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Today's
Stories
January 6, 2004
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Notes on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
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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January
6, 2004
RNC Plays the Hitler
Card
MoveOn
Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
By DAVE LINDORFF
You can tell that the Republican Party is more
worried than it lets on about the upcoming November election.
Today's shrill attack on the MoveOn.org organization, which the
Republican National Committee is accusing--incorrectly and dishonestly--of
endorsing two sample political ads which draw comparisons between
Hitler and George Bush, demonstrates how much the Bush brain
trust fears this remarkably successful populist internet-based
organization.
The two ads were actually among some
1000 that were submitted as part of a contest established by
MoveOn to come up with strong ads for the 2004 Democratic campaign.
They, along with over 1000 others, were submitted to Move.On
for consideration. The organization put them all on its website
and allowed members to vote for the best. A group of 15 30-second
submissions which received the most votes were then posted as
finalists.
Neither of the controversial Hitler/Bush
ads made that cut, but the RNC went ahead and issued press releases,
as well as sending RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie rushing over to
Fox TV, to denounce MoveOn for presumably insulting Bush and
American Jews.
MoveOn's Eli Pariser has responded to
this GOP assault explaining that clearly the organization never
endorsed those ads, and that its membership obviously rejected
them. Further, he says MoveOn "regrets the appearance"
of the two ads on the MoveOn website, where they were briefly
available for viewing along with all the other submissions initially
(they've been removed now). Interestingly, now that those ads
have been pulled by MoveOn, the only place the scripts can be
read is on the RNC website (http://www.rnc.org/moveonvideo.htm).
But Pariser shouldn't be so quick to
express his regrets. The truth is that the two ads are pretty
darned good. The first shows Hitler in a parade and speaking,
followed by scenes of German troops attacking, planes bombing,
tanks firing, and victorious troops goose-stepping into occupied
territory, as a voiceover says "A nation warped by lies--lies
fuel fear--fear fuels aggression--invasion--occupation."
As the scene fades from Hitler giving a raised arm salute to
Bush with his hand raised at his inauguration, the voiceover
says, "What were war crimes in 1945 is foreign policy in
2003."
And the truth: The Bush administration
deliberately stoked public fears after 9/11--just as the Nazi's
used the Reichstag Fire--to win support for an illegal, unprovoked
invasion of Iraq, an act of aggression which, at the Nuremberg
Trials, was specifically determined to be a war crime. The ad
might have added that the "shock and awe" terror campaign
that was the centerpiece of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was also
by definition a war crime, since its target was the Iraqi public.
As for the second controversial ad, it
features first a picture of Hitler, speaking in German, with
a voiceover translating the lines as "We have taken new
measures to protect our homelandSI believe I am acting in accordance
with the will of the Almighty Creator." Then, as Hitler
continues to speak, the voiceover says, "God told me to
strike Al-Qaeda, and I struck him." As the picture morphs
into George Bush, the voiceover continues, "Sand then He
instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did." With a
picture of cheering Germans in the background, the voiceover
concludes, "Sound familiar?"
And the truth here? President Bush did
in fact publicly claim divine instruction to have been behind
his decisions to invade Afghanistan and later Iraq--a rather
scary example, if he is being sincere, of the very kind of megalomania
that characterized Hitler.
Were these two ads unfair to either Bush
or to the memory of the Holocaust? Hardly.
They were legitimate warnings that the
American public is being manipulated by demagoguery, jingoism
and the worst kind of lies.
Are they saying that Bush is Hitler?
Only to the most simplistic or willfully unimaginative of viewers--that
is to say the RNC poobahs. What they are saying is that the
same technique used by Hitler and his National Socialist brownshirts
to whip up nationalist fervor in Germany in the early and mid
1930s is being employed today by the Bush Administration and
the Republican Party, and to the same end--to get the American
public to acquiesce in surrendering its democratic rights, to
accept one-party rule, and to agree to a national policy of permanent
war in the name of American global hegemony.
Obviously the MoveOn crowd was repelled
by the bluntness of the two ads, and rejected them, but Pariser
needn't apologize for inspiring their creation.
Both, in their way, are sadly prophetic.
Pariser and MoveOn should be proud that
they were produced, happy that the RNC is helping to circulate
them, and encouraged that the Republicans are making such a fuss
about the whole thing.
Dave Lindorff
is the author of Killing
Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
A collection of Lindorff's stories can be found here: http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html
Weekend
Edition Features for January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
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