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Coming in September From AK Press Featuring Essays by: Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Michael Neumann, Shahid Alam, Alexander Cockburn, Uri Avnery, Bill and Kathy Christison and More Recent Stories August 8, 2003 Dave Lindorff Snoops Night Out   August 7, 2003 M. Shahid Alam It the US a "Terrorist Magnet?" Toni Solo Neo-liberal Nicaragua: a New Banana Republic Adam Lebowitz Hiroshima Commemorated: the View from Japan Hanan Ashrawi When the Bully Whines Niranjan Ramakrishnan Conscience Takes a Holiday Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Lets Slip: Iraq Not Behind 9/11; No Ties to Al-Qaeda Mike Kimaid What's the Score? Elaine Cassel The Smell of VICTORY: Ashcroft's Latest Stinkbomb Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians   August 6, 2003 Steve Higgs Going to Jail for the Cause: It's Not Easy Confronting King Coal David Krieger Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki Robert Fisk The Ghosts of Uday and Qusay Christopher Brauchli Bush's War on the National Forests Elaine Cassel No Fly Lists Stan Goff Military Equipment and Pneumonia Hugh Sansom An Open Letter to Nicholas Kristof on the Nuking of Japan August 5, 2003 Uri Avnery The Prisoner of Ramallah: Arafat at 74 Forrest Hylton Terrorism and Political Trials: the View from Bolivia Ray McGovern "We Cook Estimates to Go" David Morse Poindexter's Gambit Edward Said Orientallism: 25 Years Later George W. Bush My Darn Good Resumé Hammond Guthrie It's Incremental, Watson! Website of the Day National Prayer Day August 4, 2003 Bruce K. Gagnon Another Peace Activist Detained by Airport Cops: My Story David Lindorff Fear-Mongering About Social Security Mark Zepezauer George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody James Plummer Tracking You Through the Mail Mickey Z. Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush Bruce Jackson News that Isn't News: How the NYT's Pimps for the White House August 2 / 3, 2003 Tamara R. Piety Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down Francis Boyle My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool David Vest Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side Neve Gordon Nightlife in Jerusalem Uri Avnery Their Master's Voice: Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus Robert Fisk Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq Jerry Kroth Israel, Yellowcake and the Media Noah Leavitt What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to Intervene? Saul Landau The Film Industry: Business and Ideology Ron Jacobs One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson Thomas Croft In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta Amadi Ajamu Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader? Poets' Basement Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming   August 1, 2003 Joanne Mariner Stopping Prison Rape Alex Coolman Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing Prison Rape Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Stan Goff Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq Wayne Madsen Europe Unplugs from the Matrix Robert Fisk Wolfowitz the Censor Elaine Cassel Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico Website of the Day Stop Prisoner Rape     July 31, 2003 Ray McGovern The Prostitution of Intelligence Brian Cloughley Wolfowitz's Operative Statement Sheldon Hull The RIAA's Jihad: The Devil's Music (Industry) Elaine Cassel The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's Wars Hammond Guthrie Speculation Blues Website of the Day Army of One?   July 30, 2003 David Lindorff Poindexter the Terror Bookie Marjorie Cohn Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About the Oil Elaine Cassel How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas in Terror Cases Zvi Bar'el The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War Lisa Walsh Thomas Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend? Sean Carter Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes ND Jayaprakash India and Ariel Sharon Steve Perry Bush's Top 40 Lies Standard Schaefer Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing Website of the Day Bring Them Home Now! Congratulations to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD July 29, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair "Journalist Spotted! Journalist Dead!" Guatemala Bleeds; US Press Yawns Thomas J. Nagy The Belligerent Dr. Pipes Kurt Nimmo Tom Delay Goes to Jerusalem Chris Floyd Dead Reckoning: Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes Robert Fisk Another Botched Raid; Another Massacre Jason Leopold Did Chalabi Help Write Bush's State of the Union Address? Conn Hallinan Food Bully: Bush's Biotech Shock and Awe Campaign Dan Bacher Sacramento's War on Free Speech Ray McGovern Cheney Chicanery Website of the Day Julie Hilden Caught on Tape     Hot Stories 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 Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

August 9, 2003 California's Glorious Recall If Not Camejo, Then Flynt! By ALEXANDER COCKBURN I gave a talk about current politics at Diesel, a fine Oakland independent bookstore, late last week. No one in the leftish crowd seemed notably put out when I declared myself dubious of the proposition, espoused by many in the store, that the only element of mystery about 9/ll was whether George W. Bush had ordered the attacks on the World Trade Center on his own initiative or was merely acting as the catspaw of Dick Cheney. Nor was there any outcry when I denounced Ariel Sharon as a war criminal and his US claque as a bunch of unconscionable rogues. But as soon as I said I couldn't see much reason to get excited about Howard Dean as a candidate for the Democratic nomination, and he seemed to me to be a thoroughly conventional right winger, there was an audible ripple of irritation in the crowd. In the course of an angry denunciation of my unsparing comments about Dean a woman said that the left should be rallying not only to the standard of the former governor of Vermont, but of Governor Gray Davis of California, now facing a recall vote in early October. Gray Davis! There was a time once when "lesser of two evils" actually meant something momentous, like the choice between starving to death on a lifeboat, or eating the first mate. Was there ever a man who brought the always gray phrase "lesser of two evils" into greater disrepute? Shackled to "lesser of two evils" is its dread mate, "compromise". In its funereal syllables is congealed the whole sad history of the US two-party system, from the first compromise in the Constitution allowing the import of slaves till l820, to the Missouri compromise letting that slave state enter the union; to the compromise of l877 which ended reconstruction. The twentieth century was no better. In the compromises that ensured Republican hegemony there was one moment of hope, sparked by the Great Depression and the vast public zeal to get out of it. Then, after the war, America saw programs for full employment, for complete social security. Education at the University of California cost $50 a quarter. Democratic clubs in California exercised strong populist control over prospective candidates. In the years that followed the Democrats slowly bargained everything away, in that same spirit of compromise. No one talks about full employment now. Organized labor is belittled. Oldsters see Social Security being eroded. The paradigm of this downward descent is Grey Davis, who now proclaims that he is going to fight "like a Bengal tiger". It takes one to know one. Bengal tigers like to hang out near some village and eat small cows, fearing even the stately water buffalo. When its teeth go bad the Bengal tiger gives up on the cows and starts attacking elderly, defenseless humans. Davis' only enthusiasms are for raising money and endorsing the death penalty. His main achievement has been to ransom California off to the energy Mafia. He represents the End of Politics as anything remotely honorable or idealistic. But now, when Real Politics gloriously and excitingly raises its head in the recall effort, many leftists bleat nervously about Republican plots, and the need to rally to the Democratic Party and its man in Sacramento. Despite official Green endorsement of the recall effort, many Greens aren't much better. I listened to one the other day, a fellow of normally militant fiber, whining that the recall bid is unleashing "toxic" forces and everyone should work for Davis. But there's a sound Green candidate in the form of Peter Camejo, and surely the recall ballot, with some hundreds of candidates crowding in before next weekend's cut-off, represents the best Green shot at ever capturing any significant slot, with normal voting blocs possibly fracturing. Real Democracy, as opposed to the sham stuff usually on offer, is embodied in the ability to recall politicians who stab their supporters in the back. Davis should face the music. How wonderful it would be to see Larry Flynt roll into the governor's mansion in Sacramento, and by making that possible, Davis would earn himself a page in the history books, not merely a footnote about his skills as a fundraiser. Alexander Cockburn is the coeditor of The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Weekend Edition Features for August 2/3, 2003 Tamara R. Piety Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down Francis Boyle My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool David Vest Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side Neve Gordon Nightlife in Jerusalem Uri Avnery Their Master's Voice: Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus Robert Fisk Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq Jerry Kroth Israel, Yellowcake and the Media Noah Leavitt What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to Intervene? Saul Landau The Film Industry: Business and Ideology Ron Jacobs One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson Thomas Croft In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta Amadi Ajamu Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader? Poets' Basement Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /