|
October
4, 2001
Robin Blackburn
Road
to Armageddon
Noam
Chomsky
Chatting
with Chomsky
Tony
Blair
The
Dossier on bin Laden
Norman
Madarasz
Canada
Kow-Tows to US
Lorenzo Ervin
No Palestinian
Ever
Called Me Nigger
October
3, 2001
Peter Bell
Hitchens
and Coulter:
Love at Last?
Patrick
Cockburn
Waiting
Is the Hardest Part
Jeff
Chang
Clear
Channel Fires
Davey D!
John Chuckman
War
on Terror:
Crusade Without a Definition
Mahajan/Jensen
Tough
Talk Won't Solve
Problems of Terrorism
Ariel
Dorfman:
America
the Wounded
Lennie
Brenner
Dr.
Watson in Afghanistan
Steve
Perry:
Ashcroft's
Scare Tactics
October
2, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn:
Inside
an Afghan Hospital
Richard
Manning:
A
Vietnam Vet on Patriotism
St. Clair/Cockburn:
Tarnished
Star,
Tom Ridge in Vietnam
October
1, 2001
Noam
Chomsky:
Memo
to Hitchens
Hizam
Bitar:
Refuting
Michael Kinsley
David Grenier:
The
Good, The Bad,
and the Ugly
Douglas
Valentine:
Homeland
Insecurity
Carl
Estabrook:
Stop Bush's Killing
Mahajan/Jensen:
Food,
Fear and War
Patrick
Cockburn:
Ready
to Strike
Cockburn/St.
Clair:
Things
Could Be Worse
Terry
Allen:
Early
Profit-taking and 9/11
September
29, 2001
Steve Perry:
The
Pentagon's Blueprint
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 3, 2001
8-Page Special
Issue
Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
God
Nostrodamus
Jam-maker
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
New Stories:
|
October 5,
2001
Déjà
Vu
The FBI's Assault on Civil Liberties
By Ronnie Gilbert
For the second time in my life -- at
least -- a group that I belong to is being investigated by the
FBI. The first was the Weavers. The Weavers were a recording
industry phenomenon. In 1950 we recorded a couple of songs from
our American/World folk music repertoire, Leadbelly's "Goodnight
Irene" and (ironically) the Israeli "Tzena, Tzena,
Tzena" and sold millions of records for the almost-defunct
record label. Folk music entered the mainstream, and the Weavers
were stars.
By 1952 it was over. The record
company dropped us, eager television producers stopped knocking
on our door. The Weavers were on a private yet well-publicized
roster of suspected entertainment industry reds. The FBI came
a-calling.
This week, I just found out
that Women in Black, another group of peace activists I belong
to, is the subject of an FBI investigation. Women in Black is
a loosely knit international network of women who vigil against
violence, often silently, each group autonomous, each group focused
on the particular problems of personal and state violence in
its part of the world.
Because my group is composed
mostly of Jewish women, we focus on the Middle East, protesting
the cycle of violence and revenge in Israel and the Palestinian
Territories.
The FBI is threatening my group
with a Grand Jury investigation. Of what? That we publicly call
the Israeli military's occupation of the mandated Palestine lands
illegal? So does the World Court and the United Nations.
That destroying hundreds of
thousands of the Palestinians' olive and fruit trees, blocking
roads and demolishing homes promotes hatred and terrorism in
the Middle East? Even President Bush and Colin Powell have gotten
around to saying so. So what is to investigate? That some of
us are in contact with activist Palestinian peace groups? This
is bad?
The Jewish Women in Black of
Jerusalem have stood vigil every Friday for 13 years in protest
against the Occupation; Muslim women from Palestinian peace groups
stand with them at every opportunity. We praise and honor them,
these Jewish and Arab women who endure hatred and frequent abuse
from extremists on both sides for what they do. We are not alone
in our admiration. Jerusalem Women in Black is a nominee for
the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Bosnia Women in Black,
now ten years old.
If the FBI cannot or will not
distinguish between groups who collude in hatred and terrorism,
and peace activists who struggle in the full light of day against
all forms of terrorism, we are in serious trouble.
I have seen such trouble before
in my lifetime. It was called McCarthyism. In the hysterical
atmosphere of the early Cold War, anyone who had signed a peace
petition, who had joined an organization opposing violence or
racism or had tried to raise money for the refugee children of
the Spanish Civil War, in other words who had openly advocated
what was not popular at the time, was fair game.
In my case, the FBI visited
The Weavers' booking agent, the recording company, my neighbors,
my dentist husband's patients, my friends. In the waning of our
career, the Weavers were followed down the street, accosted onstage
by drunken "patriots", warned by friendly hotel employees
to keep the door open if we rehearsed in anyone's room so as
not to become targets for the vice squad. It was nasty. Every
two-bit local wannabe G-man joined the dragnet searching out
and identifying "communist spies."
In all those self-debasing
years how many spies were pulled in by that dragnet? Nary a one.
Instead it pulled down thousands of teachers, union members,
scientists, journalists, actors, entertainers like us, who saw
our lives disrupted, our jobs, careers go down the drain, our
standing in the community lost, even our children harassed. A
scared population soon shut their mouths up tight.
Thus came the silence of the
1950s and early 60s, when no notable voice of reason was heard
to say, "Hey, wait a minute. Look what we're doing to ourselves,
to the land of the free and the home of the brave," when
not one dissenting intelligence was allowed a public voice to
warn against zealous foreign policies we'd later come to regret,
would be regretting now, if our leaders were honest.
Today, in the wake of the worst
hate crime of the millennium, a dragnet is out for "terrorists"
and we are told that certain civil liberties may have to be curtailed
for our own security. Which ones? I'm curious to know. The First
Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech or of the press? The
right of people peaceably to assemble? Suddenly, deja vu - haven't
I been here before? Hysterical neo-McCarthyism does not equal
security, never will.
The bitter lesson September
11's horrific tragedy should have taught us and our government
is that only an honest re-evaluation of our foreign policies
and careful, focused and intelligent intelligence work can hope
to combat operations like the one that robbed all of us and their
families of 6,000 decent working people. We owe the dead that,
at least. As for Women in Black, we intend to keep on keeping
on. CP
Ronnie Gilbert is a veteran of the folk music band
The Weavers and a Bay Area civil rights organizer and peace activist.
|