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Today's
Stories
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
June
29, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover
Robert
Fisk
Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland
Troy
Selvaratnam
New York Times Boosts Pet Developer
Harry
Browne
Bush in Ireland
Ray
McGovern
The CIA According to Anonymous
Elaine
Cassel
Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really
Won?
June
28, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn / Leyla Linton
Grisly Rituals in Iraq
Amira
Hass
Confronting Myths and Deadly Power
June
26 / 27, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
Patrick
Cockburn
Iyad Allawi, the CIA's New Stooge
in Iraq
Dennis
Hans
Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney,
the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11
Ben
Tripp
Adventures in Fuel Efficiency
Dave
Lindorff
That State Department Terrorism
Report: What They Knew, But Didn't Tell You
Chris
Floyd
Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit
Ali
Tonak
Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives,
Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela
Keith
Rosenthal
The Withering of the Anti-War Movement
Bryan
Sacks
The Failure of the 9/11 Commission
Wayne
Madsen
Another Case of Blowback
Thomas
St. John
L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating
in the Wizard of Oz
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
American Swadeshi
June
25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul
Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege:
Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack
McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal?
Did Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diana Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June
19 / 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation
on Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother
Nature
Col.
Dan Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis
in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a
Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June
18, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave
Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player
& Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American
Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
18, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
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
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Weekend
Edition
July 10 / 12, 2004
Power
Check, Right On!
The
Panthers and the Rest
By
RON JACOBS
We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black
Panther Party
Mumia abu Jamal, Boston, South End, 2004
The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome:
The Dead End of Black Politics
Norman Kelley, New York, Nation Books, 2004
Mumia abu Jamal's membership in the
Black Panther Party was used by the prosecution in his murder
trial as a reason to sentence him to death in 1981. This questionable
conduct by the prosecution and bench was but one instance in
his trial for the murder of a policeman that can only be characterized
as a miscarriage of justice. Since he was sentenced, Jamal has
sat on death row, written commentary for various radio stations
and websites, received a couple honorary degrees, spoken via
tape recordings to high school and college commencements, and
written several books.
His most recent book, We
Want Freedom, is a history of the Panthers. Like other party
memoirs/histories (from David Hilliard, Elaine Brown, Bobby Seale,
to name a few), Jamal's book is partly autobiographical. Yet,
unlike those books, it is mostly a political, critical history
of the party. Another aspect of this book that sets it apart
from those other Panther books is that it is the first history
written by a party member who was not in the leadership; it is
written by a foot soldier. Consequently, it tells a story somewhat
different than those written by the leadership. With all due
respect to the Panther leaders, things look different to the
foot soldiers in most organizations and the Panthers weren't
any different in that regard (although the differences weren't
that great).
Mumia does a great job placing
the Panthers in the proper historical context. He starts with
a brief history of various slave rebellions, relates anecdotes
and historical evidence of various black self-defense groups,
and then writes about the influence of Malcolm X's speeches and
writings on the BPP's founders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.
This is where Jamal places the Panthers-an organization whose
legacy lies with those African-Americans historically opposed
to their oppression by the white-skinned capitalist class.
Given his status as a minor
light in the Party-indeed more of a worker than a leader-Mumia
relates his story of the Panthers in their heyday. Furthermore,
his story emanates from Philadelphia, not Oakland or New York,
which is where most other histories and remembrances of the Panthers
were written. Consequently, he highlights Party activities that
merited little mention in  those
other books. The Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention
in 1970, the success of the Panther's community programs in Philly
and throughout the country are but two such examples.
What is truly unique to Mumia's
book, though, is the fact that he addresses the role that the
US government's counterintelligence operation known as COINTELPRO
played in the Party's demise. One of the ongoing debates among
leftist historians in the US is the importance of COINTELPRO.
There are those who belittle its effect, blaming the failures
of the organizers and leaders for the New Left's collapse, while
others tend to blame the government for everything-a process
which often leads to a paranoiac fascination with conspiracies
that wind in endless loops. Mumia spins a line between these
two extremes and places the government's manipulations of Panther
personalities via various dirty tricks in their proper historical
place (manipulations that fueled the split between the Oakland
and New York wings). All the while, he does not let the reader
forget that the FBI and other law agencies were intent on destroying
the Black Panther Party by any means necessary.
Another important aspect of
Mumia's book is that he addresses the role women played in the
Panthers. Although he acknowledges that the actions of several
male members did not match the ideals of the Party in terms of
treating women equally and not abusing them sexually, Jamal makes
it clear that it was the goal of Panther leadership to have all
of its members treat women the same as they would men. Jamal
further emphasizes the leading roles various women played in
the Party after Newton, Seale, Cleaver, and other leaders had
been jailed, exiled, or murdered. These women not only answered
the call, states Jamal, they led the Party to greater things,
building the community programs and, in Oakland, creating an
electoral political organization.
True to the cornerstone of
Panther philosophy, Mumia's history emphasizes the role class
plays in US society. Indeed, one of the primary differences
between the Black Panther Party and other nationalist organizations
(organization that were termed reactionary nationalists by the
Panthers and others on the left) was its insistence that the
only true African-American nationalism had to be a revolutionary
nationalism that based its thoughts in the economic history of
Black Americans, from slavery to today's situation of permanent
lumpenism for much of Black America.
If one looks back at the mainstream
civil rights movement that existed during the Black Panther Party's
time, they won't find very many leaders who understood the role
that class plays in US society. Indeed, one could argue that
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was probably the only one. Unfortunately,
Dr. King met his end as prematurely as many of the Panthers,
thanks to COINTELPRO and the racism of US society. Also, like
the Panthers, once he was gone, there was no one left who could
truly carry on his work.
This is the underlying concept
of Norman Kelley's latest book, The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome:
The Dead End of Black Politics. Kelley, the author of the
Nina Halligan noir soul mystery series and a writer on the music
business and African-American politics, argues quite convincingly
that Black politics in America has become a politics devoid of
content that not only fails to deliver, but can't deliver the
goods it promises. Furthermore, writes Kelley, the "post-civil-rights
leadership has been politically co-opted and reduced to functional
irrelevance." This has occurred across the black political
spectrum, from the NAACP to Louis Farrakhan, continues Kelley,
leaving the supposed constituency of these groups and individuals
with nothing but empty symbols like the Million-Man March and
Al Sharpton's 2004 political campaign.
Like Jamal, Kelley places the
story he wishes to tell within the context of African-American
history and the struggle for civil rights and liberation. Discussing
the differences between WEB Du Bois and Booker T. Washington
and the 1960s version of the NAACP and Black Power, Kelley makes
the argument that the dichotomization of these differences created
a situation that made it difficult for black America to move
forward after legal  segregation
was outlawed. As King, Du Bois, and Huey Newton knew only too
well, it was the racial nature of the class system (or maybe
the class nature of the racial system) in the US that keeps African-Americans
from a true equality. Yet, as Washington and the Nation of Islam
(NOI) have pointed out in words and deeds, it is necessary for
black America to create a somewhat self-reliant economy if it
truly intends on destroying (or upending) that class system
Unfortunately, writes Kelley, the attempts at self-reliance
by the NOI have not translated into an economy that can sustain
much more than those who adhere to the mosque.
Deservedly, Kelley saves his
harshest words for those African-Americans who have given their
soul to the Democrats. After discussing Jesse Jackson and the
role he has tended to play since 1984, when he ran for the Democratic
nomination and then, after failing to win it, campaigned for
Walter Mondale in a losing campaign. Since then, Jackson's politics
have become not only more nebulous, but more right wing. In
part because of this transition, he no longer seems able to rally
very many folks to his various causes. Al Sharpton fares no
better in Kelley's eyes. In fact, Kelley goes so far as to label
Sharpton's 2004 campaign, the Scampaign.
Kelley offers some potential
answers to the dilemma of 2004 America. One, which he suggests
after a discussion of the positive role singer James Brown played
in the 1960s with his release of "I'm Black and I'm Proud"
and other songs, is the idea that black musicians and performers
should use their creative and economic clout to create their
own economy, instead of selling out to the Hip-Hop pimps and
the global capitalists that they work for. Another suggestion
from Kelley revolves around black people withholding their vote
in a very public way in order to get some results from the white
establishment. Although this reviewer has little faith in US
electoral politics, perhaps such an endeavor would produce results
if it were done in the right way. However, it might be more
fruitful if another grassroots party were to arise from the ashes
of the ill-fated Panthers.
Ron Jacobs is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground,
which is just republished by Verso. It can be purchased by calling
1 800 233 4830.
He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for July 3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
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