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Today's Stories

September 4-6, 2004

Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Holy Empire: Who Are and What We Do

William A. Cook
The Day of the Lemming

 

September 3, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb

Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response

Carl Estabrook
The Book of Slaughter and Forgetting

Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again

Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March

James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?

Mark Engler
Republicans Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out

Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education

Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid

Stephen Green
Serving Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel

Sex, Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden

CounterPunch's Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase

 

September 2, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks

Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves in Guatemala

James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities

Christopher Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote Twice, Let Them"

Todd Chretien & Jessie Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?

Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer

Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam

Christa Allen
Contre Bush

Website of the Day
[Redacted]

 

September 1, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
The Stench of Doom

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin

Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test

Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up

John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops

Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold

Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC

Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words

 

August 31, 2004

Joseph Nevins
Escapism and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs

Matt Vidal
Beyond Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy

Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Bush the Peace Candidate?

Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran

Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)

CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC

 

August 30, 2004

Justin Podhur
The Disappeared Mayor

Shaun Joseph
The Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com

Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly Want?

Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate

David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy

Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate

Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History

 

 

August 28 / 29, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
Zombies for Kerry

Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US

Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence

Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor

Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!

Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot

Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live

William S. Lind
The Desert Fox

Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry

Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads

Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests

Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange

Justin E.H. Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left

Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?

Mark Engler
New York Says "No"

Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas

Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod

 

 

August 27, 2004

Gary Leupp
Neocon Musings

Robin Cook
The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

Diane Christian
Disarming

Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?

Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters

Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"

Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners

Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"


 

August 26, 2004

M. Shahid Alam
The Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?

Diane Christian
War Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu

Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get Organized

David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally

Christopher Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble

Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity

Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court

Saul Landau
Pinochet: the Al Capone of the Southern Cone

Website of the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See

 

 

August 25, 2004

Amelia Peltz
Can I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?

Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture

Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About Democracy

James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan

Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"

Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism

Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia

CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door

 

 

August 24, 2004

Jeremy Scahill
John Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate

Gary Leupp
"We Want Them to Go Away"

David Domke
God Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism

William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in Venezuela

Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media

Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah

Joe Bageant
Driving on the Bones of God

Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC


 

August 23, 2004

Winslow Wheeler
Don't Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror

John Pilger
Bush May Be the Lesser Evil

Stan Goff
Swift Boat Dogfight

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Notes from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild

Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan

William Blum
Brave New World of Iraqi Sovereignty

Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial

 

 

August 21 / 22, 2004

Cockburn / St. Clair
"They Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on Drugs

Landau / Hassen
Failing the Mission? Form a Commission

Brian Cloughley
The Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts

Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So

Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib

Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues

Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin

Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants

Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot

Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA

Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings

Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad

Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery

Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing

Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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Labor Day Weekend Edition
September 4-6, 2004

Feeling Inarticulate

Or a Bad Day with an Ikea Cup

By VANESSA JONES

The actor Colin Friels discusses anger and the frustration of words in an interview with Alexa Moses, in August 2004:

"How can a writer not be angry? How can they not be? Show me a writer or an actor who is at peace with the world and they're not worth a pinch of salt. 'Too right I am angry," Friels says. 'I'm just concealing the anger, that's all. I'm easygoing...'

"He's angry about the Government, he's angry about the war in Iraq, he's angry about the right-wing columnists in the newspapers. He wishes he was more articulate, that he could write an opinion piece brilliant enough to 'blitz them off the face of the Earth'.

"'Speaking of those people, I don't want to advocate violence, but if I could metaphorically ram their heads into a wall, it would be great..I don't want to, I don't want to--yes, I do wanna get my hands around their necks and lightly squeeze."

"It's not fair to end a story starring Friels with a quote, because everything he says is in the actor's powerful body language. When he says he wants to 'lightly squeeze', he plasters a faux-maniac grin across his face, moulds his hands to an invisible neck and squeezes like a caress."

And Michael Ondaatje writes, in a poem in The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems

How many windows have I broken? And doors and lamps, and last month a tumbler I smashed into a desk ...... they were acts when words failed the way surgeons hammer hearts gone still...

And I wrote, in an email to an old friend I'd gone to visit, her singing in a country town, me watching, and dancing a bit:

Dear T- it was great to see you too- I think it's great you go and do that and get paid for that- even if you didn't get paid- it'd be worth it cause it's expressive and fun. I'm still feeling a bit flustered/frustrated, but at least I am honest and I know what part of me I like existing (that opinionated side). I just don't know what the heck to do with it. Like wanting to run with no feet. I suppose I'll work out how to use that energy- it just frightens me cause i don't know how to use it, and before I spose I blocked it out/ but now it's bursting out, and I just feel like smashing plates to get it out... maybe i shld go and get some op shop plates.... Very Greek restaurant style- like Olympics in Greece now. Hope you are watching the Olympics and enjoying it- I haven't watched it, But I watched Hugo Chavez win the election in Venezuela- so that's a good race to win.

Love you , from Vanessa

I chose an old cup I keep under the kitchen sink. An Ikea lime green one. Went out to the backyard, and after giving the chooks their scraps, I aimed at the center of the concrete slab under the washing line, and threw the cup. It bounced to the back fence, unbroken. I went and picked it up. This time I imagined I was shot putting, or javelin throwing. Took aim, and threw hard. It smashed into smithereens, and I walked away, lighter.

Vanessa Jones lives in Australia and can be contacted on post4@bigpond.com.au.


Weekend Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004

James Petras
The Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib

Fred Gardner
Run Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain

Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela

Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?

Joshua Frank
The Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader

Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection

Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome

Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti

Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan

Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush

Carol Miller / Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only 12% of the Vote

Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter

Donald Macintyre
The Battle of Najaf

Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies

Mickey Z.
Kid Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO

Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert

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