How
the Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career
Today's
Stories
January 21,
2005
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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.
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January 21, 2005
Protesting
the Bush Inauguration
Locked
Out and Pissed Off
By
RON JACOBS
As I flew into DC's National Airport
Wednesday night, I could see celebratory fireworks over near
the Washington Monument. It was the beginning of the Bush version
of a party-something akin to Nero fiddling while Rome burned.
Of course, I couldn't help but think of the much more dangerous
explosions that are daily occurrences in the Iraq that Washington's
war has made. After retrieving my backpack form the baggage claim,
I made my way to the Metro station, purchased a farecard and
got on the next train. The first thing I noticed was the numerous
white women wearing fur coats and hanging tight to their tuxedo
clad husbands. Not your usual subway crowd by any means. Apparently,
the three inch snowfall in DC that day had screwed up the schedules
of these celebrants' limousines. Ah, the sufferings of the rich
and powerful.
Thursday morning I headed into
DC from the place I was staying in Maryland. After a series of
public transportation holdups, I finally got to the area of the
city where the inauguration was being held. Talk about lockdown.
Everywhere one looked there was fencing and security personnel.
DC police, Secret Service, FBI, National Guard and active duty
military-all of them very well-armed. In addition to the folks
on the ground, every government building along the route had
a half-dozen sharpshooters on its roof. Because of the extreme
security measures, one had to walk several blocks out of the
way in order to reach their destination. After walking at least
two miles out more than would have been necessary under normal
circumstances, I finally reached an access point to the Mall
where folks were gathered to listen to W's speech. Now, the way
the Bush people had the entry points into their security zone
set up, one had to already have a ticket to enter through most
of them. Most of these tickets were provided to those who had
worked or donated to the Bush campaign and the rest were sold
prior to the date. The rest of us-protesters and supporters alike-had
but one point of entry. Of course, the lines were extremely long
and, once one got to the front, they were subject to a patdown
search. By the time I had gone through this exercise and entered
the Mall grounds, Bush was beginning his speech. To be honest,
I didn't listen to much of it, choosing instead to observe the
crowd, which seemed to be made up of several dozen groups of
high school students in the general area where I stood. The Mall
itself was less than half full of people. Recent antiwar demonstrations
have drawn more people.
I left the area after Bush's
promise to end tyranny (one assumes his definition of tyranny
doesn't include the governments in DC, Tel Aviv, or Iraq). From
there I began to make my way over to a decent vantage point from
which to watch the parade. In addition, I was looking for some
likeminded folks. I have never been in DC and felt like I was
in such an alien environment. The vanilla suburbs had truly invaded
the chocolate city, to borrow the terminology of George Clinton.
It was somewhat disconcerting. After walking another couple of
miles to cover what would normally have been a six or seven-block
walk, I reached the back of the White House. There was the tail
end of an earlier antiwar demonstration remaining there. Most
of the people involved were participating in a die-in in sympathy
with the people of Iraq. One male Bush supporter stopped and
asked me what was going on. I told him and he responded: "Gee,
they look like me after the party last night." Despite his
trivialization of the matter, I admit I had to laugh at his joke.
Then I wandered on, eventually
reaching the intersection of 14th and F Streets. There was a
large crowd of protestors there. This was a crowd made up of
mostly young and exuberant folks who were not attached to any
particular organization. Some were identified as anarchists,
some as socialists, some as Democrats and some just folks. They
were waiting in line to get through the security points, others
were chanting slogans in the street, and still others were arguing
with Bush supporters walking by. I remembered the intersection
and walked on, intending to find the rest of the antiwar folks
who were assembled under the auspices of the ANSWER coalition.
I walked all the way to 3rd and C Streets, where the ANSWER folks
were trying to get in. There was a long line and the process
was very slow. Making a split-second decision, I decided to go
back up to 14th Street and spend my afternoon there.
The security situation at this
point was this: there were three fences; in between the first
and second fence stood a tight row of DC police in full riot
gear; in between the second and third fence (which stood directly
behind the viewing bleachers) stood a more loosely-organized
line of security forces, some in camouflage with automatic weapons
and some in plainclothes. As the day wore on, the sense of being
purposely excluded frustrated and angered the crowd of several
thousand on the two blocks of 14th Street more and more. A couple
of young people burned a US flag while some nationalist clown
dressed in red, white and blue attempted to wrestle with them.
Protestors engaged in shouting matches with overly smug Bush
supporters dressed in fur coats and tuxedos. The insults from
the Bushites were familiar: get a job, move to Iraq, and so on.
Eventually, as the frustration of the protestors continued to
grow, virtually all sense of decorum left the crowd. Taunts from
Bush supporters were met with the simple response (recently popularized
once again by Dick Cheney) of "Go fuck yourself." Young
and old protestors utilized this repeatedly throughout the afternoon.
More and more riot cops poured into the street as more protestors
showed up and grew rowdier.
The old Willard Hotel takes
up a block of 14th Street between F and G. Its front steps stood
about fifty feet away from the first security fence and also
gave folks the closest view of the parade from the outside of
the security zone. By 3 PM this area was filled with protestors,
some of them intent on tearing down the security fence. As they
disengaged various sections of the fence (only to have them put
back in place by the cops), the riot squad began spraying some
kind of pepper tear gas. Various demonstrators responded by pelting
the cops with snowballs, who then sprayed more gas. By the time
Cheney and then Bush's cars were announced, the crowd near the
hotel was angry and loud and some, even through our scarves and
bandannas we held over our faces to lessen the effects of the
gas. After this part of the parade passed, folks began to filter
away from the front of the hotel but not away from the protest.
In response, the riot cops began to add reinforcements with the
intention of clearing the streets.
One note about the DC police.
In a scenario reminiscent of a colonial army made up of local
nationals (think the new Iraqi National Guard), it appears that
the majority of the men and women who make up DC's riot squad
are Black. This was not the case thirty years ago, but it is
today. In short, the wealthy white folks of Washington's corporate
war establishment have a bunch of non-white skinned folks protecting
their buildings and their right to oppress. The irony is not
lost.
Various skirmishes between
the riot squad and the protestors continued throughout the rest
of the afternoon. I personally only witnessed one arrest. However,
there were probably more. After leaving DC that evening, I went
to my parents' house in Maryland and talked politics with my
dad. He asked why I was protesting. My response was simple: Never
have I felt so locked out of this nation's so-called democratic
process. Suffice it to say, the day's events reinforced that
perception in a very real and physical manner.
Ron Jacobs is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground,
which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill
Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's new collection on music,
art and sex, Serpents
in the Garden. He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
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