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A Special Report on the Presidential Elections Exclusively in the Print Edition CounterPunch How Progressive Challenges Have Been Killed Off Since LBJ; Gagging Fanny Lou Hamer; Eugene McCarthy on "a Peasants Rebellion;" Sabotaging McGovern; The Wreck of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition; Smearing Nader, Not Once But Three Times: by Alexander Cockburn; The Thieves of the Green Zone by Patrick Cockburn; Murder in Mississippi: Could John Doar Have Saved Cheney, Schwerner & Goodman by David Kotz. In May, CounterPunch Online was read by over 20 million viewers! 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 (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch's New T-Shirts Are Going Fast! Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Sex, Drugs & the Blues! Serpents in the Garden CounterPunch's Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available Click here to purchase Today's Stories July 13, 2004 Ray McGovern The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence Debacle...and Worse Mark Donham The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney Ben Tripp Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Electorates? Mark Gaffney Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel in Iraq Dave Lindorff Osama Wins! Election Postponed! Chris White Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine Indoctrination   July 10 / 12, 2004 Kathleen Christison The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel Janine Pommy Vega Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War Sherry Wolf From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen A Transfer of Power, Sort Of Michael Donnelly How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004 Stanton / Madsen Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda? Richard Lichtman The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology Gila Svirsky Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall Kurt Nimmo Clinton's Life Toni Solo Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means Ron Jacobs The Black Panthers and the Rest Camelo Ruiz Marrero Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize Omar Barghouti Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance Poets' Basement Curtis and Albert   July 9, 2004 Dave Zirin Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger Stands Up Against War Justin Delacour Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About Latin America Robert Fisk Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency Boris Kagarlitsky Two Congresses and a Funeral William S. Lind The October Surprises Sibel Edmonds Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth Ron Jacobs Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future Gary Leupp The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link   July 8, 2004 Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Inexplicable John McCain Toufic Haddad Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall: a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent Dave Lindorff Liberation as Martial Law Joshua Frank The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard Dean Christopher Brauchli Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card James Petras The Truth About Jimmy Carter   July 7, 2004 John Chuckman Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence of Meaning Virginia Tilley A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's Hunger Strike Susan Martinez A Letter to Bill Cosby Mickey Z Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade Michael Donnelly Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire Sean Donahue Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown Diane Christian Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq   July 6, 2004 Lisa Viscidi Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans Risk Lives to Reach El Norte Marc Norton The Felonious Five Ride Again: the Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants James Brooks Chemical Warfare on the West Bank? Ray McGovern Porter Goss as CIA Director? William Cook Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...   July 5, 2004 Forrest Hylton US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept. 11, July 4 and Systematic Torture Chris White A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning of Independence Day Joe Bageant Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July Robert Jensen Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire Kathy Kelly "Two Days an' a Wake-Up"   July 3 / 4, 2004 Elaine Cassel Bush's Police State and Independence Day Stan Goff ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive" Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti Snehal Shingavi "We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak Out Bruce Anderson The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens Sharon Smith Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush" Josh Frank Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates Robert Fisk Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing Joe Bageant Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite! Brian Cloughley Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine Justin Delacour The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons William S. Lind Saudi Spillover Linda S. Heard A Joke Called "Justice" Greg Moses "It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't Back Down Ron Jacobs "Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?" Toni Solo Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There Dan Nagengast Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It? Stew Albert Brando, a Personal Recollection Dave Zirin From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for Our Brando Patrick W. Gavin The Progressive Case for Dodgeball Steven Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911 Poets' Basement Kearney, Ford and Davies Website of the Day Global Peace Solution July 2, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise of the Green Party Douglas Valentine Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism Gary Leupp "Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities Lee Ballinger Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights Robert Fisk Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly CounterPunch Wire "What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's Arraignment Christopher Brauchli Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right Saul Landau Buzz Words and Venezuela July 1, 2004 Katherine van Wormer Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in His Method Joe Bageant Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter? William James Martin The Dogma of Richard Perle Dave Lindorff Bush's Evacuation Moment Robert Fisk Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq Alan Maass Green Party in Reverse Website of the Day Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?   June 30, 2004 Kurt Nimmo Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush Tariq Ali Getting Away with Murder in Iraq Jennifer Van Bergen Bush and the Detainees Douglas Valentine Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen The Quiet American David Price Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass Roger Normand America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq Stan Cox Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's War on Art Henry David Thoreau On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming Ben Tripp Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof     June 29, 2004 Patrick Cockburn The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover Robert Fisk Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland Troy Selvaratnam New York Times Boosts Pet Developer Harry Browne Bush in Ireland Ray McGovern The CIA According to Anonymous Elaine Cassel Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really Won?   June 28, 2004 Patrick Cockburn / Leyla Linton Grisly Rituals in Iraq Amira Hass Confronting Myths and Deadly Power   June 26 / 27, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Venezuela: the Gang's All Here Patrick Cockburn Iyad Allawi, the CIA's New Stooge in Iraq Dennis Hans Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney, the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11 Ben Tripp Adventures in Fuel Efficiency Dave Lindorff That State Department Terrorism Report: What They Knew, But Didn't Tell You Chris Floyd Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit Ali Tonak Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives, Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela Keith Rosenthal The Withering of the Anti-War Movement Bryan Sacks The Failure of the 9/11 Commission Wayne Madsen Another Case of Blowback Thomas St. John L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating in the Wizard of Oz Niranjan Ramakrishnan American Swadeshi     June 25, 2004 Stephen Gowans US to North Korea: "Trust Us" Saul Landau 2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege: Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction Amir Butler Iraq: the Deadly Embrace Jack McCarthy Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News? Greg Bates Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader       June 24, 2004 Gary Leupp John Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links Patrick Cockburn A Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing Death Threats Harry Browne On the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe Bill Kaufman Another Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader Christopher Brauchli Bush, Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did They Tell? Rick Gioimbetti Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence? John Chuckman Call Center ID Hypocrisy Diana Johnstone Kerry and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"     June 23, 2004 Laura Carlsen Bush and Castro Face Off Dave Zirin Barry Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism" Kurt Nimmo From Saddam, With Love Patricia Wolff Foundation Wars Mahboob A. Khawaja "They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son" Patrick Cockburn The Pretense of an Independent Iraq Website of the Day The Road to Abu Ghraib   June 22, 2004 Dave Lindorff The Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption Ron Jacobs Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq? Vanessa Jones Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings Mickey Z An Open Letter to the People of Iraq John L. Hess Clinton Exhales Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity Committee for Pacho Cortés An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés Bruce Jackson Saying No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify Website of the Day From Boot Camp to Boot Hill   June 21, 2004 Gary Leupp Putin's Helpful Remarks Lucson Pierre-Charles Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos Upon Chaos Cockburn / Khan Saddam May Face Death Penalty Uri Avnery Irreversible Mental Damage     June 19 / 20, 2004 Patrick Cockburn Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid and Isolated Bruce Anderson Frozen Gringos Diane Christian Morality and Death: a Meditation on Bush and Blake Walter A. Davis Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib Josh Frank How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature Col. Dan Smith Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan Brian Cloughley A Profound Disruption of the Senses Christopher Brauchli Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later Prudence Crowther Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me! Poets' Basement Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert Kathy Kelly Dying to See Their Kids     June 18, 2004 Chris Floyd Blood Victory Dave Zirin Danielle Green, Basketball Player & Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War Justin E.H. Smith The Christian Question in American Politics Gary Leupp The "Long-Established" Link?: Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi   June 17, 2004 Noel Ignatiev Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People of Palestine Kurt Nimmo The Bush-Kerry Conundrum Ed Cardoni The Persecution of Steve Kurtz Ron Jacobs Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do Dave Lindorff Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years" Greg Moses Geneva Ignored Norm Dixon How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons     June 18, 2004 Noel Ignatiev Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People of Palestine Kurt Nimmo The Bush-Kerry Conundrum Ed Cardoni The Persecution of Steve Kurtz Ron Jacobs Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do Dave Lindorff Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years" Greg Moses Geneva Ignored Norm Dixon How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons     June 16, 2004 Lenni Brenner A Question for Kerry Supporters Davey D Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan Daniel Wolff Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner Abuse? Bruce Jackson Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake Patrick Cockburn Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power Facilities Gary Handschumacher Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads JG Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop Mario Benedetti Obituary with Cheers Vicente Navarro Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who is Rodrigo Rato? Website of the Day Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch     June 15, 2004 Harry Browne Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe Neve Gordon The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited David Palmer Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI John Blair Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming Dave Lindorff God Wins in TKO Bill Quigley Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step In Patrick Cockburn Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast John Chuckman John Kerry, Political Placebo   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.     Subscribe Online

Bastille Day July 14, 2004 Who is Safe in this World? The Priesthood of Death By DIANE CHRISTIAN "We will all die one day. . .if by Apache or by cardiac arrest: I prefer Apache." Dr. Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, leader of Hamas, assassinated by Israeli Apache helicopter gunships 18 April 2004 Who is safe in this world? No one. We shall all die. This is the big truth religion tackles. Our days are numbered. Freud thought religion a crutch that the weak clutched to face death. He was stoical though he used cocaine. The religious use God who variously holds us in the palm of his hand, or grants us eternal rest and reward, or watches and will make right triumph in the end. Plato argued that there must be an afterlife otherwise there was no justice. Moral thinking demanded it. We're in a morass about moral thinking. Recently President Bush said that good societies are based on the conviction that there is right and wrong and we know the difference. His moral thinking justifies war and assassination. He reproached the Clinton administration for not having been strongly on 'war footing,' for not killing Osama Bin Laden. (They tried of course but like the Bush administration they were unsuccessful.) The symmetry of 'terrorist' and 'moral ' positions-both of which encourage eliminating the evil ones-seems lost on all combatants. Or perhaps all the moral talk is cynical cover and rationalization, and the poisonous fruits of abstract reasoning. Consider the assassination of pediatrician Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, leader of Hamas. In a brutal but open campaign of 'focused killings' the Israelis a year ago attempted to assassinate Rantissi. President Bush voiced a rare rebuke. Prime Minister Sharon shot back that the US was even then trying to assassinate Saddam Hussein, and that every country has a right to defend itself. Rantissi, Sharon argued. was a killable threat because he incited continued violence against the Israeli occupation. Bush folded. Rantissi got to live another eight months. In April 2004 the Israelis succeeded in assassinating him, less than a month after assassinating Sheik Yassin, the blind, deaf and paraplegic co-founder of Hamas. UN and world opinion condemned both assassinations but our government made only diplomatic murmurs and did not denounce the killings. Bush reaffirmed Israel's right to self-defense though Blair condemned the action. Hamas promised revenge. The noose of moral killing is drawing tighter round all our necks. We accept, countenance and even applaud political murder. We pursue violence as a solution to political problems. We somehow believe our violence is different from others'-because we are 'good' or have good intentions. Much of the world sees us as violent brutal hypocrites and we are baffled that they don't love us. They're envious we say, they hate freedom we say, they are driven by evil ideologies we say. We need to look at the interface of words and physical violence. Take Yassin and Rantissi. The former, killed as he left his mosque from evening prayers was thoroughly disabled, no physical threat. Would we allow a paraplegic spiritual leader to urge physical resistance against an occupying force? Can conquerors protect themselves by killing any critics through the justification of self-defense? A Palestinian demonstrator said "Al-Rantissi's only crime was to say things Israel does not want to hear. Just like Sheik Yassin's murder, Al-Rantissi's death proves Israel does not accept freedom of speech. Your tongue cannot make you a terrorist." What is a tongue to terrorism? Is it a capital offense when you say 'kill!'? Can you say your oppressors are evil and deserve resistance? Is that self-defense? Is anyone who hates a murderer? Can I kill anyone who hates me because I think he might kill me? Can I get off the moral hook by saying 'I don't hate him, I just neutralize his murderous hatred.' Is the ethic of killing determined by good intentions? The person who yells 'fire' in a crowded theater is indictable if there isn't a fire. How about the person who cries 'weapons of mass destruction' ? Would Americans feel more sympathy toward the assassinated Palestinians if they urged non-violent resistance only? Would anyone believe the US didn't believe in force after the invasion of Iraq? The time for words is over Powell and Bush said. Their idea was to use great force to bring self-defense for us and peace, stability, and freedom to Iraq. Those words authorized that force though they were its opposite. Do we need to distinguish words from deeds? Can brutal words occasion kind deeds, as kind words can occasion brutal deeds? Do words and deeds differ? Can words kill or killing bring life? The domaines of mental warfare and corporeal warfare differ and most people would say mental warfare is better because you live to fight another day. Blake urged making Mental not Corporeal Warfare. He said "Mental things alone are real. Otherwise Christ's acts are nothing to Caesar's." Stalin famously sneered when criticized morally: "How many legions does the Pope have?"The strongman answer is Stalin's-force rules. The artist answer is Blake's-spirit survives the corporeal. Rantissi escaped assassination in June 2003 and repeatedly said we all face death. If it's by Apache or cardiac arrest, by killing or cancer, he said, he preferred the martyr's role-death in the service of his struggle. He got it, killed with his 27-year-old son Mohammed by an Israeli Apache helicopter gunship under the direct orders of Ariel Sharon. Sharon, it's reported, is now himself the target of right-wing extremists who want to assassinate him for his weakness in not driving all the Palestinians out. Assassination, like death in Donne's poem "Death be not proud," hangs in bad company-'slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men.' Donne believed death doesn't triumph because Donne believed in Christian resurrection. Many criticize religion for the hope of paradise because its promise makes life cheap. When jihadists say they have men who love death as infidels love life they're making a spiritual boast which others characterize as fanatical. But the fault is not religion-fanatical Islam has perfect echoes in fanatical Christianity, fanatical Judaism, fanatical nationalisms, and standard human rage-which extremes religions also counter. The fault is in the greater priesthood of death-belief in and willingness to sacrifice another for any reason. Religions often have the insight that we should sacrifice and master ourselves and respect others. God is often better and bigger than killing-inclined humans, an imagination of time that lets all live, and privileges life and love over death and killing. Rantissi and Yassin died not killing others but being killed. They reveal others' violence. If they encouraged suicide bombers in their lives they too participated in the brutal priesthood of death. So do all who approve killing. Diane Christian is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at University at Buffalo and author of the new book Blood Sacrifice. She can be reached at: engdc@acsu.buffalo.edu Weekend Edition Features for July 3 / 4, 2004 Elaine Cassel Bush's Police State and Independence Day Stan Goff ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive" Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti Snehal Shingavi "We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak Out Bruce Anderson The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens Sharon Smith Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush" Josh Frank Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates Robert Fisk Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing Joe Bageant Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite! Brian Cloughley Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine Justin Delacour The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons William S. Lind Saudi Spillover Linda S. Heard A Joke Called "Justice" Greg Moses "It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't Back Down Ron Jacobs "Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?" Toni Solo Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There Dan Nagengast Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It? Stew Albert Brando, a Personal Recollection Dave Zirin From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for Our Brando Patrick W. Gavin The Progressive Case for Dodgeball Steven Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911 Poets' Basement Kearney, Ford and Davies Website of the Day Global Peace Solution WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /