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Today's
Stories
September 14,
2004
Jennifer van
Bergen
What's
Wrong with Torture?
September 13,
2004
Gabriel Kolko
Elections,
Alliances and the American Empire
Phillip Cryan
How Do You Say "Death Squad?": Language in Colombia's
War
Patrick Cockburn
One of Baghdad's Bloodiest Days: "I'm a Journalist! I'm
Dying! I'm Dying"
Noah Leavitt
The War on Civil Liberties
Robert Jensen
Highjacking Catastrophe: Bush, the Neo-Cons and 9/11
Mike Whitney
Alan Greenspan: Fed-Master to the Wealthy
John Chuckman
Stop Talking About the "Election"
Mike Burke
Kerry/Edwards Website Censors Discussion of Israel/Palestine
Issues
CounterPunch
Wire
The Quotations of David Cobb: "I Don't Care How Many Votes
I Get"
Website of the Day
Keep It In Your Pants: the Bush Plan to Combat Teen Promiscuity
September 11
/ 12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Swatting
at Flies
Fred Gardner
Yet Another Prozac Scandal
Saul Landau
When Our Assassins Go Free
Jennifer Van Bergen
How to Beat Bush: a Simple Strategy for the Average American
Roger Burbach
/ Jim Tarbell
The Real Dead Enders: Iraq and the Crisis of Empire
Christopher Reed
9/11 in an Historical Context: a Minor Event When Compared to
Worldwide War Casualties
Francisc Catalin
An ABC of American Interventions
Carl Estabrook
Big Science and Government Terror
Bernard Chazelle
Anti-Americanism: a Clinical Study
Sharon Smith
Third Party Blues
Dave Lindorff
Perhaps This Time We're the Silent Majority
Mike Whitney
Fallujah: an Iraqi Beslan?
Frederick B.
Hudson
Their Sons Perished in the Flames, But Not Their Faith
Mickey Z.
Round Up the Usual Suspects: a Look Back at 9/11
Ron Jacobs
Redneck Music for the New Century
Greg Moses
Soap Opera Moments in Texas School Funding Trial
Benjamin Dangl
/ Andrew Kennis
An Interview with Leslie Cagan
Poets Basement
Del Papa, Albert, Gelman
September 10,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Disappointment
at Samarrah?
Michael Donnelly
Democrats v. Democracy
Alan Farago
Mosquitoes in a Hurricane
Doug Giebel
Karl Rove's Terror Playbook
Mike Whitney
Bob Graham's Political Tsunami
David Domke
God's
Will, According to the Bush Administration
September 9,
2004
Joe Bageant
Karaoke
Night in Bush's America
Ed Kinane
Abducted in Baghdad
Peter Bohmer
The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future
Todd May
The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution
Jeremy Scahill
The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad
Joshua Frank
Green House Party Gasses
Fran Shor
The Crisis in Public Dissent: When Protest is Considered a Terrorist
Act
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome
to the Dirtiest City in the World: Despair in Baghdad
Website of
the Day
Liberty Street Protest: No to War at Ground Zero
September 8,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
This
Doesn't Smell Like Victory: A War on Two Fronts in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush Confuses; Kerry Mute: Spinning 1000 Dead
Bulent Gokay
Russian and Chechnia After Beslan
Lisa Viscidi
Land Reform and Conflict in Guatemala
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Byrd's Eye View
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan: American's Drug Colony
Stan Goff
Body
Count: 1001
Website of
the Day
Bush and the Love Doctors
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
September 7,
2004
Diane Christian
Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker
Joshua Frank
Greens
Unravel from Within
Patrick Cockburn
Fallujah
Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000
Ron Jacobs
Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men"
Chris Floyd
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed
Dr. Carol Wolman
No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade
John Ross
The
Politics of Darkness North / South
September 6,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
An
Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted
For Taft-Hartley?
Ralph Nader
The
Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for
Working People
Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
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.
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September 14, 2004
The Nuance
Comes Off
Former
Naderites Beg for Kerry Votes
By
MICHAEL DONNELLY
It's desperation time. Ever since John
Kerry's Grand Canyon Concession Speech, fearful libs have taken
to, once again, attacking Ralph Nader and his supporters, as
if that's the magic carpet the pro-war Democrat will ride to
the White House.
As the Democrats' sleazy efforts
to deny ballot status and resultant voter choice for Nader continues
to crumble - a judge in Idaho will likely follow courageous Oregon
Judge Paul Lipscomb and place Nader on the Idaho ballot - it
falls to the self-nuetered "Greens" and other former
Nader backers to try and wheedle progressives into the Kerry
fold.
In a two days this week, we've
seen minor-office elected Greens go after Nader and the next
day over 70 academics, actors, authors and nonprofit professionals
from Nader's 2000 Citizens Committee sent out a statement "urg(ing)
support for Kerry/Edwards in all "'swing states,' even while
we strongly disagree with Kerry's policies on Iraq and other
issues...Progressive votes for John Kerry in swing states may
prove decisive..."
This surrender doc was signed
by Noam Chomsky, Ben Cohen, Phil Donahue, Barbara Ehrenrich,
Jim Hightower, Bonnie Raitt, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Cornel
West and Howard Zinn among others.
Greens for
Impact (sic)
Declaring it a matter of "critical...progressive
unity," three Greens from the ironically named group Greens
for Impact have come clean and dropped all pretense of having
ANY impact at all.
These guys, two city councilors
and a state rep, published an opinion piece in the Sunday, September
12 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel http://www.jsonline.com/ which
was predictably reprinted Monday by the pro-Kerry liberal website
Common Dreams. Their high-pitched piece makes Harry Lonsdale,
author of a seminal Anybody But Bush piece which was also distributed
by Common Dreams last winter, look like a statesman. http://www.counterpunch.org/donnelly01312004.html
With a mixture of vicious Nader
bashing, hyperbole, inanities and outright fabrications; David
Segal, Austin King and John Eder lay out quite succinctly David
Cobb's "Safe State" (non)strategy which has beached
the Greens on the rocks this election year (and in the future)
as firmly as hurricane season has the fleets of the Caribbean.
Nader Bashing: "We are
heartened that this year the Green Party nominated the pragmatic
and principled Cobb rather than endorse Nader and his scorched
earth campaign, with little concern for the way it affects the
election's outcome or the lives of voters. We are adamant in
our belief that Nader's unilateral, adversarial tactics are counterproductive."
These guys above all certainly
should not be using Cobb's candidacy and the term "scorched
earth campaign" in the same decade, much less same sentence.
Ditto; "principled." This comes from a group proud
to have used decidedly "unilateral, adversarial tactics"
to nominate the "principled Cobb" who garnered but
12% of the Green Party's rank and file votes in ALL pre-convention
Primaries, caucuses and state conventions combined! Guess the
resulting implosion of the Green Party was "productive."
Hyperbole: "Real people's
lives are at stake. The outcome of this election holds tremendous
consequences for the future of abortion rights, civil rights,
gay rights, spending on social programs and countless other issues
affecting those shut out from power."
And just what has it been that
has motivated the noted "unilateralist" Nader all these
years? Just contrast Nader's work and positions on these issues
with the non-impact and rollbacks of Kerry and the Democrats.
And, after all these decades of scared liberals voting for the
Democrats in election after election, if the Democrats and Kerry
were/are so good, then why are these issues still unresolved
in our favor? Are we doomed to merely having them brought up
Groundhog Day-like every four years just in order to keep progressives
in the Democrat stable? Have these issues become like the annual
shadow dance over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge (ANWR) - a predictable foxtrot whereby nothing ever changes,
but politically-correct non-votes are duly recorded on the scorecards
of both sides' interest groups?
Outright Lie: "Despite
the mainstream media's characterization of Democrats as unified
and progressives as mobilized, former consumer advocate Ralph
Nader continues to divide the left, by bashing Democrats for
their complacency and attacking Green Party nominee David Cobb
for challenging his monopoly on the progressive vote."
Of course, Nader takes on the
Democrats for fiddling while the world burns. What part of opposition
candidate don't these guys understand? Every part? At least they
paired up Democrats and "complacency" as has most of
the Left for quite some time now.
But, Nader has NEVER "attack(ed)
Cobb." I've never even seen a single sentence from Ralph
Nader concerning the undemocratic nature of the Cobb nomination,
much less any commentary on Cobb himself (or his cabal of undemocratic
cronies), though they ARE running for the same position. Some
folks would deem it part of the process to draw out distinctions
between competing candidates. What are they attempting right
here if not that? But what's needed are real distinctions, not
this fabricated nonsense we have from Segal, King and Eder.
Perhaps, they cannot find any.
Just this week, the
Democrats
proved once again that there isn't even "A Dime's Worth
of Difference" between the two major parties. An overwhelming
bipartisan majority of 406-16 passed a resolution linking Iraq
to the Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Every credible analysis, including that of the barely credible
9/11 Commission, concluded that no such links ever existed.
Inanity: "To vanquish
'the politics of lesser-evilism' once and for all, we encourage
the left to focus its energies on Instant Runoff Voting. Under
IRV, voters rank candidates in the order of their preferences.
Candidates with the lowest vote totals are eliminated and their
votes are transferred to their supporters' next most preferred
candidates. This process is repeated until a candidate achieves
a majority."
So, there you have it. This
Nader-derived fantasy solution, one that they failed to even
use at their own nominating convention, should be the "focus"
of the left. Though highly unlikely, we'll adopt a Parliamentary
Democracy in the USA before this IRV beast ever gets off the
ground, even if it was desired by the greater public more than
it was by the GP in its own internal processes.
But perhaps the most disingenuous
part of the whole sorry screed is this:
"Even worse, in several
states Nader will be the candidate of the right-wing Reform Party,
meaning that voting for him in those states will help the Reform
Party maintain its ballot lines, thereby aiding in voicing that
party's radical xenophobia."
That's right: bash Ross Perot
and the Reform Party which DID cause the reelection defeat of
Bush the Elder, giving us that other Kerry champion, Bill Clinton.
At the same time, maintaining the Green Party's ballot lines
matters not at all, as Cobb himself has said in an interview
with Michael Albert at Z-Net, "I am not very concerned with
my vote total." The Green Party is in danger of losing hard-won
(yes, by Nader and his running mate, Peter Camejo) ballot status
in a dozen sates - a certainty given Cobb's microscopic polling.
I have yet to hear a single
Republican (and yes, I know quite a few) disparage Ross Perot
and the millions who voted for him; content to bide their time
knowing they would need those Perot voters in the future and
that alienating them further was, indeed, "counterproductive."
Yet, the Cobbite caucus of the Democratic Party consistently
and mindlessly insults the very guy who "built the Green
Party" AND the 2.7 million who voted Green last election.
Talk about "little concern for...the lives (and rights)
of voters!"
In writing a piece last year
on his safe state strategy called "Growing the Greens"
Cobb noted, "In the battleground states that will decide
the election, we understand if you won't vote for our ticket
this time. That's OK."
And, we understand, as well.
On this point Cobb did display more pragmatism and principle
than one can find in Segal, King and Eder's shrill, defeatist
rant or even the statement of the 70 Nader ex-pats. How brainless
of them to join the Democrats in trashing Nader and Nader supporters.
How dim-witted are these whiny, begging, yet hostile efforts
on behalf of the other half of the War Party duopoly? The only
possible result is the destruction of the very raison d'être
of the Green Party. How's that for "Impact?"
MICHAEL DONNELLY of Salem, OR is a longtime forest
activist. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's new book on the
2004 elections, A
Dime's Worth of Difference. He can be reached at pahtoo@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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