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Today's
Stories
October 12,
2004
Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Bill and Kathleen Christison
Israel as Sideshow
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 12, 2004
Progressive
as Pawns
Cannon
Fodder for Kerry's War on Nader
By
STEPHEN CONN
The progressives and peace activists
who are helping to stop Ralph Nader and Peter Miguel Camejo don't
realize it but they are being used by people who represent the
corporate interests, especially the military-industrial complex,
of the two major parties.
After months of fund raising,
research and development of a detailed attack plan, anti-Nader
Democrats hatched a much publicized two pronged attack on the
Nader campaign in meetings with party leaders from Washington,
New Mexico and elsewhere during the Democratic Convention (David
Postman, "Nader foes seek funding from Democratic donors,"
Seattle Times. July 28, 2004).
The first prong was a nationwide
preemptive attack on voters who might choose Nader. The Democratic
Party would field law firms to challenge Nader's access to state
ballots with ubiquitous law suits to deplete his resources and
limit his candidacy. Nader's grassroots campaign would be sued
to death. The second prong was a campaign to insinuate and perpetuate
a lie found effective by polling and focus groups, that Ralph
Nader was a tool of right wing Republicans.
The Ballot Project Inc. was
funded initially by former Monsanto CEO and genetic farming proponent
Robert Shapiro, with another $25,000, (an amount far in excess
of legislated campaign finance limits), from West Coast Democratic
moneyman, Max Palevsky. This 527 group, officially called, "Focus
on Ballot Qualifications, Inc,." was founded in July by
candidate Wesley Clark's former counsel-now- Kerry supporter,
William C. Oldaker, the first FEC General Counsel, an elections
law strategist and longtime Democratic insider. Oldaker is a
partner in the Democratic law firm Oldaker, Biden and Belair
(www.obblaw.com) and founding
principal of the newly formed National Group (thenationalgroup.net).
Its clients, including the Bituminous Coal Association, Delta
Air, Corning Glass, Equifax and Neuralstem Biopharmaceuticals
(which Oldaker co-founded) regularly seek largess and other special
favors from government of the kind Nader has long denounced.
The Ballot Project Inc. coordinates the anti-Nader ballot access
project with hundreds of lawyers throughout the country, including
the banking, drug and advertising industries' favorite, Republican
law firm Reed Smith (Reed
Smith.com) in Pennsylvania and GM's and tobacco giant Brown
and Williamson's defense attorneys, Kirkland and Ellis (Kirkland.com),
in Ohio.
Partners in both the aforementioned
firms have fought Nader's ballot access tooth and nail, expending
hundreds of thousands of dollars in partner hours in their efforts
without a single question from main stream reporters as to how
corporate attorneys of such prominence could justify their pro
bono efforts to restive, paying corporate clients around the
world.
Partners in both Reed Smith
and Kirkland and Ellis have been quoted extensively and favorably
in the New York Times and elsewhere as they portray themselves
as self-appointed guardians of the ballot against the likes of
Ralph Nader and his ilk. Reed Smith, a major corporate law firm
from Pennsylania that has battled Nader over advertising to children
has provided 12 attorneys including 7 partners billed 1,300 hours
to keeping Nader off the ballot. Kirkland and Ellis, Ken Starr's
law firm, which represents GM and other major corporate efforts
is leading the anti-Nader effort in Ohio.
No journalistic suspicions
about this coordinated investment in "good government"
high-mindedness among top corporate law and lobbying firms have
been raised, nor have journalists noticed the profound absence
of the involvement on the other side by civil libertarian groups
who might have rushed to defend the would-be Nader voters' Constitutional
rights.
The second prong, aimed at
voters in states where Nader could not be forced off the ballot
or where he is a still viable write-in candidate, force feeds
voters with the most effective lies discovered in extensive research
by Bill Clinton pollster, Stanley Greenberg, that Nader is "in
bed with," funded and controlled by Right Wing Republicans.
For this agitprop campaign to spread the lies, a Kerry PAC called
United Progressives for Victory was set up in June by Oldaker,
housed in the DC offices of Robert Brandon and Associates, 1730
Rhode Island Ave. suite 712, the same office which houses the
Ballot Project.
Robert Brandon is a typical
Washington public relations flack who sings whatever song is
placed in his mouth with a check. He had already made more campaign
donations to anti-choice and anti-Kerry Senator Orrin Hatch than
to John Kerry, according to Center for Responsive Politics' FEC
data. This is the same Orrin Hatch who recently said terrorists
"are going to throw everything they can between now and
the election to try and elect Kerry," and on Fox News, that
Democrats are "consistently saying things that I think undermine
our young men and women who are serving over there."(Dana*
*Milbank, "Tying Kerry to Terror Tests Rhetorical Limits,".
Washington Post, Sept.27, 2004, p1).
In "open letters,"
full of what lawyers term "boilerplate" focus group
language circulated to national and state progressives and in
press releases, Robert Brandon portrays Nader as a figure head
of the Republican right and as a "divider" of the progressive
moment. Unquestioning anti-war activists and progressives across
the country joined United Progressives for Victory (upforvictory.com)
without a second thought as to the veracity of Brandon's claims,
ever available as cannon fodder for Kerry's unacknowledged Weapon
of Mass Deception. The Center for Responsive Politics had long
concluded that no more than 4% of Nader funds came from Republicans.
But in campaigns, as in war, truth was indeed the first victim.
Media spokesmen for both the
Ballot Project and United Progressives for Victory are Brandon
and Toby Moffett. Moffett is a former Monsanto official, now
lobbyist for foreign countries, the Cayman Islands, Turkey (at
$1.8 million a year) and the Kingdom of Morocco, defense contractors
like Raytheon and Northup Grumman, and McDermott International,
a Houston oil drilling firm interested in asbestos liability
immunity. Moffett is a partner in the Republican (Bob) Livingston
Group (www.livingstongroupdc.com)
and its Livingston-Moffett International Group Practice.
Moffett makes big money for
his clients from the war and occupation of Iraq. One Moffett
client is British firm, De La Rue. It secured contracts to print
new Iraqi money and travel documents through Moffett's efforts.
The Livingston group guided Turkey to its lucrative billion
dollar plus foreign aid alliance with the Bush administration.
Nader cites Moffett for turning
the Democratic Leadership Council into a corporate bag man for
the party. Corporate donations have strings. Ralph Nader contends
these compromises are part of the reason Kerry doesn't take a
firmer position on Iraq or promote health care for all.
Apparently the corporate clients
of Oldaker and Moffett have found no conflict between the political
strategy employed by their agents to deny Nader ballot access
and defame him and their own desires to discredit Nader's anti-corporate
agenda and, with it, the progressive moment -whether or not Kerry
is elected. Anyone who reviews the published client lists (and
glowing self-promotion) on the Livingston or The National Groups
web sites will discover the anti-Nader crusade by the Ballot
Project and Progressives United, designed and orchestrated by
the Democrats, is also a very natural extension of both Oldaker's
and Moffet's clients' desires to maintain and extend their corporate
influence in either a new Kerry or a second Bush administration.
For foreign nations to stand by smugly while their lobbyists
meddle in American state elections is what we in Alaska call,
"skating on very thin ice."
Hatred of the progressive agenda
and persistent public meddling by Ralph Nader in corporate matters
also could be said to create a happy coincidence of self-interest
between corporate clients with their attorneys' legal wars against
Nader in the courts and in the press. Kirkland and Ellis' clients,
GM or Brown and Williamson or twenty-nine of the top thirty big
banks and nine of the top ten drug companies all represented
by Reed and Smith can only gain from conflict within or capitulation
of the progressive movement. Whatever the outcome of the Presidential
race, for their law firms to invest vast professional resources
in destruction of Nader and his reputation will ease the way
for their corporate clients as they interact with government,
especially if Nader's Washington influence is diminished.
And what about the Any-butt-Bush's
-progressives who support these efforts by signing on to anti-Nader
letters drafted by Brandon and Associates for the United Progressives?
Perhaps, for them, the end justifies the means. Perhaps they
were fooled or just went along with people they trusted. Whether
they were duped by the fear put out by the ABB campaign or they
chose the direction on their own, they are clearly being used
by corporate interests who they certainly disagree with.
Antiwar activists, feminists
and environmentalists who enthusiastically ride the Brandon-Oldaker-Moffett
train over Ralph Nader and his anti-war, progressive agenda must
be a great source of amusement to occupants of boardrooms, corporate
law firms, and palaces around the world. Who would have guessed
that progressives would be such naive and willing instruments
in their own destruction in a plan designed by openly acknowledged
advocates for multinational and foreign national agenda? The
Nader's message is, after all, their own. Ignorance of this strategy
and its links back to corporations, their lawyers and lobbyists
is no excuse. Any school child could have surfed the web and
connected the dots. Now progressives, to their probable dismay,
will.
Stephen Conn is a retired Professor of Justice
at the University of Alaska.
Weekend
Edition Features for September 18 / 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Forgeries,
Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery
Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Bush's Mask of Anarchy
Patrick Cockburn
Into the Abyss: the Week Iraq's Dream of Peace Fell Apart
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture)
Joe Allen
The Comrades Kerry Abandoned: the Real Story of Vietnam Vets
Against the War
George Corsetti
Poletown Revisited: Finally, Some Vindication
Scott Handleman
The Knock-Knock of a Sledgehammer: Sequestered in Nablus
Richard Ward
Two Weeks in Beit Arabiya
Conn Hallinan
Ashcroft and Indonesia
Lori Smith
Health Care in America: And Then I Got Sick...
Dave Zirin
Hold the Booyah!: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East
John L. Hess
Rather Will Take the Heat, As Bush's War Deteriorates
Brian J. Foley
W is for Wimp: So Why do Manly Men Love Him?
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman and Osama bin Laden: Odd Juxtapositions
Poets' Basement
Vest, Landau & Albert
Website of the Weekend
Eye on the NYTs
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