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Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories July 17, 2003 Ron Jacobs Sometimes Even the President of the United States Has to Stand Naked Lisa Walsh Thomas Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance Martin Schwarz Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation Watchdogs Heidi Lypps Better Justice Through Chemistry? Forced Drugging and the Supreme Court Norman Madarasz Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance Conference Pankaj Mehta Criminalizing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement Marjorie Cohn Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the Boy Who Cried Wolf Hammond Guthrie (Dis) Intelligence Revisited Website of the Day No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism July 16, 2003 Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype Dubious Uranium Claims William Cook Defining Terrorism from the Top Down Elaine Cassel Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom Must Not Be Obeyed Jason Leopold How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found? Linda Heard Bondage or Freedom? Raymond Barrett From Detroit to Basra Jeffrey St. Clair Back to the Future in Guatemala: The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt   July 15, 2003 Kathleen and Bill Christison Why We Resigned from VIPS Elaine Cassel Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers: the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack Chris Floyd Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries Jason Leopold CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries Gaius Publius Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please John Troyer The Niger Syndrome Becky Gillette No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David Orrr Uri Avnery The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb Website of the Day Cost of Iraq War   July 14, 2003 Lisa Taraki Hot Days in Ramallah Walter Brasch Bush: the Pretend Captain SOA Watch Training Colombia's Killers in the US Dan Bacher Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Intelligence Unglued Website of the Day Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties July 12 / 13, 2003 Arthur Mitzman The Double Wall Before the Future Standard Schaefer The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson John Feffer A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang Ron Jacobs Shades of Gray in Iran Elaine Cassel Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights Tom Stephens Civil Liberties After 9/11 David Lindorff New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On" Jason Leopold The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11 Lee Sustar What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia? Mickey Z. AIDS Dissent and Africa Sam Hamod Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group Ramzy Baroud Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket Jeffrey St. Clair Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller Adam Engel Parable of the Lobbyist Robert Sanders A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream Poets' Basement Albert, Witherup, Guthrie   July 11, 2003 Conn Hallinan The Coin of Empire Tim Wise God Responds to Bush Mokhiber / Weissman The Two Faces of Bush in Africa Edward S. Herman Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor David Orr Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation? David Lindorff An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary Website of the Day Dead Malls   July 10, 2003 Ron Jacobs Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody Profits of General Dynamics Sean Donahue Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia Yemi Toure Who Outted Bush in Afrika? Robert Jensen Politics and Sustainability: an Interview with Wes Jackson Ali Abunimah US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated Joanne Mariner Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions Website of the Day Electronic Iraq   July 9, 2003 David Lindorff Is the Media Finally Turning on Bush? David Krieger and Angela McCracken 10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons Mickey Z. Why Speak Out? Lee Sustar The Great Medicare Fraud John Chuckman The Worst Kind of Lie Gary Leupp "Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq Website of the Day Hail to the Thief: Songs for the Bush Years   July 8, 2003 Elaine Cassel Bully on the Bench: the Pathological Dissents of Scalia Alan Maass Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor Chris Floyd Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag Linda S. Heard America's Kangaroo Justice Brian Cloughley They Tell Lies to Nodders Charles Sullivan Bush the Christian? Saul Landau The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age Website of the Day Occupation Watch   July 7, 2003 William Blum The Anti-Empire Report Harvey Wasserman The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head Ramzy Baroud Peace for All the Wrong Reasons Simon Jones What Progressives Should Think About Iran Lesley McCulloch Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh Uri Avnery The Draw Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3   July 4 / 6, 2003 Patrick Cockburn Dead on the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass What is Freedom to a Slave? Martha Honey Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation and Neglect Jeffrey St. Clair The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture Standard Schaefer Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004 Lenni Brenner Jefferson is for Today Elaine Cassel Fucking Furious on the Fourth Ben Tripp How Free Are We? Wayne Madsen A Sad Independence Day John Stanton Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War Jim Lobe Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment John Blair Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke Lisa Walsh Thomas Heavy Reckoning at Qaim David Vest Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite Adam Engel Queer as Grass Poets' Basement Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair Website of the Weekend The Lipstick Librarian   July 3, 2003 Patrick W. Gavin The Meaning of Gettysburg Thomas W. Croft There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy David Lindorff Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong and the US John Chuckman Lessons from the American Revolution Jackson Thoreau New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices Stan Goff "Bring 'Em On?": a Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3 July 2, 2003 Diane Christian Good Killing and Bad Killing Richard Falk After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future? Mokhiber / Weissman Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress Justin Podur Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia Reuven Kaviner Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2 July 1, 2003 Sasan Fayamanesh Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and Iran Elaine Cassel Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia and the Sodomy Cops Susan Block A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong to Ourselves Bill Glahn RIAA Watch: No, No Bono David Lindorff Weapons in Search of a Name Gary Leupp Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1   June 30, 2003 Karyn Strickler The Do-Nothings: an Exposé of Progressive Politics in America Col. Dan Smith The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire Tim Wise Race and Destruction in Black and White Neve Gordon The Roadmap and the Wall Chris Floyd The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam" Elaine Cassel Kentucky Woman Uri Avnery Hope in Dark Times Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30 Website of the Day Bush El Hombre   June 28 / 29, 2003 M. Shahid Alam Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry? Jeffrey St. Clair Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside Man Laura Carlsen Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace? Alan Maass You Call These Democrats an Alternative? C.Y. Gopinath Bush and Kindergarten Noah Leavitt Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law Joanne Mariner Rehnquist Family Values Ignacio Chapela Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley Bob Scowcroft Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers Jon Brown Tom Delay: "I am the Government" Kam Zarrabi Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please! Ron Jacobs Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues Julie Hilden Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment Adrien Rain Burke The Anarchists' Wedding Guide Adam Engel US Troops Outta Times Square Poets' Basement Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod   June 27, 2003 Jason Leopold CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq Posed No Threat to US David Vest Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker David Lindorff The Catch and Release of "Comical Ali" Ray McGovern Cheney, Forgery and the CIA Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26 Website of the Day John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy June 26, 2003 Sen. Robert Byrd The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate Hans Blix Paul de Rooij Ambient Death in Palestine Chris Floyd Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq Elaine Cassel Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner CounterPunch Wire Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops Sheldon Hull Squatting in Mansions Ben Tripp A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone Uri Avnery The Best Show in Town Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25 Website of the Day Ordinary Vistas: The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo   June 25, 2003 Bruce Jackson Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers Mickey Z. The New Dark Ages David Lindorff Indonesia's War on Journalists Dan Bacher Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops Adam Federman "Success is Not the Issue Here" Elaine Cassel "Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing Guidelines Bill Kauffman My America vs. the Empire Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25 Website of the Day You Are Being Watched: Elevator Moods   June 24, 2003 Elaine Cassel Supreme Indemnity Holocaust Denial at the High Court Roya Monajem A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth It to Risk One's Life? John Chuckman The Real Clash of Civilizations David Lindorff WMD Damage Control at the Times Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24   June 23, 2003 Marc Pritzke Washington Lied: an Interview with Ray McGovern Conn Hallinan The Consistency of Sharon Wayne Madsen Commercials, Disney & Amistad Edward Said The Meaning of Rachel Corrie Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23 June 21 / 22, 2003 Alexander Cockburn My Life as a Rabbi William A. Cook The Scourge of Hopelessness Standard Schaefer The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor Ron Jacobs US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets Harry Browne The Pitstop Ploughshares Lawrence Magnuson WMD: The Most Dangerous Game Harold Gould Saddam and the WMD Mystery David Krieger 10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Avia Pasternak The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories CounterPunch Summer Reading: Our Favorite Novels Todd Chretien Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension Maria Tomchick Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids Adam Engel The Fat Man in Little Boy Poets' Basement Guthrie, Albert & Hamod June 20, 2003 Walter Brasch Down on Our Knees Robert Meeropol The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman Grannies and Baby Bells Norman Madarasz Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a Quebec Radical Gary Leupp Bush on "Revisionist Historians" Steve Perry Bush's Lies Marathon: the Finale   Hot Stories 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

July 19, 2003 It's Not Safe to Go Out Anymore Video Judas Video By ADAM ENGEL My wife and I were playing cards with four old friends (CAUTION #1: Old friends should be remembered as they were; seen in memory, but not heard; like nudie photographs of old lovers, NOT to be revisited except in moments of utmost nostalgia/despair) and this one woman was losing pretty bad, Sore Loser, I'll call her though I'd rather call her something else--in fact, that's what I will call her, "Something Else." I guess some of us were ragging on Something Else -- you know how nasty old friends in their cups can be. I was just trying to lose, so I could go home. Unfortunately, my wife was doing okay, and anyway she wouldn't just up and leave because she suddenly decided she hated the company she was keeping. Just not that type. So, Something Else was losing and some of us were needling her and she said, "Fine. That's okay. I make twice as much money as anyone here," and I thought of those portraits of Jesus and the Apostles and imagined a cartoon bubble over Judas Iscariot with the words "Fine. That's okay. I make twice as money as anyone here." I would have said something appropriately nasty to Something Else, but since I probably made half as much money as anyone there--if that--I had no ground to stand on, no VALUE beyond the dwindling pile of chips beside my folded hand. Once the game was over, the whole gang, or a "democratic majority," decided to do something cultural. So we parked ourselves in the "TV Room." Can you imagine? Not the kids' room or the parents' room or even the dog's room; it's the TV's room; that 50-something inch box lived better than most people on this earth--and rent free! What was on TV? Everything about nothing, and folks selling a lot of nothing nobody needs to everyone. But that's irrelevant, I assume. The designated Channel Zapper--our host, of course--finally stopped at one of the five hundred blind destinations--really I didn't care if he stopped on the Lawrence Welk show. I hate that channel surfing shit it bugs me out I'm sorry I'm just an anxious guy and there's only so many Xanax the body can withstand with out turning to aspic. It was the Snoop Channel or the Snitch Channel or the USA/PATRIOT GOTCHA channel, I forget. This particular show was called the "Most Outrageous, Embarrassing Shit Caught On Video." Whatever. Just Plain Old Folks all over this great land indulging in chemically induced monkey-shines: college "kids" fucking on the beach after a drinking bout (Spring Break orgy shades of Dionysus--or Rome)--and getting busted; a Bride fondling the Best Man as The Groom is walking down a bush-lined path not twenty yards away--and getting busted; roommates picking their noses and peeing on their roomie's bed--and getting busted; a chartered plane full of decadent party goers the women submitting to a wet t-shirt contest in mid-fight and the pilots obliging--and getting busted; a bunch of cafeteria workers stoned probably hanging out showing some T and A--and getting busted; and a bunch of other assholes videoed doing more or less harmless stuff and the videos unnecessarily handed over to THE AUTHORITIES (after all, that's the moral imperative of video stalkers/snitches, isn't it? hand the evidence over to THE AUTHORITIES like good little rats). It was ever so embarrassing for me to be human, watching this show, but the rest of our little group were laughing so hard I thought they'd piss their pants--which could have been dangerous if one of us had a video cam and decided to hand the tape over to THE AUTHORITIES or the Snitch Channel (somehow they're not one and the same, but it's never explained how). Of course the scenes of "regular folks" doing stupid embarrassing stuff segued into the cops busting people for doing not necessarily stupid, but "irregular" stuff ( a man, dressed in expensive women's clothing, driving a rusty, old convertible), the narrator's voice-over telling us "and if there's one bunch of guys who KNOW ALL ABOUT OUTRAGEOUS BEHAVIOR it's the police" and something started to click of course (workers in some nightmare cafeteria kitchen job getting snooped on and sacked for kidding around, trying to add a few minutes of -- red alert!--amusement to their nightmare jobs? what gives?), but the wheels weren't grinding full speed--damn sedatives!--and my wife was quicker to the draw. "So that's what these shows are about," said she. "What?" I asked, after a pause, since the rest of our gang of merry-makers were too agog at the sex and violence based humiliations to answer (of course they never showed any real T and A or genitalia, it was all blurred out, but you got the overall "idea," and of course the faces were quite clear). "Assholes doing ridiculous shit so we can feel superior?" "No," she said. "Surveillance. It's not about these morons exposing themselves--half of them don't even know they're on camera, or don't think the videos will cause them trouble. It's about not having any privacy anywhere, ever. I saw one of these shows before and the first thing I felt afterwards was not embarrassment for those women who degrade themselves, or even repulsion at the freaky men, but 'this could be me.' This isn't such weird stuff they're doing. Some of these people are just getting caught peeing in the woods or having sex in a "forbidden" zone. Trying to be human and have fun, basically. The thing I think about when I come away from these shows is that they're trying to tell us 'we're everywhere; you can't hide; you are always being watched.'" Yeah. Shit, yeah. I became more than a tad paranoid. What hidden gadgets did these "old friends" of mine have socked away in their seemingly innocuous TV Room? Was the television ITSELF recording me? And if so, was my fly unzipped? "See, look," my wife said, pointing to the EMBARRASSING and OUTRAGEOUS moment when a guy tries using a mirror to look under a girl's skirt but gets nailed by the security guards, who of course handed the video over to THE AUTHORITIES, which in this case happened to be the Fink Channel. "They'll make me think I should be sympathizing with the woman, and I do, that guy with the mirror's a creep, but the real message is that NOBODY can get away with anything ever. We're always on camera." "Oh, are you two at it again?" said Something Else, who had as much money as Judas Iscariot but probably not as much as Pontius Pilot. "We're trying to have fun here. Can't you just lighten up?" By then my synapses were juiced enough by my wife's astute observation to overcome the Xanax haze, and I was able to make small but significant connections between Something Else, Judas Iscariot, and the evening's after-poker entertainment in the TV Room: FINK. RAT. STOOL PIGEON. TIPS. SQUEALER. TATTLE TALE. AGENT. NARC. 24/7 SURVEILLANCE. PANOPTICON. POLICE STATE. CALL THIS NUMBER NOW! STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. VIDEO DIDN'T KILL THE RADIO STAR, IT SOLD HIM OUT TO THE AUTHORITIES. Excellent book on all this, I remembered. "Snitch Culture," by Jim Redden (Feral House). I don't think I'll be going out much anymore more, regardless of the company. It's not safe. You never know who's watching, or if you'll end up on TV with your gonads blurred, your face revealed, and your name on someone's, or perhaps everyone's, black list. CAUTION #2: Anyone wielding a recording device--analog or digital--is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. If Judas had had a camcorder Jesus never even would have had a last supper. They would have bagged him early on for some "outrageous, embarrassing act" like walking on water, resurrecting dead guys, cloning fish... Adam Engel carries no recording equipment but is something of a Narc himself: when in the midst of Rats, TIPS, Finks, Something Else, etc. he takes notes. One day, these notes might be quite valuable. After all, eventually Robespierre himself lost his head and Mussolini wound up hanging upside down dead like a stuck pig. If you suspect Rats in your basement, contact the AH HA! Hotline at bartleby.samsa@verizon.net Weekend Edition Features for July 12/13, 2003 Arthur Mitzman The Double Wall Before the Future Standard Schaefer The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson John Feffer A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang Ron Jacobs Shades of Gray in Iran Elaine Cassel Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights Tom Stephens Civil Liberties After 9/11 David Lindorff New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On" Jason Leopold The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11 Lee Sustar What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia? Mickey Z. AIDS Dissent and Africa Sam Hamod Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group Ramzy Baroud Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket Jeffrey St. Clair Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller Adam Engel Parable of the Lobbyist Robert Sanders A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream Poets' Basement Albert, Witherup, Guthrie   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /