home / subscribe / donate / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events

Exciting New Print Edition of CounterPunch Bolivia's Third Revolution Confused by Bolivia's upheavals? CounterPunch's Newton Garver gives you the history, the politics and a roadmap through the present great upsurge of Indians who say NO to centuries of theft and oppression. On the track of Guatemala's killers: a searing report from John Ross on the US-backed monsters who turned Guatemala into a charnel house and on the heroes who hunt them down. The rise and rise of a corporation called Halliburton: Jeffrey St Clair scours some of Texas' history's dirtiest pages and tells how Halliburton's cash helped put two presidents to the White House. 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 Bond / Brutus / Setshedi How Bono and Trojan Horse NGOs Sabotage the Struggle Against Neoliberalism June 16, 2005 John Walsh The Iraq War Polls: Dems' Stance Even Less Popular Than Bush's Dave Lindorff Work 'Till You Die: the Bush Retirement Plan Adrian Lomax Torture in U.S. Prisons: Common, Lethal, Unreported Tom Crumpacker The CIA, Posada and the Bombing of Cubana Flight 455 Jeffrey Kolakowski The Kinsley Paradigm: Downsizing the Downing St. Memo Julene Bair Turning Off the Ogallala Spigot: Toward a New Way to Farm on the Great Plains Michael Dickinson As We Forgive Our Debtors: the Madness of Money Francois Houtart / Isabel Parra, et al. Against Terrorism; In Defense of Humanity: an Appeal 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

Weekend Edition June 18 / 19, 2005 Being Peace De-Eichmannizing America By MANUEL GARCÍA, Jr. That America is a nation of Little Eichmanns whose collective acquiescence allows for the prosecution of the Iraq War and its related war crimes, the expansion of American imperialism and atrophy of civil liberties, economic equity and social justice, is vividly and perceptively presented in two recent essays, one by Joe Bageant and another by Paul Craig Roberts. There have been other fine essays on this topic, however, these two though quite different in character have a freshness and clarity imparted by a combination of psychological insight and clean writing. After reading them, I was left with the question of how to de-Eichmannize America. To speculate is to write, hence the following. Bageant's essay is quite touching because it has what I consider the necessary essential element of any such discussion, the recognition that even "I" -- in this case Bageant -- along with all other Americans are Little Eichmanns enabling the war crimes and the decay of liberty and moral society. This is a hard argument for many people to swallow. After CounterPunch published my article "On The Question Of American Guilt," I received a number of e-mail messages from people who wholeheartedly agreed with the essay, with the exception that "I am not guilty." (1) Isn't that always the case? We (each I) are exempt from guilt for the zeitgeist, from responsibility for the inequities of the times, from the rules when they are inconvenient (e.g., parking the car in a red zone or cross-walk when you're "just going to be a minute," or being absolved by the holy immersion in thoughts of your child, say double-parked in front of the school). But on honest reflection the excuses fail, as we live in these times we share in the responsibility for them. Recognition of this is the beginning of redemption. Roberts' essay is a clear succinct statement of the political reality that has been enabled by this nation of Little Eichmanns. The challenge for this population is to change this reality, and thus redeem ourselves in the eyes of the rest of the world. Can we do this? Yes. Will we do this? Uncertain, sad to say. Bush and Cheney and all the individuals of the power elite are incidental, they are not the central powers implementing the course of war, imperialism and popular subjugation. They are merely agents of the moment who swim in an enabling sea of Little Eichmannism, and whose persons inhabit roles abstracting and dramatizing the political forces at work today. The essential problem is not to restrain, or reorient, or reeducate or even replace Bush and the others, the essential problem is to alter the sea of collective thought these parasites are adapted to thrive in, and from a collective of Little Debs, or Little Ghandis or Little Galloways, to bubble up actors who can take on the roles needed to portray a political and economic play of an entirely different character. This brings the battle home; instead of focusing on "them," whom we are powerless to change, we focus on ourselves, the only individuals we have any chance of changing. The effects of our attitudes and actions radiate out as examples to others. As individuals, there is little we can do to alter society, even if we take heroic action. All immolations are ignored. But, what may seem as insignificant ripples -- perhaps just a few words among friends -- can have a cumulative effect when replicated by millions of others. Thich Nhat Hanh describes peace as the direct effect you have on the people you come in contact with. If you embody peace, then you will transmit it. Your example might nudge some of your contacts to act in a similar way. Hanh devised this lesson to meet the needs of anti-war activists who were filled with anger over the atrocious politics they sought to reform; they had a problem in that their frustration distilled into anger repelled many from consideration of the peace message. In "Being Peace" -- the title of Hanh's 1987 book -- you did what was available to you in the most effective way to actually bring about "peace" on the large scale that people often fantasize about. (2) A similar psychology applies to de-Eichmannizing America. Just to be clear, "being peace" does not mean being sweet, nice and deferential without exception. It simply means to keep your cool, to stay calm, focused and polite even as you are being edgy and challenging war-enabling assumptions. Achieving this attitude is the goal of martial arts training. When a person of this sort transmits "peace" to another willing to consider the message, in actuality courage is transmitted. It takes courage to abandon old modes of thought and take on new actions. And it's quite a lift when you get it. What would characterize a de-Eichmannized person? Consider these three. 1. "I, too, am a little Eichmann," a recognition of sharing in the social burden of righting America's impact on the world. There is a very long and very wide trail of suffering that has resulted from "the American Way Of Life" -- the world-chewing AWOL. Recognizing, along with Joe Bageant, that we each are an inextricable part of the AWOL, just as we are each inextricably linked to the non-American others of the wider world is the essential realization for de-Eichmannizing. This is NOT the same as taking on a guilt complex. It is acknowledging a direct connection to those who pay the price for the AWOL, and challenging ourselves to act with forethought. Because of our "globalized" economics, "America" and "American" in this regard can be taken as umbrella terms encompassing "capitalism," "industrialized nations" and most particularly "wealth." 2. Keeping your religion private and out of public affairs -- like keeping your pants on in polite society. 3. Questioning authority openly and often. In a world of conventions, hierarchies and team players, be irritating. Notes [1] http://www.counterpunch.org/garcia03122005.html [2] Thich Nhat Hanh, "Being Peace," 1987, Berkeley:Parallax Press Manuel García, Jr. is guiltier than you are, but he redeems himself by also being more irritating. Available at mango@idiom.com