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Why Hillary Clinton Has Always Been a Republican In the first of a series of profiles, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair chart the formative years of Hillary Clinton. Watch her as she zigzags from Nixon campaigner and vote-fraud investigator in 1960 to Goldwater Girl and President of Young Republicans at Wellesley to her internship for Gerald Ford and campaigner for Nelson Rockefeller. Witness her reaction to the student protests at Yale and the demonstrations at Grant Park during the Democratic Convention in 1968. Learn how she and Bill vowed to "remake" the Democratic Party--using the Nixon model HRC learned about as a member of the House impeachment staff. And much more! Plus: David Price on anthropologist Andre Gunder Frank, the FBI and the Bureaucratic Exile of a Critical Mind.
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Today's Stories July 12, 2007 Paul
Craig Roberts Robert Jensen July 11, 2007 Patrick
Cockburn Richard
Neville Debra
McNutt John
V. Walsh Scott
Liebertz George
C. Wilson James
McEnteer Philip
Rizk Johnny
Hazard Dave
Lindorff Website
of the Day
July 10, 2007 James
Ridgeway Tariq
Ali Javed
Hussein William
Blum Ralph
Nader Jay
Arena Anthony
DiMaggio Eva
Liddell Jerry
Kroth Alice
Woodward Nikolas
Kozloff Paul
Shannon Website
of the Day
July 9, 2007 Fidel
Castro Diana
Johnstone John
Walsh Uri
Avnery Ramzy
Baroud John
Ripton Stephen
Lendman Bruce
Jackson Michael
Donnelly Doug
Giebel Website
of the Day
Saul
Landau Ismael
Hossein-zadeh Fawzia
Afzal-Khan John
Ross Pat
Williams Rannie
Amiri Farzana
Versey Bart
Gruzalski Paul
Rockwell Reza
Fiyouzat Monica
Benderman Kenneth
Couesbouc Dave
Lindorff Charles
Modiano Missy
Beattie Dal
LaMagna Jean
Gerard Anne
Dachel Ron
Jacobs Poets'
Basement Website
of the Day
Daniel
Ellsberg Gary
Leupp Harvey
Wasserman Omer
Subhani Marjorie
Cohn Christopher
Brauchli David
Michael Green China
Hand Renee
Saucedo Corporate
Crime Reporter Website
of the Day
July 5, 2007 Andy
Worthington Mike
Stark Norman
Solomon Michael
Schwartz Susie
Day Jacob
Hornberger Bill
Hatch Don
Fitz John
Wright Website
of the Day
July 4, 2007 St.
Clair / Frank Vijay
Prashad Carl
G. Estabrook Ron
Jacobs David
R. Dow Claudia
Johnson William
S. Lind Gregory
Afghani Paul
Edwards D.
K. Wilson Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Thomas
Jefferson Cindy
Sheehan Website
of the Day
Bill
Quigley Gary
Leupp Lynda
Brayer Richard
Thieme Helen
Redmond David
Swanson Jacob
Hornberger Ayesha
Ijaz Khan Franklin
Lamb Ray
McGovern Kevin
Zeese Dave
Lindorff Website
of the Day
Andy
Worthington Nina
Serrano Jack
Hirschman Paul
Craig Roberts Bill
Williams Anthony
Papa Sonja
Karkar Louay
Safi Anthony
Gregory Monica
Benderman Website
of the Day
June 30 / July 1, 2007 John
Ross Alan
Farago Peter
Quinn Christopher
Brauchli Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Judith
Siers-Poisson Saul
Landau Abbas
Zaidi Ron
Jacobs Ralph
Nader Donald
Worster Mike
Whitney Jacob
Hill Kenneth
Couesbouc Missy
Beattie Mohammad
Kamaali Ramzy
Baroud Leonard
Peltier Phyllis
Pollack Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 29, 2007 St.
Clair / Frank Brian
Cloughley Patrick
Cockburn Gilad
Atzmon Dave
Lindorff Jennifer
Matsui / Kevin
Zeese Daniel
Klimek David
Michael Green John
Chuckman Website
of the Day
June 28, 2007 Bill
Quigley Vijay
Prashad Margaret
Kimberley Winslow
T. Wheeler Philip
Rizk D.
K. Wilson Bill
Williams Mahmoud
El-Yousseph Richard
Rhames Paul
Krassner Website
of the Day
Marjorie
Cohn Dr.
Susan Rosenthal, MD Alan
Farago Carla
Blank Matthew
Abraham Sunsara
Taylor Russell
D. Hoffman Robert
Weissman Sen.
Russ Feingold Paul
Buchheit Website
of the Day
June 26, 2007 Jonathan
Cook Ralph
Nader Corporate
Crime Reporter Ron
Jacobs Martha
Rosenberg John
Chuckman Denny
Haldeman Anthony
DiMaggio Stephen
Fleischman William
S. Lind Website
of the Day
Paul
Craig Roberts Jennifer
Loewenstein Bob
Anderson Robert
Pollin Patrick
Cockburn Eva
Liddell Dan
Bacher Larry
Atkins Mark
Brenner James
Rothenberg Website
of the Day June 23 / 24, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Jeff
Taylor Oren
Ben-Dor Gary
Leupp Robert
Fisk David
Rosen Russell
Mokhiber Alison
Weir Robert
Fantina D.
K. Wilson Nicole
Colson Stephen
Soldz, Steven Reisner and Brad Olson Dave
Lindorff Benjamin
Dangl Michael
Dickinson Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 22, 2007 Andy
Worthington Sherwood
Ross Eliana
Monteforte Robert
Weissman Richard
Rhames Christopher
Brauchli Ramzy
Baroud Ehud
Krinis, David Shulman and Neve Gordon David
Michael Green Kathryn
Webber Website
of the Day
June 21, 2007 Peter
Linebaugh Natsu
Saito Ron
Jacobs Saree
Makdisi John
Stauber Scott
Liebertz Tom
Clifford Robert
Jensen Michael
J. Smith Jeb
Sprague Website
of the Day
Omar
Barghouti Andy
Worthington Margaret
Kimberley Robert
Weissman Russell
D. Hoffman Rannie
Amiri Stephen
Lendman Dave
Lindorff David
Swanson Anne
Dachel Website
of the Day
June 19, 2007 Ralph
Nader Dr.
Shepherd Bliss Bill
and Kathleen Christison Jeff
Leys Dave
Zirin Chris
Floyd Ben
Terrall Anthony
Papa VIPS Linda Flores Website
of the Day
John
Ross Paul
Craig Roberts Martha
Rosenberg Norman
Solomon Don
Santina Isabella
Kenfield James
Brooks Eva
Liddell Sam
Husseini Akiva
Eldar Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn John
Halle Robert
Fisk Andy
Worthington Uri
Avnery Fred
Gardner Saul
Landau P.
Sainath Missy
Comley Beattie Alan
Gregory Walter
Brasch Website
of the Weekend
June 15, 2007 Alan
Farago Andy
Worthington Michael
Simmons Franklin
Lamb Gary
Leupp John
Ross Website
of the Day
June 14, 2007 Michael
Donnelly
Faisal
Kutty Harry
Browne Charles
Jonkel Steven
Higgs Bruce
Dixon Bruce
K. Gagnon
Website
of the Day June 13, 2007 Glen Ford Marjorie Cohn Bill Christison Charles Jonkel Silvia Cattori Richard Gott Firmin DeBrabander William S. Lind Keith Rosenthal Website of the Day June 12, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair Paul Craig
Roberts P. Sainath Ralph Nader Omar Waraich Dave Lindorff Harvey Wasserman Malini Johar
Schueller Ramzy Baroud Website of
the Day
June 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Norman Solomon Eva Liddell Rannie Amiri Rachel Voss Christopher
Brauchli D. K. Wilson Website of
the Day
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July 12, 2007 The Liberal Thrashing of Ward ChurchillDistortions of AcumenBy JOSHUA FRANK The shameless trashing of Ward Churchill from the left side of our political setting was perhaps the most grotesque of all the attacks faced by the tenured University of Colorado professor after his essay "Some Push Back" began making headlines in early 2005. It was predictable that right-wingers like David Horowitz and pundit Sean Hannity would blather about Churchill being un-American, but the liberal loathing of the radical academic came with an extra unexpected fervor. Let's take Marc Cooper, contributing editor to The Nation magazine, whom, on his personal blog, responded to Churchill's 9/11 thesis:
It was the kind of cheap jab Cooper is famous for. He's spelled out all sorts of ad hominems over the years -- from the bashing of Mumia to the castration of Hugo Chavez -- Cooper claimed to have reread Churchill's essay, only to find "it more offensive than when I originally saw it right after 9/11." If one only read Cooper's grotesque distortions of Churchill's fiery analysis (thinking a liberal would at least give Ward a fair crack), they would most likely believe the professor deserves the filthy muck that has been shoveled all over his career. What did Cooper find so offensive anyway? Most likely it was Churchill's commentary on the "technocrats" in the World Trade Center:
Churchill's Eichmann reference is what got him in deep shit with the likes of New York's Governor Pataki and Bill O'Reilly over at Fox News. Taken out of context, Churchill's remarks seem difficult to defend. When it stands alone, the aforementioned statement clearly seems to illustrate that Churchill praised the attacks of 9/11. But did he really champion the horrific atrocity? Not exactly. Prior to his Eichmann comment, Churchill used the following precursor to set up his case: " [The 9/11 terrorists] did not license themselves to 'target innocent civilians.'" There you have it. Churchill was trying to make the argument that the 9/11 terrorists did not target the WTC simply to kill innocent Americans. According to him, the 9/11 attackers went after the WTC because it was a legitimate military target in an act of war. Plain and simple. Of course, Churchill should have clarified his position better in his original essay given the weight of his argument. (He defends and explains himself later, which we'll see in a moment.) But, unfortunately, his vagueness aroused a plethora of reactionary attacks, both from the right and left. Churchill should have emboldened this "little Eichmann" argument in "Some Push Back" by pointing out that CIA offices were housed in the WTC 7, along with a large office of cruise missile manufacturer Raytheon in the Twin Towers. He could have also stressed that the terrorists likely attacked the WTC in hopes of inflicting a massive wound to the US economy, which is the driving force behind the violent war machine. Even so, Cooper and many others who criticized Churchill's statement failed to point out that the professor, in his original essay, never argued the WTC attacks were morally justified. In fact, he said it was an act of war, which he detests. As Churchill wrote in "Some Push Back," "if what the combat teams did to the WTC and the Pentagon can be understood as acts of war -- and they can -- then the same is true" for the US conduct in the Middle East and elsewhere. From there he goes on to compare the terrorists to former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who oversaw the US-imposed UN sanctions of Iraq, which killed tens of thousands of people, mostly elderly and small children. "Evil -- for those inclined to embrace the banality of such a concept -- was perfectly incarnated in that malignant toad known as Madeline Albright, squatting in her studio chair like Jabba the Hut, blandly spewing the news that she'd imposed a collective death sentence upon the unoffending youth of Iraq." Does such a harsh critique of the US military actions, and Churchill's comparison of these ventures to the WTC attacks, imply that he is delighted people were killed on 9/11? Not in the least. In fact, as noted, Churchill argues that these were not individual acts of terror (unless you also categorize US military activity as terror): "This is to say that, since the assaults on the WTC and Pentagon were an act of war -- not 'terrorist incidents' -- they must be understood as components in a much broader strategy designed to achieve specific results." Of course, those results can be debated, and alleged al Qaeda operatives have since attacked many civilian centers in Europe and elsewhere since 2001. But on 9/11, perhaps they knew the US government would react violently, attacking countries in the Middle East -- which would only inflame more rage against the US and consequently aid in the recruitment of more fighters to sign up for bin Laden's jihad. Days after Cooper ripped into Churchill, the liberal newswire CommonDreams.org ran a bitter column entitled "Ward Churchill's Banality of Evil" by Anthony Lappé. Like our pal Cooper, Lappé, who I consider a friend, argued that the prof's critique of 9/11 was utterly reprehensible:
To start, Churchill never actually said that WTC workers should be legitimate targets. Rather, he said that using the US government's own rationale, the WTC would most likely be a target for a military attack -- for if no other reason than it housed a large CIA office and was an economic bastion of the military-industrial complex. Arguing that the WTC would be a justifiable military target using the US government's bloody rationale, Churchill wrote in "Some People Push Back": "[The WTC] formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire -- the 'mighty engine of profit' to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved -- and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to 'ignorance' -- a derivative, after all, of the word 'ignore' -- counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in -- and in many cases excelling at -- it was because of their absolute refusal to see." Lappé (and CommonDreams, by association) really got off track when he implied that Churchill somehow condoned the attacks on the WTC attack and the Pentagon. In response to misinterpretations such as Lappé's, Churchill lays it out quite clearly in his essay, "Lessons Not Learned and the War on Free Speech":
The fuzzy nature of "collateral damage" is what I think Churchill was really getting at. And Churchill's rejoinder to critics was only clarifying his earlier position, not backpedaling, as Lappé contested. Indeed, Churchill sees the WTC attack as it was -- "ugly" and "hurtful." He also thinks such militaristic conceptions, when applied to other US ventures such as Iraq and Palestine, are also "ugly" and "hurtful." This isn't "twisted logic," as Lappé puts it. Or rather, it isn't Churchill's "twisted logic," but the "twisted logic" of the US military establishment. Churchill simply took the WTC massacre, looked at it through the lens of the US government, and pointed out why the attack on the WTC could be justified militarily. Nowhere in Churchill's original essay did he state such a terrorist act was morally justified. And there's the key point. The attacks on the WTC weren't right, but malicious and iniquitous. Churchill's larger parallel is what critics like Lappé seem unable to stomach: that the US "military" interventions can also be classified as "terror." Churchill's argument, despite what Cooper and Lappé claimed, was, and is, sound. Does his interest "in hearing about" other ways and places the terrorists could have struck to inflict some "penalty ... upon the little Eichmanns" still bother you? His question, to me, seems to express that if the assault on the WTC was only about killing innocents, then how can one ignore the fact that the WTC 7 housed a CIA office and a weapons producer like Raytheon? Was this irrelevant, or just coincidental? Like it or not, Churchill forced us to address his claim that the WTC was a military target. In "Lessons Not Learned and the War on Free Speech," Churchill again clarifies,
Now back to Cooper, who wrote that he would "be terrified if this guy was teaching [his] kid." First, Cooper made no mention of Churchill's counter essay in his online screed, even though he has "kept half-an-eye on Churchill since" his original essay first appeared. We can certainly call Cooper's smarmy blindness selective perception, for he wants to see what he wants to see. This leads us to the much larger issue at hand -- the implications for tenured professors and academics who publicly voice their objectionable political and cultural opinions. What is now happening to Ward Churchill is pure intimidation, spearheaded by Republican Gov. Pataki, exacerbated by Fox News and David Horowitz, and condoned by liberals such as Cooper. The current battle over whether Churchill keeps his post at Colorado University, along with the Norman Finkelstein and David Graeber cases at DePaul and Yale respectively -- is setting the bar for a whole assembly of radical intellectuals who could one day become the target of McCarthy-like censorship. It's time to move past Ward Churchill's fearless thesis about the US Empire and fight for his right to voice his opinions publicly. No matter how unsavory they may be. Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and
author of Left
Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage
Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of
the forthcoming Red State Rebels, to be published by AK
Press in March 2008.
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CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy  Click Here to Buy! How the Press Failed The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
