border in Arizona and harass and threaten undocumented workers, Arnold praised them and said he would "welcome" them to California. Fortunately, pro-immigrant rights organizers took a page out of the nurses' playbook--and confronted the vigilantes everywhere they went, disrupting their plans to grow into a large organized force. However, the danger persists. The Minutemen held a rally in Sacramento at the end of October attended by 300 bigots, where they announced plans to put a "defend our border" proposition on the ballot next year. Just as the anti-immigrant right gained momentum from Schwarzenegger's endorsement, the anti-abortion fanatics sensed their chance. Although Arnold is pro-choice, he announced that he would support Proposition 73, which requires doctors to notify the parents of teens who plan to have an abortion. To underline his enthusiasm for the measure, he announced that he would "kill" anyone who assisted one of his daughters if she wanted to get an abortion without his knowledge. Just like his outburst about kicking nurses' butts, Arnold went too far with this one--and was forced to "clarify" his remark. If the polls are correct, then Arnold is set to get his own butt kicked November 8. It's tempting to chalk up the evaporation of his seemingly solid support to his own buffoonery. Schwarzenegger's habit of quoting his own action movies as public policy certainly has worn thin. You can only listen to "I'll be baaaack" so many times. But something deeper is at play. In the fall of 2003, voters recalled a Democrat, Gray Davis, for the same reasons that Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has dropped out of sight in the polls. At bottom, class anger is making California a dangerous place for any incumbent governor. Impossible housing prices, a crumbling public education system, climbing health care costs, lack of good jobs and a collapsing infrastructure are driving working-class discontent. In political terms, the fight has been centered on the question of the California "budget deficit," which politicians of both parties use an excuse to slash public spending. The reality is that the "deficit" is a bipartisan creation, resulting from the fact that corporations and the richest 5 percent of Californians don't pay their fare share of taxes. As Green Party gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo points out, the richest 5 percent of Californians pay dramatically less in taxes compared to their income than the poorest 20 percent. The only way to solve the "crisis" is to raise taxes on the wealthy, but neither party has the stomach to challenge their corporate backers. The specific instances are different: Gray Davis gave $30 billion to his friends in the electricity business during the blackouts, while Arnold handed his rich pals $2 billion right out of the public school budgets last year. But so long as no party is willing to collect taxes from the wealthy, the crisis in our schools, our hospitals and our neighborhoods will go on--and it's likely that a revolving door will have to be installed on the governor's office. Worse, if no political force provides a progressive solution to California's problems, then the only answers available for angry people will be prison-building, immigrant-bashing, school privatization and bigotry against women and gays and lesbians. Voting NO on all of Arnold's propositions is a good start. But real change in Sacramento will come from two sources. First, we have to follow the activist example set by the nurses and apply it to all the politicians. And second, we can't continue to vote for the politicians and political parties that we protest. College Not Combat! ON NOVEMBER 8, San Francisco voters will vote on Proposition I, which would put the city on record as opposed to U.S. military recruiters using public school, college and university facilities to recruit young people into the armed forces. Placed on the ballot by hundreds of volunteers in a grassroots campaign to collect 15,500 signatures from San Francisco registered voters, Prop I states in part: Whereas, over 1500 American soldiers have died and tens of thousands have been injured physically and psychologically in Iraq; and, Whereas, 100,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation; and, Whereas, the "No Child Left Behind Act" forces all high schools that receive federal money to give personal records of all children to the military for the purposes of recruiting; and, Whereas, the federal Solomon Amendment specifically orders colleges and universities that receive federal money to violate their own legal policies of non-discrimination against gays and lesbians; and, Whereas, the Pentagon budget, over $400 billion per year, plus $300 billion more over the last three years for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, is draining desperately needed resources for schools, health care and jobs; now, therefore, be it Resolved, that the people of San Francisco oppose U.S. military recruiters using public school, college and university facilities to recruit young people into the armed forces." Proposition I has been endorsed by over 75 groups, including the San Francisco Labor Council, United Educators of San Francisco teachers union, Local SEIU 790, National Lawyers Guild, Campus Antiwar Network, American Friends Service Committee, Code Pink, Justice in Palestine Coalition, International Socialist Organization, Mexican American People's Association, and personally by Cindy Sheehan of Gold Star Families for Peace. Proposition I won't automatically end recruitment because San Francisco can't override federal law. But by making it the official policy of the city, Prop I will give activists, parents, students and teachers valuable help in their campus-by-campus efforts to end recruitment, as well as establish the necessary background for schools and the city to challenge No Child Left Behind and the Solomon Amendment. Todd Chretien is a frequent contributor to CounterPunch and the International Socialist Review. He can be reached at: toddchretien@comcast.net   What You're Missing in the Special Expanded Print Edition The War So Far: a Failure Worse Than Vietnam by Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad "The need for the White House to produce a fantasy picture of Iraq is because it dare not admit that it has engineered one of the greatest disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater." Get the answers you're looking for in the subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! 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Coming in the Fall from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Click Here to Advance Order Philosopher Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair