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Special Print Edition of CounterPunch: The 2004 Election The Wreckage: Labor, God and Turnout; Was Gay Marriage Really "the" Issue; Can These Democrats Ever Win Again?; Blame It on the Smart-Assed White Boys by JoAnn Wypijewski; Political Diary: They Didn't Believe Him: What Really Happened in Ohio; How to Lose a County Hit By 30% Unemployment; David Cobb: Apex Vote Suppressor; Hope From Montana? by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. 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 (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch Books a Holiday Gift They Won't Put Down! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Read Why It Happened! Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils Order Here! Today's Stories December 10, 2004 Kathy Kelly From Haiti to Iraq: Burying Water December 9, 2004 Greg Moses Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah Joshua Frank Cobb and the Ohio Recount: Vote Fraud as Fundraiser! Ralph Nader An Open Letter to Bush: It's Time to Disclose the Real Casualty Figures Lee Sustar Bhopal: the Making of a Disaster Tom Barry Restrictionist Resurgence Mickey Z. Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth Movement Christopher Brauchli Bush in the Bubble Mark Donham Why are House Democrats Trying to Deny Cynthia McKinney Seniority? Gary Corseri On the Anniversary of John Lennon's Death, 2012 Paul de Rooij The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers   December 8, 2004 Ralph Nader Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge? Ann Harrison The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials and Few Rules Paul Craig Roberts War Crime Dave Lindorff They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for Spying Patrick Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency Col. Dan Smith Rules of Engagement in Iraq Emily Alves / Michael Johnson Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica Richard Oxman The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas Ron Jacobs In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free   December 7, 2004 Patrick Cockburn Running Battles in Baghdad Behrooz Ghamari Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent Dave Lindorff American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy, Did You Hear How Well the War's Going? Joshua Frank Dean at the DNC? Richard Oxman Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview Ray McGovern All Mosquitoes, No Swamp John Chuckman The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada James Petras Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears Website of the Day ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You     December 6, 2004 Paul Craig Roberts Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the Bush Administration Certifiable? December 4 / 6, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Politicize the CIA? You've Got to be Kidding Joe Bageant Dining with the Rhinos Alan Maass Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick Cockburn Brian Cloughley Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf Laura Carlsen Latin America Shifts Left Lenni Brenner Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion Anna Ioakimedes Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's? Uri Avnery Widow of Opportunity? Fred Gardner Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case Dave Zirin Steroids to Heaven Jackie Corr Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation Don Fitz Will Greens Abandon IRV? Lucy Herschel "Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview with Artist Anthony Papa Richard Oxman No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play Ron Jacobs Holiday Greeting Card Poets' Basement Collins, Albert, LaMorticella   December 3, 2004 Dave Lindorff Lie Then Escalate Ben Tripp Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a Time of Crisis Joe Allen Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer Gilberto Soto Matthew B. Riley Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson Meir Shalev In the End, It is the Violin that Wins Bob Wing The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004 Christopher Brauchli When McCain Bit His Tongue Sasan Fayazmanesh The EU, the US, Israel and Iran   December 2, 2004 Tito Tricot No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free Behzad Yaghmaian The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration Dr. Susan Block Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes Frank / Chowkwanyun Liberalism and Its Bounds Lee Sustar Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt Patrick Cockburn Another Grim Record in Iraq Mark Engler Seattle at Five Michael Donnelly Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham Nate Collins The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds Saul Landau The Assassination of Danilo Anderson   December 1, 2004 Phillip Cryan Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias in Wire Coverage of Colombia Dave Zirin What's the Matter with "Leon"?: Budweiser's Racist Commercial Ghali Hassan Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation: 200 Children Die Every Day Donna J. Volatile Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy" Patrick Cockburn How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency Nick Meo Chemical War Over Afghanistan Mike Ferner The Battle of Toledo Mokhiber / Weissman Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising Kathy Kelly Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes of the UN in Iraq   November 30, 2004 Jennifer Van Bergen The Veil of Secrecy Toni Nelson Herrera Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime Paul Craig Roberts The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence Patrick Cockburn The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq Chuck Munson WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization Movement Adam Williams Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana Gregory Elich A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for North Korea Website of the Day Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!   November 29, 2004 Dave Lindorff Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of the CIA? Omar Barghouti "The Pianist" of Palestine: Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint Mike Whitney The US Media and Fallujah: How to Market a Siege Uri Avnery The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me Some Credit!" Matt Vidal Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers Patrick Cockburn An Interview with Iraq's Foreign Minister Alan Farago Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters Justin Huggler Bhopal 20 Years Later Antony Loewenstein How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy Gary Leupp Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real Issue Website of the Day Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone     November 27 / 28, 2004 Peter Linebaugh Torture & Neo-Liberalism with Sycorax in Iraq Alexander Cockburn What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa? Fred Gardner Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court Kathy Kelly What We Can Control Diane Christian The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts" Gary Leupp One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea Lenni Brenner Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York Times Ron Jacobs Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of the AMS Clerics Joshua Frank An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd Toni Solo The Murder of Danilo Anderson Saul Landau Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica JoAnn Wypijewski Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are No Cure for Homophobia Justin Taylor Empire's Lawless Opportunities Amos Harel The Case of Captain R. Walter A. Davis Tabloid Justice Stephen Hendricks God's Kind of Men Poets' Basement Albert, LaMorticella and Ford     November 26, 2004 Peter Feng Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine? Greg Moses It's the White Vote, Stupid Liaquat Ali Khan The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments Michael Mandel / Gail Davidson Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry of Immigration Dave Lindorff Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the Way Gary Corseri When Black Friday Comes... Paul Craig Roberts Whatever Happened to Conservatives? Website of the Day Iraq Pipeline Watch     November 25, 2004 Willliam Loren Katz Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today" Mitchel Cohen Why I Hate Thanksgiving Mike Ferner An Uncommon Mom     November 24, 2004 Gila Svirsky License to Kill: the Example of Violence is Set by the State Winslow T. Wheeler The Other Mess in Congress Christopher Brauchli The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay Dave Lindorff Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony Ron Jacobs The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem Ken Sengupta Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah Diana Barahona The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader John L. Hess Safire the Shameless Jason Leopold Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal? Jeffrey St. Clair The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear War Map of the Day Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860   November 23, 2004 Forrest Hylton Bush and Uribe at the Beach         November 22, 2004 Dave Zirin Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage in Detroit Paul Craig Roberts On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again? Michael Mandel / Gail Davidson Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada Kathie Helmkamp Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill Ken Sengupta The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place in Iraq" Mike Whitney Greenspan's Hammer Roger Burbach Why They Hate Bush in Chile Website of the Day Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?     November 20 / 21, 2004 Alexander Cockburn The Poisoned Chalice Todd May Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear Abbas Ahmed Ibrahim The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account Kevin Zeese Mishandling Nader Landau / Hassen After Arafat Tom Barry The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley Fred Gardner Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd Justin E.H. Smith Triumph of the Will: the Sequel Carl Estabrook Where We Are Now Gary Leupp Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue Dave Lindorff Apocalypse Soon Jenna Michelle Liut Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower and Lives Mickey Z. The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William Blum Greg Moses The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America Sharon Smith Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now? Ron Jacobs Sandwiches and Car Bombs Ben Tripp Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days Richard Oxman Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules! Gilad Atzmon Politics and Jazz Poets' Basement LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon. Website of the Day Voice of the Forest                                         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 December 11 / 12, 2004 An Interview with John Egerton How the South Became Republican: It's About Race By HEATHER GRAY The South has now shifted from being the conservative Democratic stronghold to a Republican base and southern politicians bring the baggage of excessively conservative social and greedy irresponsible economic policies into the Republican fold. Interestingly, it was the Republican Abraham Lincoln's presidential elections in 1860 and 1864 and the Democrat Lyndon Johnson's election to the White House a century later in 1964 that rallied the Southern politicians to enforce their conservative and segregationist stronghold. Race has always been at the core of Southern politics and the South has always closed ranks against any efforts for equality. This, in spite of the fact that it was a "white" Democratic southern politician, Lyndon Johnson, who passed the most important civil rights legislation in the country's history. The following are excerpts of the Monday, December 6, 2004 interview with "white" southern writer and dissenter John Egerton. A recent contributor to the book Where We Stand: Voices of Southern Dissent (2004), Egerton was winner of the Lillian Smith Award in 1984 for Generations: An American Family. Other books include The Americanization of Dixie: The Southernization of America and Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Gray: John, the south has now shifted from a Democratic stronghold to that of being Republican. I want to ask you how that happened and do to that let's go back to the time of the Civil War. Egerton: In essence, the Civil War was fought by (the majority of the) people in the South who wanted to retain the right to conduct the "social contract" on their own terms. They wanted to have slavery, to keep it, and to be the sole judge of how it should be done.... They were in opposition to the federal government which, at that time of the Civil War, was in the hands of (Republican) president Abraham Lincoln. The (presidential) campaign of 1860 was fought over this issue--the right to extend slavery to the western territories. Compromises had been attempted in the 1850's and had failed and so we fought this horrible war. So horrible now that it's difficult to even look at figures of those who died and the civilian losses that were sustained...We had a Civil War here in which tens of hundreds of thousands of people died, from the tip of Florida to the tip of Maine. The Union won. That should have settled for all time the question of whether "inequality" could be legislated separately by the States. So having lost that war, the South went through a period of reconstruction in which the federal government tried to bring the fruits of citizenship to the newly freed slave population. (Note: The federal government sent federal troops into the South to implement the reconstruction program). (There was) a sudden end of that (reconstruction) period in 1877. In order to bring closure to the tightly fought and bitterly contested election of 1876, in which a Democrat and a Republican came to a virtual tie--does this sound familiar?--a resolution got done in a back room. There where certain southerners in Congress who were going to have the deciding vote in who was going to win that election and made the compromise that they would support the Republican candidate, Rutherford Hayes, if they could get their governments back. If they could end the federal reconstruction... That "Compromise of 1877" marked the beginning of a conflict that goes on to this day because the Southerners got the federal government to get off their backs so they could go on and create a new form of slavery called "segregation"--so called "separate but equal" that was always separate but never equal. Through the first half of the 20th century, southern Democrats were all segregationists and all white, all male with very few exceptions. There were a few Blacks who got elected to Congress from the South up until about 1904 following reconstruction--but by 1904 segregation was the law of the land in the South. And the north was willing to look the other way and let that happen. There were no Republicans in the South the first half of the 20th century...save for the handful--more black than white--who had been Republicans in opposition to the South's succession against the nation. And those so-called Lincoln Republicans--black and white--were the only Republicans in the entire South up until (later in the century). Gray: Storm Thurmond played a critical role didn't he? Tell us about his run for president in 1948. Egerton: Yes. Well, here's this guy (Strom Thurmond) from South Carolina. Like so many other southern politicians at that time, he was a Democrat and a segregationist. (Note: Thurmond was the governor of South Carolina at the time and ultimately a U.S. Senator). Following WWII there was the beginning of a drive for equality for black citizens. Blacks had fought in two world wars and could not be considered full fledged citizens.... Not just in the South, but in other parts as well. Their rebellion against that was beginning to come to a head in the late 1940's and in to the 1950's. The 1948 election was a time that (Democratic President) Harry Truman decided to run for a full term, having succeeded (Democratic president) Franklin Roosevelt (who died in the 1945). (Note: Truman was Roosevelt's vice president ). Along comes Strom Thurmond, and he and others bolted from the Democratic Party when Truman was nominated and tried to form the "Dixiecrat Party" to pull all the southern white segregationists together in a party that would be for all time against any equality for Blacks. (Note: Southern Democrats opposed, among others, Truman's integration of the armed forces and his embrace of policies to protect minority rights in employment.) Truman won the election in 1948 and yet his victory was the fireball in the night for those southern diehards. The ones who had seniority in Congress and members of the Senate and House were in open revolt against Harry Truman and the Democratic Party. That was the beginning of the transformation in the South from a Democratic Party base to a Republican base. And most of them changed not by changing parties--they remained Democrats for a long, long time--but they changed simply by showing their true colors. They were segregationists and they would go to the mat to keep the South that way. The South was in such terrible shape at that period of time. It had come out of the Civil War just whipped down ..devastated...a lot of civilians died... people were homeless...poverty was everywhere. And then came this period of segregation where the south was trying to maintain this mirage, this subterfuge that we would have "separate but equal" facilities where, for example, we would have two schools. Whites would have one, but Blacks would have another, but they would be equal. That was the argument. But we didn't have the resources to have one school system that was equal to the rest of the country, let alone two. So we went through this charade for decades in which not only the black schools but the white schools, as well, were way below par and not competitive with the rest of the country. The South just kept pulling further and further behind the rest of the country, all for the sake of maintaining segregation. Gray: Let's move forward to Lyndon Johnson's run for president in 1964 and the darling of the conservatives, Barry Goldwater, as the 64 Republican candidate that was also critical to changing the South. Johnson had a decisive win, however. Egerton: Okay! The 1948 election, as we said a minute ago, was a crucial turning point when Truman came in and a few more years later we go through Brown v Board of Education and the beginning of school desegregation.... Race relations was all of a sudden in the forefront of domestic policy in the entire country, not just in the south. This was in the period when opposition to desegregation, opposition to Brown v Board, was really building in the South. So you come to 1963 and John Kennedy's been assassinated and Lyndon Johnson--a deep dyed southern Democrat from the hill country of Texas, a former member of the House of Representatives, then of the (U.S.) Senate and then Vice President under Kennedy--became president by virtue of assassination. Now, Lyndon Johnson had many flaws. There's plenty of documentation of that fact in the wonderful biographies that have been written about Johnson. But so far none of the those biographers have really doubted the total conviction that Johnson had, once be became President, to end for all time the...practice of segregation and white supremacy--not just in the South but all over the country. It was sanctioned by law in the South, but Johnson knew from his own experience that these conditions--the social conditions--were common in all parts of the country. The Black population of the United States was harnessed against progress, was kept from advancing by law and by the customs and culture that surrounded them all the way into the 1960's and beyond there. So Lyndon Johnson pushed through Congress two historic civil rights bills (Note: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965). When he (successfully passed these Civil Rights Acts) he said to his aid Bill Moyers that I may have turned the South over to the Republican Party for the next generation., I don't think he could possibly have known just how prophetic that statement was. Indeed, it was in 1964 that Strom Thurmond finally switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party that began this avalanche of "coming out" parties where all these Democrats, who were really closet Republicans, came out of the closet to present themselves as what they truly were, which was super conservative and still segregationists.... Gray: Talking about contemporary politics now and George Bush, one of the things you've said in your article was that if the Confederate states had won the Civil War, Bush's policies would be exactly what you would expect from a "Confederate" president. Egerton: George W. Bush is the first Republican to be elected to the White House from the South in the history of the United States. In essence, when we finally elected a Republican President from the South, we might expect him to have an administration that operated pretty much the way you might suppose the Confederacy would have operated had it been running the country, had it won the Civil War and controlled the United States in 1865. Gray: Why do you say that? Egerton: Well, I'm not saying (Bush's presidency operates) in a directly racist way that would have been true in 1865--but I'm saying it because of the philosophy of elitism, inequality--that certain people had advantages over other people- and carving those into the pillars of the law. This is part and parcel of the Republican Party of today. It is that philosophy of "inequality of privilege" that the Republicans cotton to and claim. Gray: The Democrats have, since the Civil War, been attempting to bend over backwards to accommodate the interests and concerns of the conservative southern Democrats that has resulted in them diluting their (social and economic) policy agenda. And another thing you've said is that with Southern politicians now showing their true colors by becoming Republicans, the Democrats should just say good riddance. Egerton: Well, I think that people in the South (both white and black) who are Democrats need to say out loud that I believe in liberal government,. Now the Democrats have not been pristine--they also have elitist interests. But it's the liberal policies (of the Democrats) that made this country what it was, and not (the philosophy) of a handful getting an advantage over the whole of the population... It was Democrats who gave us social security (for example)....I think that Southern democrats should say this is an integrated party . We're working for the betterment and advancement of the entire population of the South in the framework of the nation...The ones who don't want to do that and (instead) want to placate those conservatives and make them think we're not too liberal--I think that's wrong headed. That's not the right way to go. Democrats need to fight back. Heather Gray has produced "Just Peace" on WRFG-Atlanta 89.3 FM covering local, regional, national and international news. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia and can be reached at justpeacewrfg@aol.com. Weekend Edition Features for November 27 / 28, 2004 Peter Linebaugh Torture & Neo-Liberalism with Sycorax in Iraq Alexander Cockburn What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa? Fred Gardner Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court Kathy Kelly What We Can Control Diane Christian The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts" Gary Leupp One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea Lenni Brenner Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York Times Ron Jacobs Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of the AMS Clerics Joshua Frank An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd Toni Solo The Murder of Danilo Anderson Saul Landau Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica JoAnn Wypijewski Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are No Cure for Homophobia Justin Taylor Empire's Lawless Opportunities Amos Harel The Case of Captain R. Walter A. Davis Tabloid Justice Stephen Hendricks God's Kind of Men Poets' Basement Albert, LaMorticella and Ford WWW http://www.counterpunch.org