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New Special Double-Issue Print Edition of CounterPunch: Alexander Cockburn's India Journal: Travels with Sainath Fakers and fakirs of the Indian neoliberal disaster, from the Indian elites to Bill Gates to Bill Clinton to the New York Times; heroes and villains of the Indian press; 5,000 suicides in Andhra Pradesh and the rise and fall of Chandrababu Naidu, World Bank posterboy; what the British did to India, from Warren Hastings to the Falkland Road; what Indians did to architecture, from the Taj Mahal to the dawn of concrete; making weight in upland Kerala; why America needs south Indian cooking; homage to the great peasant rebellion of 1857; can India recover from "reform"? Get the answers you're looking for in the latest 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! Show the New York Times You Don't Believe a Word of It: CounterPunch's New 14 Per Cent Club T-Shirts Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories June 16, 2005 Tom Barry Meet Bolton's Replacement: Robert "First Strike" Joseph June 15, 2005 Stan Goff An Open Letter to US Troops on Loyalty Daniel Wolff The Palace at 4 A.M. Tim Wise Discover the Nutwork: David Horowitz and the Politics of Ad Hominem Distortion Ricardo Alarcón The New CIA Revelations About Posada Joshua Frank House Republicans vs. Bush: "This is Not a Conservative War" John Hilary Bloodsuckers' Summit: Why the Left Should Rendezvous at the G8 Norman Solomon Iran's Reformers: a Threat to Theocrats and Neocons Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey St. Clair Juries and Lynch Mobs Website of the Day What It Feels Like to be Tasered (Turn Up the Volume) June 14, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Enabling Evil: Bush's Willing Executioners Forrest Hylton Stalemate in Bolivia Richard Gott The Crisis in Bolivia Fred Gardner The Raich Decision: All Power to the Feds Steve Breyman Doing the Right Thing is Also Politically Expedient Dave Zirin Sacred Hoops: Basketball in the Barrio Robert Kent Outsourcing Torture and the Stop-Loss Program Paul Craig Roberts Enabling Evil: Bush's Willing Executioners June 13, 2005 Gary Leupp Another Damning Document Dave Lindorff The Inca and Us John Stauber Mad Cow USA: the Cover-Up Begins to Unravel Fred Gardner Supreme Indignity: Medical Pot Doctors Respond to Justice Stevens Evelyn J. Pringle TeenScreen: the Lawsuits Begin Norman Solomon Letter From Tehran Winslow T. Wheeler Neo-Con Unfurls the Big Picture     June 10 / 12, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Thomas Friedman's Imaginary World Sharon Smith Torturers and Liars: Masters of Deception Brian Cloughley "Support Our Torturers!" Chris Kromm Home Cookin': Pentagon's Base Relignment Plan Would Increase South's Share Heather Gray A Day in Mississippi: Some Things Have Changed; Some Remain the Same Kevin Zeese What the Left Must Learn from 2004: an Interview with Josh Frank Mickey Z. The Pentagon Papers, 34 Years Later Gary Leupp A Review of Sison's "At Home in the World" Eli Stephens The Asshole in El Paso: Why Posada Carriles Matters Nick Dearden A Scottish Band in the Occupied Territories Oscar Olivera Recovering Bolivia's Oil and Gas Robert Fisk Screening "Kingdom of Heaven" in Beirut Michael Dickinson Oh My God!: Gunning for Blasphemers Poets' Basement Engel, Albert, Louise, Ford Website of the Weekend Gravity's Rainbow, Illustrated June 9, 2005 Len Colodny Felt Was Asked Under Oath in 1975 If He Was "Deep Throat" Christopher Brauchli From Baseballs to Hand Grenades Ron Jacobs Light a Candle; Curse the Darkness Dave Lindorff US Media Shamed by Brit Journalist Katrina Yeaw / Alex Schmaus Repression 101: Anti-War Students Sanctioned at SFSU Alan Farago Spin Machine Busts a Gasket in the Everglades: Fed Judge Whacks Jeb Saul Landau The Charmed Life of a Mass Murderer   June 8, 2005 Jim Hougan Strange Bedfellows Deep Throat, Bob Woodward and the CIA Alan Maass Is Bolivia on the Edge of Revolution? an Interview with Tom Lewis Jason Leopold Enron Lives!: Former Army Sec. White Wants Govt. Money for New Energy Scam Niranjan Ramakrishnan Exit Right, Advani: Unpardonable Acts of Statesmanship Dave Zirin The Rotting Soul of the 49ers Derrick O'Keefe Bush's Terrorist: the Case of Posada Carriles Diana Johnstone Non, Neen, Angelene! Why Defenders of the "Oui" are Wrong Website of the Day The Meatrix   June 7, 2005 Forrest Hylton Bolivia's Agony of the Stalement Continues Greg Moses / Susan van Haitsma Pushing Back the Violence Lenni Brenner What Madison Would Think About the Air Force Academy's Offical Fanatics Col. Dan Smith Liberation vs. Survival in Iraq Joshua Frank Dean at the DNC: the Establishment vs. the Elites Dave Lindorff Fair-Weather Allies: US Denies French Fighters Emergency Landing Rights Margot Veranes / Adrian Navarro Xenophobia in the Desert: Racist Fever Becomes Law in Arizona Michael Neumann Sharing Music: Property Gone Wild   June 6, 2005 Stew Albert Everybody Must Get Busted: Supremes Rule Against the Sick Paul Craig Roberts Federal Bureau of Entrapment Nicole Colson Inside Walter Reed Hospital Ali Khan Friendly Renditions to Muslim Torture Chambers Jason Leopold When Will Rumsfeld Be Indicted? Charles Walker Poff Rumsfeld, China and Hypocrisy Ramzy Baroud My Grandpa's Right of Return Rep. John Conyers Did Bush Deliberately Deceive America About Iraq? Evelyn Pringle TeenScreen's Top Pusher Gary Corseri 25 Reasons to Impeach Bush Website of the Day Save This 200 Year Old Burr Oak from Bible Thumpers with Chainsaws   June 4 / 5, 2005 Alexander Cockburn France's Magnificent Non! James Petras The Centrality of Peasant Movements in Latin America Robert Fisk Who Killed Samir? Patrick Cockburn My Father, Claud Cockburn, the MI5 Suspect Rev. William Alberts When Pride in Power Corrupts: the Story of a Methodist President, His Bishops and an "Incompatible" Lesbian Minister Saul Landau 40 Interns and a Mule: Will the Dems Ever Take Advantage of the Republicans' Blunders? Mario Lamo Jimenez Dante with a Brush: Botero Immortalizes Bush Dave Lindorff What is the Media Running From? Lance Selfa Why Bush is Getting Away with Murder Tom Crumpacker On the Use of State Terrorism: the Posada Precedent Joshua Frank How Beltway Dems Sank Dean for America Fred Gardner Don't Bogart That Taxable Commodity Michael Dickinson Roll Out the Barrel: Blood, Oil and Baku Roger Martin We Can See, But Not Far Enough Reza Fiyouzat Welcome to the Third World Ben Tripp Romance: Advice from a Pro Graeme Greenback Pardon Me, While I Piss on this Bible Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Albert, Engel, Smith       June 3, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Welcome to a Has-Been Country Joseph Massad Witch Hunt at Columbia Jeff Halper The Process of Transfer Continues Tom Barry The Immigration Debate: Whose Side Are You On? Bruce K. Gagnon Bush Seeks Military Control of Space: "It's Our Destiny" Joshua Frank Bombing Iran: Facts Don't Matter Mickey Z. Deep Throat as Sideshow Gary Leupp "Peddling Lies About How They Were Mistreated" Website of the Day Tattoo on My Heart: Warriors of Wounded Knee, 1973     June 2, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts The Slave Traders of the Gitmo Gulag Forrest Hylton Bolivia: the Agony of Stalemate Mike Whitney Post-Mortem on the 4th Amendment: Warrants without Judges Brian Cloughley Anarchy in Afghanistan; Ignorance in America Mazin Qumsiyeh A Two-State Solution is No Solution Russell D. Hoffman High Tension at San Onofre Norman Madarasz "Le Jolie Mois de Mai": the Meaning of the French "Non" Norman Solomon War Made Easy: from Vietnam to Iraq David Price The Shallowness of Deep Throat Website of the Day Fallujah on Film     June 1, 2005 James Petras Beyond Hypocrisy: the Deeper Meaning of Posada Justin Delacour Framing Venezuela: US Media Bias Against Chavez Edward Jay Epstein Was "Deep Throat" a Fictoid? Omar Barghouti / Lisa Taraki The AUT Boycott: Freedom vs. "Academic" Freedom Dave Lindorff When War Goes Off the Script Kevin Zeese Reality Check: Who to Believe on Iraq War and Gitmo? Jason Leopold When Presidents Lie William S. Lind Wreck It and Run     May 31, 2005 Sen. Mike Gravel Thank You, Mark Felt: We Need a New Deep Throat David Krieger US Nuclear Hypocrisy Tad Daley The Nuclear Me-Too Club Joshua Frank Pelosi at AIPAC: Israel Comes First Richard Gott Chavez Leads the Way Norman Solomon Time to Get Serious About Impeachment Tom Segev Our Man in the Territories Walter Brasch Killing Americans with Secrecy Diana Johnstone The French "Non"     May 28 / 30, 2005 Alexander Cockburn There's Their Way or the Galloway Richard Lichtman We Wuz Framed! the Consolations of George Lakoff Sharon Smith The Road to Abu Ghraib Paul Craig Roberts Bush Opts for Civil War in Iraq Dave Lindorff Whigged Out: the Dems Have Become Merely a Vestigial Opposition Party Ramzy Baroud Muslims Were Desecrated, Not Just Their Holy Book Brian Cloughley Why Are Nukes OK for You, But Not for Us? Fred Gardner Advice from a Lawyer About Medical Pot Lee Sustar Chavez Gets Proactive Joshua Frank Isikoff Comes Clean: "Nobody in the US Said a Word, Until the Riots" Justin E.H. Smith What About the People? a Report from Romania Jackie Corr A Montana History Lesson on Assfulness Michael Kimaid Bush as Ahab Toufic Haddad Lessons from the Reversal of the AUC Boycott Justin Taylor The Fear of Paul Virilio Amir Butler Searching for a Saladin Ben Tripp Insomnia and Sarcasm Poets' Basement Albert, Engel, Davies and Louise   May 27, 2005 Gary Leupp It Really is a Crusade! Daniel Estulin Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005 Kevin Zeese Iraq Withdrawal Vote: If Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones Can See the Light, Why Can't Nancy Pelosi? Robert Fisk Mubarak's Goon Squads Dave Zirin Why Pat Tillman's Parents Are No Longer Silent Website of the Day Stuckists                                                   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

June 15, 2005 The Madness of Money As We Forgive Our Debtors By MICHAEL DICKINSON Money, which has hitherto been the root, if not of all evil, of great injustice, oppression, and misery to the human race, making some slavish producers of wealth, and others its wasteful consumers or destroyers, will be no longer required to carry on the business of life: for as wealth of all kinds will be so delightfully created in greater abundance than will ever be required, no money price will be known, for happiness will not be purchasable, except by a reciprocity of good actions and kind feelings. Robert Owen, Book of the New Moral World, 1842-4 At least half a million protesters are expected to march in the streets of Edinburgh on July 2nd, demanding that world leaders gathering for their G8 summit meeting there comply with demands raised by global movement Make Poverty History. Demonstrations will continue through the week. The UK lobby group, comprising a wide cross section of nearly 400 charities, campaigns, trade unions, faith groups and celebrities, are demanding debt cancellation to poor (mostly African) nations, the doubling of aid, and trade justice. Speaking at a Make Poverty History rally in London's Trafalgar Square earlier this year, Nelson Mandela said: "The G8 leaders, when they meet in Scotland in July, have already promised to focus on the issue of poverty, especially in Africa. I say to all those leaders: do not look the other way; do not hesitate. Recognize that the world is hungry for action, not words. Act with courage and vision. "Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom. "Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom. Of course the task will not be easy. But not to do this would be a crime against humanity, against which I ask all humanity now to rise up." He also said: "Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings." By abolishing money, perhaps? That isn't natural, either. Wouldn't that be the best solution in the world? Because even Make Poverty History admits it's not going to actually make poverty history. Along with Bob Geldof's pop pressure group Live 8, they are merely reminding world powers to do what they had already promised to do when they endorsed the Millenium Development Agreement in the year 2000 to cut by half the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day by 2015 - ten years from now. This would slowly wipe away only the worst instances of poverty and starvation in the world today, giving the afflicted the bare essentials of life and just enough food to stop them from dying. That goal achieved would still leave hundreds of millions of others still living below the one-dollar threshold. Poverty and inequality would still be rampant. New challenging arguments for effective change demand to be examined. It's 2015. The lucky half finally gets their dollar a day. Hip hip hooray! In the meantime prices have rocketed, and as the ungrateful recipients point out, they can't eat money. It doesn't taste nice. Can't we have food instead? The gap between rich and poor is immense. The richest fifth of the world population has approximately 75 times the wealth of the poorest fifth. More than 1.0 billion people in developing countries lack access to safe water. Every year more than 10 million children die of preventable illnesses. More than 500,000 women a year die in pregnancy and childbirth, with such death 100 times more likely in Sub-Saharan Africa. Around the world 42 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, 39 million of them in developing countries. Tuberculosis remains the leading infectious killer of adults, causing up to 2 million deaths a year. Malaria deaths, now 1 million a year, could double in the next 20 years. "Oh, it would cost too much to eradicate these problems just like that!" say our leaders. "Give to charities! Do your bit, and we'll get there one day!" Instead of saving lives and bettering the existence of others with their money, the British and American governments, for example, prefer to spend billions every month on weapons of war and on their illegal occupation of Iraq, a bloody fiasco which has caused the deaths of countless thousands. Capitalism just 'aint fair. It's a system of inequality and injustice; it fosters division and hatred, and it's dominated by the big corporations which in turn dominate our govenments with the powerful influence of their cash. Money is God, and every day countless victims are sacrificed upon its altar, slain to appease the unquenchable thirst for profit. It's not only our friends from the third world who suffer under the tyrannous suzerainty of Money. The poor in the developed world hardly get off lightly. Mass unemployment, living off welfare, crap housing, crap education, lousy second rate health care, struggling to pay the bills which arrive with sickening regularity month after month after month until it's finally time for the funeral oops! Did you remember to pay for that? Meanwhile, as the poor suffer their life of drudgery, the lifestyle of the rich is flaunted in their faces; the mansions and automobiles, hairdressers and health spas, the laughing parties, the drinking and feasting; free from care, 'cos they got it, and you'aint. Things have change little since D.H. Lawrence wrote this poem in 1929: Money is our madness, our vast collective madness. And of course, if the multitude is mad the individual carries his own grain of insanity around with him. I doubt if any man living hands out a pound note without a pang; and a real tremor, if he hands out a ten-pound note. We quail, money makes us quail. It has got us down; we grovel before it in strange terror. And no wonder, for money has a fearful cruel power among men. But it is not money we are so terrified of, it is the collective money-madness of mankind. For mankind says with one voice: How much is he worth? Has he no money? Then let him eat dirt, and go cold. -- And if I have no money, they will give me a little bread so I do not die, but they will make me eat dirt with it. I shall have to eat dirt, I shall have to eat dirt if I have no money. It is that that I am frightened of. And that fear can become a delirium. It is fear of my money-mad fellow-men. We must have some money to save us from eating dirt. And this is all wrong. Bread should be free, shelter should be free, fire should be free to all and anybody, all and anybody, all over the world. We must regain our sanity about money before we start killing one another about it. It's one thing or the other. D. H. Lawrence, Pansies, 1929 Slaves and prostitutes...that's we all are under the capitalist system and money is a kind of syphilis that infects all who come in contact with it. A nasty disease that spreads pride, envy, anger, avarice, sadness, gluttony and lust the seven deadly sins on tap in one clever human creation Money! Poverty, misery, corruption and waste will never cease as long as we remain under the thrall of the filthy lucre. It's time to grab the golden calf by the horns and topple it. Let's think about doing away with money! Start by making a list of all those occupations in which millions of people are enslaved at the moment, performing jobs which would become entirely useless in a moneyless world, not the slightest good to anybody. That would include everything to do with costing and selling: Bankers, bookkeepers, accountants, cashiers, salesmen, customs officers, security guards, locksmiths, wages clerks, tax assessors, advertising men, stockbrokers, insurance agents, ticket punchers, slot machine emptiers, industrial spies all of these would go for a start. Other occupations harmful to humanity such as the manufacture of pesticides, food additives and armaments would also be obsolete. Everybody working in these jobs would be redundant. But it wouldn't matter a bit, because they wouldn't have to worry about paying bills. There wouldn't be any. No money no bills. Relax! Some jobs would of course still be necessary in the new moneyless society. Essential services like food production and distribution, waste disposal, furniture and clothing manufacture, but with so many freed workers available to do them, as well as modern technology and robots, working hours would be at a minimum and people would be able to devote most of their time to pastimes, education, the arts, music, sport, science whatever they liked. Everything would be free (there is more than plenty even now!), and everybody would work for free willingly. When you wanted something you'd go get it from the Free Mall, or call and ask for the service. "Give to him that asketh, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away," would be the norm, and in may ways this moneyless world is the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth which Jesus advocated in his Sermon on the Mount; the rightful reward for the meek and poor in spirit, where there will be no need to worry about what we shall eat or what we shall drink or wherewithal we shall be clothed. Once the free and just moneyless world (the kingdom of Heaven) is established, "all these things shall be added unto you." They that mourn shall be comforted, and they which hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon (money)," Jesus said, so let's opt for the former, by serving each other. You don't even need faith in a supernatural creator to see the righteousness in the only real law necessary - "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Anyway, in the new society Mammon will be extinct. The ancient Babylonians called gold 'the shit of hell'. Jesus didn't like money either. Remember how he tipped over the tables of the money-lenders in the temple, condemning them as a bunch of thieves? It's time for us to turn the tables on the system. The environmental crisis which looms over the entire world today and threatens our future is a result of capitalist activities and will only become worse if we let them continue. Finding a new fair way of managing things is of paramount importance. We all share this single planet earth, and we'd better start thinking globally, or the human race is doomed! Is it insane to question whether money is a sensible social institution? It's not all that long ago that it was considered heresy to question whether the earth was really flat. John Lennon's 'Imagine' was voted the number one song of the last millennium, suggesting there are more than a few 'dreamers' out there. If you're one of them, why not share your ideas? Talk about the ideal society that the world might have; discuss, argue, plan - in pubs, cafes, schools, churches, temples and mosques; even at work! Let's make poverty history for definite. Abolish money! "You've got to have a dream, If you don't have a dream, How you gonna have a dream come true?" Happy Talk (from 'South Pacific') MICHAEL DICKINSON is a writer and artist who works as an English teacher in Istanbul, Turkey. He designed the cover art for two CounterPunch books, Serpents in the Garden and Dime's Worth of Difference, as well as Grand Theft Pentagon, forthcoming from Common Courage Press. He can be contacted at www.stuckism.com, where collages from his recently banned website can be seen.