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Today's
Stories
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
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
Click
Here for More Stories.
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July
2, 2004
"Just
Because I Could"
On
Obscenities and Opportunities
By
GARY LEUPP
"I did something for the
worst possible reason," Bill Clinton told CBS's Dan Rather
on "60
Minutes" last month. "Just because I could. I think
that's just about the most morally indefensible reason anybody
could have for doing anything."
Just because I could. Actually, I confess (not that it's
any of my business) that I'm not all that sure that the ex-president's
encounters with a perfectly willing fellatrix are in fact morally
indefensible. Maybe it's because I'm a child of the Sixties,
but it seems to me that while those trysts avec Monica
are of some understandable concern to the man's family, and of
interest to some politically motivated salivating voyeurs, the
BJs, after all, posed very little threat to world peace or domestic
tranquility. Indeed the former president might, for all I know,
rationally defend himself by saying that since he had a willing
partner, an unsatisfying marriage, spare time and the need to
relax from time to time, he had valid reasons to do what opportunity
and office space allowed him. He might argue that sexual frustration
and deprivation, if allowed to mount, might have adversely affected
his presidential behavior and judgment, and his yin-yang balance,
and that therefore his occasional office unloadings were entirely
in the national and international interest. (This line of argument
of course will not hold sway among those who really believe that
some people will face hellfire, after they die, because of how
and where, in this life, they've deployed their genitals.)
But to put Clinton's "just
doing something" into perspective: his successor apparently
stays zipped in the Oval Office. But just because he could,
Bush attacked a poor, weak, sanction-bled nation, knowing its
army would quickly crumble, and that no other nation would confront
the juggernaut he unleashed in Iraq. His neo-con advisers all
along, as well as Condi Rice, were saying "Why not USE our
power---that those wimpy chief executives from Nixon to Clinton
refused to really, effectively use---use it for GOOD?" Why
NOT achieve far greater ecstasy by driving our national manhood
well beyond the Oval Office (and the offered services of a pixie-faced
intern) into the deeply resistant bowels of the Middle East,
ripping and humiliating in the process, while telling yourself
the bleeding and torn really LIKE it? And because (given the
oligopolistic structure of the mass media, and your intimate
ties to it, and mainstream journalism's eagerness to help you
out) you are able to get public opinion to cheer you on?
"We ought to be beating
our chests every day," exclaimed
Gen. Jay Garner, L. Paul Bremmer III's predecessor as procurator
of occupied Iraq last April. "We ought to look in a mirror
and get proud and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies
and say: 'Damn, we're Americans!'"
The narcissist apeman's point?
Just because we can do it!
Recall how Boromir, in the
Lord of the Rings, proposed that the good folks use,
rather than destroy, the Ring of Power. After all, the gilt band
forged in the "Land of Mordor, where the shadows lie"
lay there on the table, in the Council of Elrond, eminently useable.
Just like the vast arsenal of U.S. power was there for Dubya
Bush in the helpfully confusing months after 9-11. Why not take
over Iraq? asked
the amoral Paul Wolfowitz, joined by his equally vile boss,
"Defense" Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Because we can!
Reason enough! And the geopolitical advantages of controlling
all that oil, and enhancing the security of expanding Israel...in
what more holy causes to use the Ring, and to smite with
that Ring?
But the
Ring of course, is intrinsically evil, and cannot be used
for good. It drives who wears it mad. It brings to the bearer
an expression of impish delight, while causing him to babble
incoherently. It deprives him of reason and morality.
Bill Clinton did what he did
because he could, but when caught, he paid. His successor did
what 9-11 allowed him to do: commit real, serious crimes such
as have been prosecuted before at Nuremberg and Tokyo and elsewhere.
He has not yet paid for what he did, when he could do it.
* *
* *
During the Watergate Affair,
evangelist Billy Graham was informed of Richard Nixon's habitual
use of profanity. He pronounced himself shocked. (This, more
than the Christmas bombings of North Vietnam, or the invasion
of Cambodia, offended the man of the cloth.) I wonder how the
aging cleric, and his son and successor, Franklin Graham---chomping
at the bit to penetrate occupied Iraq and convert the people
from the "very
evil and wicked" Islamic faith to the Truth of fundamentalist
Christianity---react to recent reports about the foul mouths
of the Bush-Cheney team.
According to the Washington
Post, in a brief exchange on the Senate floor June 22 (the
day the Senate passed a Defense of Decency Act), Vice President,
moral role model and former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney told
the mild-mannered Senator Patrick Leahy to "fuck himself"
when Leahy made a remark about Halliburton's grabbing up contracts
in Iraq (just because it could). This was the first time the Post
actually published the F-word.
The report followed upon another in Capital Hill Blue that
Cheney's boss (the most conspicuously religious of recent presidents)
often indulges in "obscene tantrums against the media"
and tongue-lashes "those he perceives as disloyal, calling
them 'fucking assholes' in front of other staff, berating one
cabinet official in front of others and labeling anyone who disagrees
with him 'unpatriotic' or 'anti-American.'"
That Bush and Cheney should
be speaking this way in such contexts suggests that they are
under great stress. It's highly injudicious of a president to
call White House staff "assholes" in front of others
who might tell the press, or for a vice president to urge the
senior senator from Vermont to autocopulate. Cheney's lack of
judgment's fine, of course. It would be wonderfully ironic if
reports about the obscene language begin to trouble the Christian
fundamentalist right which the Bushites so cherish and cultivate,
and which comprises their social base. One Beth Miller, commenting
online for Christ Unlimited Ministries, thinks such nasty speech
is defiling to the speaker. She cites Matthew
15:11 (in the King James Version, naturally): "Not that
which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh
out of the mouth, this defileth a man." The question of
what goeth into the mouth (so central to the Clinton-Lewinsky
Affair), is in the current administration's case less relevant
than that which cometh out the leaders' lips---and gets repeated
in the press. Preaching purity, the leaders epitomize vulgarity.
They're less filthy in their speech than in their vicious actions,
but should the righteously religious get riled up at all this
foul language, and start questioning the virtue of these Crisco-lubed
and anointed fucked up ones---one can only say Hallelujah.
Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University,
and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author
of Servants,
Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan;
Male
Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan;
and Interracial
Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900.
He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
Weekend Edition
Features for June 12 / 13, 2004
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CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
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Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
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The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
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Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
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A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
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Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
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Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
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