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Today's
Stories
October 22
/ 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
You
Can't Blame Nader for This
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
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?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
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.
|
Weekend Edition
October 22 / 24, 2004
Killing for
Christ
The
Destructive Power of Faith
By
WILLIAM A. COOK
A pall hangs over this election, a shroud
of darkness that oppresses the heart because its outcome guarantees
no change, only the certainty of continued chaos if Bush should
win and the unknown direction a Kerry victory might take, a direction
that could continue the chaos America's mired in, a darkness,
then, to appall. I read each day the crippling accounts of soldiers
caught in a maelstrom of unseen death lurking on roof tops, in
narrow alleys, behind cement walls and black windows, beneath
tires littering the streets. I see pictures of burned out buses,
sidewalks and curbs bathed with blood, faces twisted in pain,
bits and pieces of flesh scattered about like fallen leaves,
blown helter-skelter by the wind. Faces, I see suffering on so
many faces, mothers weeping over their dying children, old women
and men huddled in the debris left of their bulldozed home, medics
carrying the lifeless body of a man whose hand rests beside his
face held there by the torn shred of his sleeve, his arm gone,
his body black with grime.
This is a world gone mad, a
madness on all sides, the madness of greed that sees in oil the
riches of Sultans and Kings, the madness of arrogant pseudo-philosophers
who conjure beliefs of personal superiority that gives them license
to conquer and enslave, the madness of ancient minds that dreamt
of power and glory in covenants with gods, the madness of fanatics
that fabricate fantasy out of indecipherable images lodged in
pages of metaphors, the madness of little minds that grab onto
faith as the golden ring that will bring them salvation, the
madness of those born again to the child's world of impossible
dreams forgoing in their new world the reality of this.
Today I read of depleted uranium,
1000 metric tons made from the deadly U238 isotope dropped on
America's killing fields, that wafts on the wind like aerosol
spray, a toxic death that sticks in human lungs, bringing a slow
and painful death. I saw pictures of new born children bloated
and bruised by scars, eyes missing, a nose of scar tissue and
nostrils, no lips, the detritus of our advanced civilization
scattered on hospital beds in Baghdad. I read of soldiers twisted
in mind and spirit by no visible symptom except the phantom of
our cursed nuclear waste that encircles them in their tank and
haunts them the remainder of their lives. Our young return from
this nightmare of devastation devastated themselves courtesy
of our Commander in Chief.
And I read today that 24,010 Americans have been evacuated with
wounds and injuries from our "war" zones, that 37,000
innocent men, women, and children in Afghanistan and Iraq have
died and more than 500,000 have suffered wounds. And I hear the
silence, the deafening silence of indifference that our compassionate
conservative leader offers to those who suffer the consequence
of his acts, and feel with them the utter helplessness of their
plight. And I wait for a word from Kerry that he, too, hears
their pain, that he will stop the slaughter in Afghanistan and
Iraq and Palestine ... and I wait in vain; there is no condemnation,
no plan to end the conflicts, no recognition that states terrorize,
no acceptance of the right of people to fight the oppressor,
no confession of wrong waged against the innocent that had not
the intention or the means to threaten America.
I have heard these men, both
Bush and Kerry, attest to their deep rooted religious principles,
the depth of their faith in the teachings of Jesus, comforting
the citizenry that they are fit for the White House because they
believe. But I see nothing of Jesus in their behavior, nothing
of the compassion that attended his ministry, nothing of the
inclusiveness of his teachings, nothing of the love he proffered
as the binding source of peace throughout the world.
I look in vain for this Christ
in the Christianity practiced by the right wing, fanatical sects
that preach the Book of Revelation, reveling in the glory they
perceive to be their reward if they destroy the enemies they
identify as the enemies of God. I wonder where in this acclaimed
Christian land of TV Evangelists and literalist ministers is
there a man who acts as Christ would act? I see none. I see only
a God forsaken Tele-Evangelist land of vitriol and bigotry where
none could say I "love the Lord my God with my whole heart
and mind and soul, and my neighbor as myself." They have
buried the teachings of Jesus in the quagmire of a malevolent
and malicious God of the Old Testament, a God that would order
one Semitic tribe to exterminate another. We have not moved beyond
the racist hatred that blotted the landscape 2500 years ago.
I would have thought the founding
fathers' voices would have turned us against such barbarity,
for they knew that such religions were anathema to the rights
of the people and to the fledgling Democracy they desired to
create. They expunged such organized zealots of religion from
civil discourse precisely because they knew its inherent destructive
nature. But, no, we have the airwaves turned into streams of
venom that flow from the mouths of the heralded self-worshipers
whose mantra is hatred for their fellow man, the likes of Pat
Robertson, Pastor John Hagee, Franklin Graham, Hal Lindsey, and,
now, even our blessed generals who defile the houses of worship
not with coins but with cursed bigotry in the person of General
Boykin.
I wonder how any person can
stand against the tribes that follow these accursed men? What
voice can reach the soul of men, if soul they still have after
their life of crime, that has been lodged deep in their bloody
wallets made fat with their racist hatred for their fellows whose
only sin is their belief in a God different from their own? They
mount their campaigns on fear, fear lodged in a word that defies
definition because it slips and slides, nay, it slithers through
meaning like molten lava over rock burying it beneath layers
of hot and passionate rhetoric, a word without substance or sense,
a word seething with diffidence, anxiety, suspicion, even horror,
the word is faith. No word evokes more fear and mistrust; no
word has caused more chaos and wanton destruction, as the Crusades
and the Conquistadors, rampaging through Central America, attest;
no word can put people in such a state of doubt that they acquiesce
to prophets of doom century after century; no word has been and
continues to be more destructive in the mouths of fanatics. That
is the destructive power of blind faith!
Fanatics have a way, whether
they be the Imams guiding Hamas or the robed ministers of Robertson's
TV Club or the ultra right Zionists in Israel, with those who
abdicate responsibility to think for themselves, those who hand
over their minds and conscience to them as they thunder their
prophetic curses in dramatic tirades, bathing their flocks in
fear and loathing. These fanatics in America, who exist through
the courtesy of a democratic secular system that tolerates their
presence if not their message, fetter the minds of their laity
with absolute truths generated out of myths, negating thereby
the very semblance of democratic thought that is premised on
individual responsibility; and the lambs they lead to slaughter
do not know it. These fanatics defy the laws of the secular state
by determining for their congregations what political party they
must support, what candidates they must vote for, and what policies
they must accept. And for this defiance they pay no taxes!
But it's worse than that. These
same fanatics literally compel their congregants, on fear of
eternal damnation in Hell's fire, to strap themselves in the
swaddling clothes of death and bring that gift to all around
them, to support terrorists in the occupied territories of Palestine,
to proclaim an enemy identified in the Book of Revelation, an
Arab enemy who worships in the Islamic faith. And for this incitement
to murder they pay no taxes and suffer no incarceration. What
else do we call it but killing for Christ, killing for Allah,
killing for Yahweh!
This is our dilemma. We Americans
pay the bill; they act in our name. How can we, who speak with
the conviction of our conscience, hope to remove the hatred a
Hagee or a Robertson breeds against God's creatures? The pictures
I saw today of dead and dying children in Iraq, pictures too
horrific to be put in main stream newspapers or shown on TV,
pictures that cry to the human soul that the pain and suffering
must stop also cry out to every true Christian that Jesus' teachings
never allowed for such wanton slaughter. Yet these are the innocent
victims of our fanatical dependence on the preaching of these
men who sit safely ensconced on their splendid chairs amidst
tall vases of flowers, smiling beatifically for the cameras.
How can we witness Bush's acceptance,
indeed his encouragement, of Ariel Sharon's savagery and not
condemn his acts as anathema to the teachings of the Christ he
proclaims as his God? How can we suffer in silence the ferociousness
of Sharon as he spreads his hatred and nihilism over the bloodied
landscape of the unholy lands of ancient Palestine? Our indifference,
our silence blessed the rape of Rafah in May, God's month of
renewal; our indifference and our silence blessed a summer of
slaughter in the season of God's increase; and today, our indifference
and our silence acquiesce to a season of harvest that gathers
in the dead and maimed in Gaza.
Where is the voice of America
that should cry against these killing fields, these American
supported killing fields, these murderous rampages that defile
the love Jesus begged we have for our neighbor, a love equal
to that we have for ourselves?
Where are the Priests, the
Rabbis, the Imams, the quiet Buddha monks, all who claim to love
humankind? Why does silence reign? Whose voice are we afraid
of? Where are the voices of our leaders, where is Kerry, where
is Dean, where is Edwards? Why do we hear words of condemnation
when we witness the wanton slaughter in Beslan of children in
school yet hear not a word when the IDF slaughters the children
in the kindergarten in Jabaliya or our missiles miss their intended
target and destroy the lives of innocent people? Does one mother's
weeping reach our ear and another goes unheard? I would that
every mother's cry would reach our ears as it rents the sky that
we might know what Christ meant when he said, "Love the
Lord thy God with thy whole heart and mind and soul, and thy
neighbor as thyself."
William Cook is a professor of English at the University
of La Verne in southern California. His new book, Psalms
for the 21st Century, was published by Mellen
Press. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU
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
/
|