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Why Hillary Clinton Has Always Been a Republican In the first of a series of profiles, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair chart the formative years of Hillary Clinton. Watch her as she zigzags from Nixon campaigner and vote-fraud investigator in 1960 to Goldwater Girl and President of Young Republicans at Wellesley to her internship for Gerald Ford and campaigner for Nelson Rockefeller. Witness her reaction to the student protests at Yale and the demonstrations at Grant Park during the Democratic Convention in 1968. Learn how she and Bill vowed to "remake" the Democratic Party--using the Nixon model HRC learned about as a member of the House impeachment staff. And much more! Plus: David Price on anthropologist Andre Gunder Frank, the FBI and the Bureaucratic Exile of a Critical Mind.
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Today's Stories July 9, 2007 Diana
Johnstone July 7 / 8, 2007 Saul
Landau Ismael
Hossein-zadeh Fawzia
Afzal-Khan John
Ross Pat
Williams Rannie
Amiri Farzana
Versey Bart
Gruzalski Paul
Rockwell Reza
Fiyouzat Monica
Benderman Kenneth
Couesbouc Dave
Lindorff Charles
Modiano Missy
Beattie Dal
LaMagna Jean
Gerard Anne
Dachel Ron
Jacobs Poets'
Basement Website
of the Day
Daniel
Ellsberg Gary
Leupp Harvey
Wasserman Omer
Subhani Marjorie
Cohn Christopher
Brauchli David
Michael Green China
Hand Renee
Saucedo Corporate
Crime Reporter Website
of the Day
July 5, 2007 Andy
Worthington Mike
Stark Norman
Solomon Michael
Schwartz Susie
Day Jacob
Hornberger Bill
Hatch Don
Fitz John
Wright Website
of the Day
July 4, 2007 St.
Clair / Frank Vijay
Prashad Carl
G. Estabrook Ron
Jacobs David
R. Dow Claudia
Johnson William
S. Lind Gregory
Afghani Paul
Edwards D.
K. Wilson Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Thomas
Jefferson Cindy
Sheehan Website
of the Day
Bill
Quigley Gary
Leupp Lynda
Brayer Richard
Thieme Helen
Redmond David
Swanson Jacob
Hornberger Ayesha
Ijaz Khan Franklin
Lamb Ray
McGovern Kevin
Zeese Dave
Lindorff Website
of the Day
Andy
Worthington Nina
Serrano Jack
Hirschman Paul
Craig Roberts Bill
Williams Anthony
Papa Sonja
Karkar Louay
Safi Anthony
Gregory Monica
Benderman Website
of the Day
June 30 / July 1, 2007 John
Ross Alan
Farago Peter
Quinn Christopher
Brauchli Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Judith
Siers-Poisson Saul
Landau Abbas
Zaidi Ron
Jacobs Ralph
Nader Donald
Worster Mike
Whitney Jacob
Hill Kenneth
Couesbouc Missy
Beattie Mohammad
Kamaali Ramzy
Baroud Leonard
Peltier Phyllis
Pollack Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 29, 2007 St.
Clair / Frank Brian
Cloughley Patrick
Cockburn Gilad
Atzmon Dave
Lindorff Jennifer
Matsui / Kevin
Zeese Daniel
Klimek David
Michael Green John
Chuckman Website
of the Day
June 28, 2007 Bill
Quigley Vijay
Prashad Margaret
Kimberley Winslow
T. Wheeler Philip
Rizk D.
K. Wilson Bill
Williams Mahmoud
El-Yousseph Richard
Rhames Paul
Krassner Website
of the Day
Marjorie
Cohn Dr.
Susan Rosenthal, MD Alan
Farago Carla
Blank Matthew
Abraham Sunsara
Taylor Russell
D. Hoffman Robert
Weissman Sen.
Russ Feingold Paul
Buchheit Website
of the Day
June 26, 2007 Jonathan
Cook Ralph
Nader Corporate
Crime Reporter Ron
Jacobs Martha
Rosenberg John
Chuckman Denny
Haldeman Anthony
DiMaggio Stephen
Fleischman William
S. Lind Website
of the Day
Paul
Craig Roberts Jennifer
Loewenstein Bob
Anderson Robert
Pollin Patrick
Cockburn Eva
Liddell Dan
Bacher Larry
Atkins Mark
Brenner James
Rothenberg Website
of the Day June 23 / 24, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Jeff
Taylor Oren
Ben-Dor Gary
Leupp Robert
Fisk David
Rosen Russell
Mokhiber Alison
Weir Robert
Fantina D.
K. Wilson Nicole
Colson Stephen
Soldz, Steven Reisner and Brad Olson Dave
Lindorff Benjamin
Dangl Michael
Dickinson Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 22, 2007 Andy
Worthington Sherwood
Ross Eliana
Monteforte Robert
Weissman Richard
Rhames Christopher
Brauchli Ramzy
Baroud Ehud
Krinis, David Shulman and Neve Gordon David
Michael Green Kathryn
Webber Website
of the Day
June 21, 2007 Peter
Linebaugh Natsu
Saito Ron
Jacobs Saree
Makdisi John
Stauber Scott
Liebertz Tom
Clifford Robert
Jensen Michael
J. Smith Jeb
Sprague Website
of the Day
Omar
Barghouti Andy
Worthington Margaret
Kimberley Robert
Weissman Russell
D. Hoffman Rannie
Amiri Stephen
Lendman Dave
Lindorff David
Swanson Anne
Dachel Website
of the Day
June 19, 2007 Ralph
Nader Dr.
Shepherd Bliss Bill
and Kathleen Christison Jeff
Leys Dave
Zirin Chris
Floyd Ben
Terrall Anthony
Papa VIPS Linda Flores Website
of the Day
John
Ross Paul
Craig Roberts Martha
Rosenberg Norman
Solomon Don
Santina Isabella
Kenfield James
Brooks Eva
Liddell Sam
Husseini Akiva
Eldar Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn John
Halle Robert
Fisk Andy
Worthington Uri
Avnery Fred
Gardner Saul
Landau P.
Sainath Missy
Comley Beattie Alan
Gregory Walter
Brasch Website
of the Weekend
June 15, 2007 Alan
Farago Andy
Worthington Michael
Simmons Franklin
Lamb Gary
Leupp John
Ross Website
of the Day
June 14, 2007 Michael
Donnelly
Faisal
Kutty Harry
Browne Charles
Jonkel Steven
Higgs Bruce
Dixon Bruce
K. Gagnon
Website
of the Day June 13, 2007 Glen Ford Marjorie Cohn Bill Christison Charles Jonkel Silvia Cattori Richard Gott Firmin DeBrabander William S. Lind Keith Rosenthal Website of the Day June 12, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair Paul Craig
Roberts P. Sainath Ralph Nader Omar Waraich Dave Lindorff Harvey Wasserman Malini Johar
Schueller Ramzy Baroud Website of
the Day
June 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Norman Solomon Eva Liddell Rannie Amiri Rachel Voss Christopher
Brauchli D. K. Wilson Website of
the Day
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July 9, 2007 "L'Etat C'est Moi, Moi, Moi ... "King Sarko the FirstBy DIANA JOHNSTONE After defeating Segoléne Royal, King Sarko the First is off to a royal start. Turncoats from the defeated parties rush to catch the crumbs from his table. By a nice coincidence, the famous hall of mirrors in the Chateau de Versailles has been fully restored just in time for the new monarch to look at his glittering reflection and exclaim, "L'Etat c'est moi, moi, moi" "Moi" was the leitmotif of his hour-long speech to members of his new parliamentary majority, summoned to the Elysée to get their marching orders three days after winning election. In enumerating the full legislative program that must be adopted, pronto, Nicolas Sarkozy left no space for an eventual idea from some humble parliamentarian. Each command was punctuated by the declaration, "I'll be taking my responsibilities!" Never has a President of the Republic made such lavish use of the first person singular. Like pre-revolutionary Versailles, the royal court is frequented by beautiful women, who distract attention from foreign wars and disgruntled plebeians. The most striking of these decorations is not the enigmatic part-time first lady Cecilia, but a total newcomer, Rama Yade, the 30-year-old daughter of Senegalese intellectuals. Sarkozy prides himself on promoting what he calls "the visible minorities". With her stunning smile, Rama Yade is the most visible. She is not only African-born (naturalized French) and Muslim (married to a Jewish Socialist), but has also accumulated the necessary academic credentials to occupy a place in the French elite. As "State Secretary for Human Rights" (whatever on earth that may mean), she was catapulted onto the international scene at a Paris conference on Darfur where she could upstage Condoleezza Rice, as the only African woman at a conference about Africa. With such appointments, which he describes as an "opening" to outsiders, Sarkozy is cleverly substituting symbolism for representation. Instead of giving a place to figures elected by minorities or oppositions parties to represent them, he plucks from those minorities and opposition parties individuals who symbolize them, without any mandate other than the one conferred by Sarkozy himself. This use of symbolism is another step in the crippling of political democracy in the age of images. Meanwhile, the political opposition
is groggy from its defeat. The Socialist Party survived the June
17 parliamentary elections better than feared, but its lack of
inner cohesion is well reflected in the breakup of the Ségolène
Royal-François Hollande couple. Without François
Mitterrand to hold it together, the SP has deteriorated into
a snake pit of rival currents, where personal animosities and
basic disagreements seem to rule out any constructive political
revival. Local loyalties saved a score of Communists, who with
three Greens elected thanks to Socialist support
may form a small parliamentary group. Leading members of both
those parties are calling for their dissolution. The French
left has not been in such a wretched state for decades. The end of Gaullism Sarkozy also managed a knock-out
blow against his rivals on the right. The defeat of Jean-Marie
Le Pen is, paradoxically, a heavy blow by ricochet against the
left. For twenty years the left has hugely inflated the "Le
Pen threat", both to brandish its own "anti-fascism",
and, not incidentally, to focus attention on the monster and
thereby increase his appeal to ornery voters who might otherwise
have voted for the mainstream right. This time, thanks to Sarkozy's
double talk, they did just that. Without the Le Pen hobgoblin,
the left may have to come up with some ideas of its own. More significant is the defeat of the Gaullists, that is, the bourgeois current that, following World War II, pursued a policy of social concessions to the working class (similar to Christian Democracy in Germany and Italy) combined with sporadic defense of French independence on the international scene. This latter trait, almost unique in post-World War II Western Europe, greatly irritated Washington. Both these traits appear to be absent from the Sarkozy outlook. In recent years, Jean-Pierre Chevènement tried in vain to inject a certain measure of Gaullism into the ideologically disoriented French left. The most principled champion of the secular republic, Chevènement was the only minister who resigned from the government in protest against France's participation in the 1991 first Gulf War, and remained opposed to all recent U.S. wars. He was isolated and marginalized by a Socialist Party that preferred to abandon foreign policy to a theoretical "Europe" that had none. The June 17 election put an end to Chevènement's career, when the Socialist Party failed to give him full support in the second round. It also put an end to the career of Alain Juppé, the last of the Chirac loyalists. The new Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development, designed by and for Juppé, was turned over to Jean-Louis Borloo, a centrist rallied to Sarko. The last Chirac loyalist in Sarkozy's cabinet, Michèle Aliot-Marie, has been placed on a political minefield in the Interior Ministry, Sarkozy's former bailiwick, which he intends to keep under close control. Ironically, Jacques Chirac's landslide victory in the 2002 presidential election probably contributed to the final fall of Gaullism and the rise of Nicolas Sarkozy. Chirac could only be aware that he was elected by both left and right wing voters in order to "stop Le Pen". He had no mandate to carry through a tough right-wing program of neo-liberal reforms. Moreover, there is no evidence that he cared to do so. His attitude toward France seems to have been something like, "if it isn't broken, don't fix it." And he was right. Far from being broken, France, by many if not most indicators, was the most successful country in the capitalist West: high labor productivity, top public services, longest life expectancy, highest birth rate in Europe (due much more to pro-family government policy than, as is sometimes claimed by foreign critics, to immigrant fecundity), Europe's only thriving film industry, lowest rate of "brain drain" in Europe and highest rate of "brain gain". But to the left and right of Chirac swirled the laments that France was in terrible shape. For the right, France was in "decline", due to the "conservatism" of the selfish lower classes, unwilling to make the necessary patriotic sacrifice of their wages, pensions, public services and social benefits in order to lure financial capital into buying up the country's profitable productive sectors. These laments, amplified by the mainstream media, gave an impression of political stagnation in a country that was actually vibrantly active. All this played into the hands of a shrewd political operator offering the spectacle of perpetual motion.
The threat of "Islamo-Fascism" Chirac's greatest moment, his opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was the swan song of Gaullist independence. It won him little open support, even though the French people overwhelmingly wanted nothing to do with that war. While U.S. media and politicians railed against "the French", the French did nothing to build on rejection of the Iraq war to construct an alternative foreign policy. Instead, the deviation from the U.S. line gave rise to a concentrated campaign of denigration of Chirac on the part of France's largely pro-American media, as well as a stepped-up effort on the part of Israel's champions to focus attention on the danger of "Islamo-fascism". Israel's robbery, theft and murder of Palestinians can be portrayed as defense of "Western values" against the alleged "Islamo-fascism" of the popular resistance movements Hamas and Hezbollah. Since, fortunately, it is hard to find anything in France itself that can seem to correspond to that particular threat, everything Muslim tends to be scrutinized for symptoms of the new peril. A handful of stubbornly head-scarved schoolgirls scarcely qualify as a major menace. And only abroad is it plausible to link the 2006 banlieue riots to Islam. A more subtle approach to stigmatizing Islam goes by way of feminism. This tendency is represented in the new Sarkozy team by another of his "visible minority" women, Fadela Amara, recruited from her association "Ni Putes Ni Soumises" (NPNS, "neither whores nor submissive women") to be State Secretary for Urban Policy. Presented in mainstream media as a friendly gesture by Sarkozy toward "les banlieues", Fadela Amara's appointment is felt as a hostile provocation in communities where she is widely accused of contributing to divisiveness and stigmatization of Muslims. NPNS has specialized in campaigning against macho abuse of women in working class communities. Machismo certainly flourishes in more crude forms in poor than in rich neighborhoods, but NPNS serves more to project a negative image in mainstream media than to combat sexism in the banlieues. Like its predecessor "SOS Racisme", NPNS is a satellite of the Socialist Party. Its focus on identity politics avoids economic themes that might unite rather than divide the working class. The secretary general of Ni Putes Ni Soumises happens to be a man, Mohammed Abdi, born in Morocco, who is also a cofounder of the very pro-American and pro-Israel magazine Le Meilleur des Mondes, the organ of French neo-conservatives. A friend and colleague of Amara for twenty years, Abdi says he joined SOS Racisme in order to "combat Islamism side by side with Jews". After having made her name
as a far left feminist, Fadela Amara appears delighted to work
for Christine Boutin, the Minister of Housing and the City and
the most socially conservative member of the new government.
A devout Catholic, Boutin made a spectacle of herself in secular
France by brandishing a Bible in parliament during the debate
on a measure to legalize unmarried couples (hetero- and homosexual),
which she opposed on religious grounds. Sarkozy goes to Europe On the matter of the European Union, Sarkozy has scored an early political victory simply by facing a few facts on a subject where fantasy prevails. One of the main reasons for the defeat of the Socialist Party has been its utter refusal to face up to the French voters' rejection of the Treaty for a European Constitution in the referendum held in May 2005. The party was split on the issue, with the vast majority of its leaders campaigning for "yes" and a very large minority of its electorate voting "no". Most Socialist leaders have gone on since as if nothing had happened. As for the few who campaigned for the "no" (Laurent Fabius, Henri Emmanuelli, Jean-Luc Mélanchon), they failed to make a major issue of the matter within their party. Nor did they join with the extraparliamentary left supposing that would have been possible, given the latter's sectarianism -- in drawing political conclusions for the future. A main obstacle to drawing such conclusions has been the left's dogmatic devotion to "the idea of Europe", regardless of the evolving reality. Any criticism of the real existing European Union has been dismissed as a reversion to "nationalism", the source of two World Wars. Socialist leaders have lost credibility by simultaneously abandoning social policies in conformity with EU directives ("Brussels") while holding out the prospect that the way to save the "French social model" is to strengthen and expand the European Union as if the growing number of European member states would be willing and able to convert to the policies of the French left. While "no" voters saw that the Constitution made this impossible, even the anti-Constitution left kept alive the vague hope that some unidentified process might still lead to a genuine "social Europe". Back when the Conservatives were in power in Britain, it was possible to imagine that a British Labor government would support "social Europe", as left Labor members of the European Parliament seemed to indicate. Tony Blair long ago shattered all such illusions. Political Europe has long since been sacrificed to economic Europe, open for business (in every sense). Not only Britain, but also Poland and the Baltic States constitute an obstacle both to "social Europe" and to any unified EU foreign policy that might deviate seriously from the line set down in Washington. The left has not faced up clearly to these obvious facts. In her campaign for President, Ségolène Royal called for negotiation of a new treaty to be resubmitted to the people in a new referendum. This overlooked the impossibility of getting the EU's Member States all 27 of them -- to revise the draft Constitution in ways that would gain the approval of a majority of French voters. This avoidance of unpleasant realities left the field wide open to Sarkozy to appear to accomplish miracles with his proposal to jettison the Constitution in favor of a "simplified Treaty", to be ratified by parliaments instead of by risky popular referendums. After this proposal won the initial approval of Germany and other Member States, Sarkozy declared in a major speech in Strasbourg on July 2 that "Europe is saved!" In contrast to Socialist Party leaders, Sarkozy went so far as to recognize the May 2005 "no" vote as justified. "It is not the 'no' in the French and Dutch referendums that created a crisis in Europe. It's the crisis of the European spirit that provoked the French and Dutch 'no'," he declared, adding that other European populations would no doubt have voted "no" if given the chance. Europe was turning into a "bureaucratic machine", distrusted by the people. But "France is back!" in the person of Sarkozy, to inject "politics" and "political will" into European construction. His "simplified Treaty" eliminated reference to "free competition" as a "basic value" of the EU, which many "no" voters had rejected as a threat to public services. Sarkozy promised to combat "monetary, social and ecological dumping" and to restore the principle of community preference to protect European industry. By such agitation on the European level, Sarkozy delivers the message to the home front that he is doing whatever can be done "for the people". If it doesn't work, well, nobody could do any more. While this show goes on, his government can freeze the minimum wage, raise health care charges to patients, reduce transport workers' right to strike, lengthen the work week, cut back the number of teachers and other public servants, and give big tax breaks to the rich. In doing so, he is running up a deficit that can later become the reason why we "must" cut back more public services. The day after his triumphant Strasbourg oration, Sarkozy was in Marseilles initiating a new tramway and making another big speech. Every day is Sarko day. It could almost be overlooked that meanwhile, in Paris, his overshadowed prime minister, François Fillon, was making his big policy speech to Parliament. Fillon declared that the "French model" is "worn out", and that it is necessary to carry through "reforms" all the way "to the end". Shock treatment, here we come. While Sarko is "saving Europe", Fillon gets to be the "bad cop" on the home beat. Just in case his "reforms" lead to popular revolt, it is Fillon who can be thrown to the wolves, while Sarkozy dips into his vast reserve of eager opportunists. It has become clear that by changing the presidential term to five years, with the parliamentary election following close on the heels of the presidential election, France has given itself the most presidential system in the Western world. The victorious president pretty much gets the parliament he wants, which he can keep throughout his five-year term. Not only does this system differ from the parliamentary systems of Germany, Italy, Britain and most other European countries, it concentrates even more power in the Presidency than the U.S. system. And Sarkozy clearly means to use every ounce of it. In France, every political phenomenon is interpreted in terms of its historic antecedents. It has taken only a few weeks for historians to place Sarkozy firmly in the line of Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew who ruled France as the Second Empire from 1852 to 1870.* An ominous precedent for French democracy. Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions, Monthly Review Press. She can be reached at dianajohnstone@compuserve.com * This is the theme of the June 30 issue of the weekly Marianne, with articles by the magazine's founder, Jean-François Kahn, and historian Marc Ferro, among others. www.marianne-en-ligne.fr
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CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy  Click Here to Buy! How the Press Failed The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
