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April 4, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Stop the Killing Now!
Nancy
Stohlman
An
American Under Siege in a West Bank Refugee Camp
Christopher Reilly
Kissinger, Chile and Justice
at Long Last?
M. Shahid
Alam
The
Lies of Thomas Friedman
April 3, 2002
Don Henley
Dear Loathsome Trade Hacks
Bernard
Weiner
An
American Jew Talks
About His Shame
David Vest
Sting of Stings
Tzaporah
Ryter
Under
Fire: an American Student in Ramallah
Gabriel Ash
America's Bravest
John Chuckman
Of
War, Islam and Israel
Robert Fisk
The Siege of Bethlehem
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Sins of the Church
April 2, 2002
Uri Avnery
Murdering Arafat?
Jeff Chang
Is
Protest Music Dead?
Lev Grinberg
Israel's State Terrorism
Norman
Madarasz
Bullying
Brazil
Robert Fisk
Farce and Terror
in Ramallah
Steve
Perry
Let's
Roll! ®:
The Marketing of Lisa Beamer
April 1, 2002
Stanton / Madsen
America's War Inc.
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Peace
and Nuclear Disarmament: a Call to Action
Bahour / Dahan
Bloodshed in Palestine:
A Way Out
Molly
Secours
Tennessee's
Kangaroo Court
Phyllis Pollack
The Making of Exile
on Main Street
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
This Week's
Top 10 CDs
Francis Boyle
The Big Lie:
Palestine, Palestinians
and International Law
March 31, 2002
Jordan
Flaherty
Last
Night the Israeli
Military Tried to Kill Me
Kristen Schurr
Live from Bethlehem
Maha Sbitani
The
Israeli Army
Took Over My House
Robert Fisk
Lies Leaders Tell When
They Want to Go to War
March 24/30, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
The Year
of the Yellow Notepad:
Plagiarism and History
Rep. Ron Paul
Slavery and the Draft
Fidel
Castro
A
Better World is Possible
Edward Said
What Price Oslo?
José
Saramago
Justice
and Democracy Denied
Azmi Bishara
Talking to Tanks
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Clearcutting
Montana
Alexander Cockburn
50 Years of James Bond
Wilhelm
Reich
Gethsemane
Claud Cockburn
The Horror of It All
Dave Marsh
What's
Playing at My Houe
David Vest
Remembering Tammy Wynette
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Waylon
Jennings:
an Honest Outlaw
March 23, 2002
Mokhiber/Weissman
A
Corporate Lawyer
Speaks Out
Saeed Vaseghi
The US and Iran's Quest
for Democracy
Brian
J. Foley
Does
Pedophilia Scandal Spell an Opportunity for Catholics?
Sheperd Bliss
American Soul and Empire
James
Packard Winkler
Occupation
and Terror:
Politics from a Gun Barrel
M. Shahid Alam
A New International Division
of Labor
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
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TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published March 1, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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April 4, 2002
Right-Wing Assault on Madison Progressives
Misfires
By Mike Leon
Madison, Wisconsin: Since the appalling attacks of September 11,
much energy has been devoted to establishing the myth that virtually
all Americans enthusiastically accede to the appalling "war
on terrorism."
Even progressive enclaves like Madison,
Wisconsin was said to be experiencing a "backlash against
its deep-rooted ant-war convictions (Salon, 10/19/01)."
Madison citywide elections on April 2
put the final nail in the coffin of the newly supposed truism
that prowar sentiment and jingoistic spasms have become the defining
political dynamic of post-9/11 Madison.
Two progressive candidates for the Madison
School Board, Carol Carstensen and Bill Clingan who were targeted
by a right-wing group, the Madison School Board Recall Committee,
trounced their opponents, ending the group's seven-month highly
publicized political effort.
In the weeks preceding the 9/11 attacks,
socially right-wing Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature
sneaked into a large budget bill a patriotism law that requires
all Wisconsin public schools to lead students in the daily recitation
of the Pledge of Allegiance or the National Anthem.
In an effort to protect students who
objected to having this state-orthodox view foisted upon them,
especially in the wake of 9/11, the Madison School Board in early
October 2001, passed a measure requiring Madison schools to play
merely an instrumental version of the national anthem, to reluctantly
comply with the state patriotism law. The measure was meant to
ensure that patriotism was not getting shoved down the throats
of students who objected. The local media immediately labeled
the Board's actions as anti-Pledge and it was widely reported
that the Board's measure actually banned the recitation of the
Pledge in Madison's schools.
Subsequently hammered by loud constituent
criticism and denounced as "oddballs" by Wisconsin
Republican Governor Scott McCallum, and nationally by Rush Limbaugh
and much of the right-wing, most of the progressive-dominated
Madison School Board quickly retreated and passed a policy emphasizing
in a daily announcement that participation in the recitation
of the daily Pledge or Anthem is voluntary and would continue.
A special School Board meeting on the
topic on October 15 attracted over 1,200 people. The gathering
quickly became raucous when the crowd began chanting" U.S.A.,
U.S.A., U.S.A.," and booing students and community members
who were speaking against the mandated Pledge and Anthem.
Matthew Rothschild, editor of Madison-based
Progressive magazine, called the display a "lynch mob."
The controversy drew international attention
and a group of local Republican political operatives aligned
with religious right activists announced at the October school
board meeting that they would begin a recall of the author of
the original proposal to play an instrumental version of the
national anthem, and they would also target other progressive
school board members running in the spring 2002 election.
School board member Bill Keys, a popular
retired teacher, past president of the Madison teachers' union
and long-time LGBT civil rights champion, scoffed at the efforts
of the group calling themselves the Madison School Board Recall
Committee Madison School Board Recall Committee, to remove him,
and he remained vocally opposed to state-enforced patriotism
in the aftermath of 9/11.
"Madisonians know what this is about.
My favorite line was from an e-mail. It reads: 'What message
are you sending to our children? The right to dissent is more
important than the fundamental principle of freedom?' I mean
some of these people just have no conception," Keys said
during the controversy. "These are intemperate, rush-to-judgment
times, and some folks want to use it to reclaim power."
This is all about civil liberties and
inclusion, and the right of every child, every child, to feel
safe, valued and cherished, and not to be coerced into pledging
allegiance to something that he or she may not believe in. I
have heard from some educators that they feel <intimidated.They>
don't want this policy of enforced display of patriotism, but
they are intimidated. If adults feel that way, what about the
kids holding minority views?"
Keys and the Madison peace and civil
rights community became the object of increasingly vehement Republican
scorn in October and November. And it became clear that the "recall"
Republicans were attempting to use perceived public support for
mandated patriotism as an instrument to end the liberal-progressive
domination of Madison city politics.
In e-mails Keys was called "treasonous,
anti-American, fascist, queer lover, fag, communist, terrorist"_all
of the appellations were apparently intended by the writers to
insult Keys.
Former U.S. Rep. Scott Klug (R-Madison),
the honorary co-chair of the Madison School Board Recall Committee,
fired off numerous shots at the Madison left/progressive community
as Madison formulated a response to the attacks on New York and
Washington.
Snidely referring to the Madison left-peace
community as the "bead and sandal crowd," Klug was
quoted in the local media as saying: "This is Madison. Before
this is over, there'll be somebody somewhere holding a bake sale
for Osama bin Laden, saying he's been misunderstood and is the
way he is because he didn't have any mittens as a child in Saudi
Arabia."
Not only Board member Keys but also the
Madison School Board as a whole (where progressive enjoy a six-to-one
majority) had already become the bane of the right wing for its
insistence that school district policy respect LGBT rights. Its
positions, such as officially objecting to the Boy Scouts of
America's discrimination against LGBT people, supporting domestic
partner benefits in contracts, and hiring a district-wide LGBT
counselor among other initiatives, inspired intense hostility
in conservative circles.
The recall group's web site read: "the
pledge...vote exemplifies the arrogance, lack of judgment and
failure to represent the majority that has characterized the
Board over the past few years. While they reversed their (pledge)
decision a week later, we say, 'enough.' It is time to take back
our schools from those with an agenda that places their interest
in social engineering above the education of our children."
Claiming 100's of volunteers and the
overwhelming majority of Madison citizens, the recall group officially
began its effort against Keys on November 11, leaving 30 days
to gather 31,903 signatures.
As the recall effort continued through
December, avid support for Keys' defense of civil liberties and
criticism of the recall effort became more frequent in the Madison
media; unsolicited money and support started pouring into Keys'
home.
Despite record mild Wisconsin winter
temperatures in November and December, on December 12, the deadline
for the recall petition, the recall committee conceded that it
had gathered only some 13,000 signatures, far short of the necessary
31,903_falling spectacularly short in their high-profile campaign.
In a December 13 column in the Wisconsin
State Journal, the conservative voice of Madison's two daily
newspapers, columnist George Hesselberg blasted the recall group:
"Yes, we need to teach the children. The chapters on McCarthyism
and the erosion of civil rights would make good reading now,
provided the schools are allowed to teach it in current events
class."
At a victory party on the night of the
recall failure, recall target Keys said, "The people spoke
loudly, and they said that the recall effort against people protecting
individual rights is not what Madison is about. Madison is about
protecting rights, and dissenting when dissent is necessary,"
said Keys. "Madison is still Madison, and political dissent
and support for civil liberties are still alive and well"
in the post 9-11 political culture.
On April 2, 2002 progressives Carol Carstensen
and Bill Clingan celebrated their decisive victories against
the Recall group's endorsed school board candidates--proving
that standing up for the right to dissent in Madison in the face
of flag-waving, self-proclaimed patriots is supported by most
citizens at the polling place.
"The Recall Committee was always
the work of a cynical group of conservative political operatives,
and a small group of hate mongers. They have been getting their
asses kicked for so long here that they felt could exploit the
emotion after 9/11, generate a database of names and win some
elections," said former Madison Common Council and Dane
County Board member, and civil rights supporter Andy Janssen.
"We remain progressive and dedicated to civil rights, whether
the right-wing likes it or not."
Mike Leon
is a free-lance writer from Madison, Wisconsin. His work has
appeared in The Progressive and In These Times. He can be reached
at: maleon@terracom.net
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