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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!

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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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Weekend Edition
June 18 / 19, 2005

Love and an Underground Band

Eros and the Grateful Dead

By RON JACOBS

The last time I heard Jerry Garcia play his guitar live was in the summer of 1995. Bill Clinton was president of the US, Saddam Hussein still ran Iraq, Iraqis were dying because of US imposed sanctions on their country, and the US war there involved a series of occasional bombings. George Bush was a neophyte governor of Texas and the Grateful Dead were touring the country for the last time because Garcia would be dead by summer's end. The show I heard him at that summer was in Highgate, Vermont. Most of the tunes that Garcia sang on were weak and his command of the lyrics was sporadic. Even his guitar work was inconsistent, leaving the task of carrying most of the tunes to his band mates, who undertook the task like true troupers.

At one time, I lived in the land that the Grateful Dead describe. Fennario was my address and Ramble On Rose my lover. Somewhere between Penny Lane and Johnny's basement, I caught a ride to this fantastic place where reality isn't changed except by those who live in it. Much like a childhood fantasy. Unlike any other rock musicians (except for Bob Dylan), the Grateful Dead created a history that wasn't real but seemed like it should have been. Garcia's guitar playing had a lot to do with this imagined world. Dripping like a psychedelic flower at times and crisp as a Satchel Paige fastball at others, Garcia's guitar work combined the best of American traditional music with the manic bebop of John Coltrane. A pioneer in the genre, his electric guitar work during the Grateful Dead's early days blasted those aware enough to listen out of their complacency and into the madness of the America that Neal Cassady and LSD helped to create.

It may be hard for people today to understand, but there really was a cultural revolution going on in the western world during the 1960s and early 1970s. The Puritan element in US culture was on the defensive. The phenomenon that philosopher Herbert Marcuse called eros in his book Eros and Civilization really did have a hold on a sizable number of Westerners who did not want to live in the world of corporate conformity. In one sense, this eros was to liberate society by eroticizing it. While sexuality is an aspect of this eroticization, it is not the be all and end all of it. Indeed, the connotation Marcuse was aiming for was one that liberated humanity from the strictures of sexuality and moved us all into a world where thought and beauty brought us closer to the Eden-like state that Genesis claims we were born into. Like many other utopians, Marcuse considered the advance of technology to be beneficial-a force that could liberate humanity from the drudgery of industrial labor and free us to create. At the same time, he understood that technology could (and would) be used for purposes more appropriate to Thanatos. After all, Marcuse had been exiled from the war machine of Nazi Germany and saw the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So, in a story well told, the sons and daughters of the man in the gray flannel suit smoked pot, wrote poetry, discovered human politics, got pissed at their society's racism, and started playing and dancing to blues-based music. Technology played a part in this, too. Rock and roll music would not have existed if the electric guitar hadn't been invented and it would not have taken us to the transcendent states it did (and does) if Albert Hoffman hadn't discovered how to produce lysergic acid diethylamide (and Owsley hadn't mass-produced it). Elvis and his early bands broke down the barriers between black and white, Bob Dylan made the personal political, the Beatles made it all bigger than life, and the San Francisco rock bands (with the Grateful Dead at the helm) created an ecstatic community that traveled the western world, spreading its theme of a postindustrial tribal life where humans used technology to celebrate their humanity.

Marcuse's vision of eros was hijacked. Instead of the eroticization of human life, we ended up with a Madison Avenue pornographic masturbation session. Life and love weren't celebrated, just sex at its basest. Drugs became a stone around the counterculture's neck, bringing the whole anarchic experiment into the hellhole of addiction and crime. The egotism of capitalism turned shamans into coke snorting dealers with guns and musicians into accountants. Jerry Garcia tried to ignore this mark on the world he thrived in. The Grateful Dead even joined together with other bands and some counterculture activists to create a cooperative venture that would provide celebratory dances and concerts without the profits demanded by the big corporations in the biz. Unfortunately, their business instincts did not include the requisite predatory mindset and the endeavor failed.

The Grateful Dead were an underground band in most senses of the word. They refused to tailor their music to the corporate radio of their day and insisted on total artistic control of their projects. They played lots of free shows and also donated money to a variety of causes, from the Black Panther Defense Fund to the Rainforest Action Network. They began as a house band for Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' Acid Tests and were an essential part of the community that grew out of the oppositional consciousness in the western world after the Second World War. Although that experiment was ultimately assimilated into the greater scheme of things, its influence continues to be heard. One regrets that its foundation has become so obscured. Not only have the Puritans experienced a rebirth of political power, many of the counterculture's adherents have renounced the eroticization of their youth and now clamor for the eradication of sexuality from their adolescent children's lives. Those children, meanwhile, accept Hollywood's portrayal of love and eroticism as violence and brutal sex tinged with jealousy. That version makes calls for censorship seem almost reasonable. However, such censorship does not address the confusion around what love is, it only hides it.

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