Coming
in September
From AK Press
Featuring Essays by:
Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Michael Neumann, Shahid Alam, Alexander
Cockburn, Uri Avnery, Bill and Kathy Christison and More
Recent
Stories
August
8, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Snoops Night Out
August
7, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
It the US a "Terrorist Magnet?"
Toni
Solo
Neo-liberal Nicaragua: a New Banana
Republic
Adam Lebowitz
Hiroshima Commemorated: the View from Japan
Hanan
Ashrawi
When the Bully Whines
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Conscience Takes a Holiday
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Lets Slip: Iraq Not Behind 9/11; No Ties to Al-Qaeda
Mike Kimaid
What's the Score?
Elaine
Cassel
The Smell of VICTORY: Ashcroft's Latest Stinkbomb
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
August 6, 2003
Steve
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause: It's Not
Easy Confronting King Coal
David
Krieger
Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Robert
Fisk
The Ghosts of Uday and Qusay
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's War on the National Forests
Elaine
Cassel
No Fly Lists
Stan
Goff
Military Equipment and Pneumonia
Hugh Sansom
An Open Letter to Nicholas Kristof on the Nuking of Japan
August
5, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Prisoner of Ramallah: Arafat at
74
Forrest
Hylton
Terrorism and Political Trials: the
View from Bolivia
Ray
McGovern
"We Cook Estimates to Go"
David
Morse
Poindexter's Gambit
Edward
Said
Orientallism: 25 Years Later
George
W. Bush
My Darn Good Resumé
Hammond
Guthrie
It's Incremental, Watson!
Website
of the Day
National Prayer Day
August 4, 2003
Bruce
K. Gagnon
Another Peace Activist Detained by
Airport Cops: My Story
David
Lindorff
Fear-Mongering About Social Security
Mark
Zepezauer
George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody
James
Plummer
Tracking You Through the Mail
Mickey
Z.
Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush
Bruce
Jackson
News that Isn't News: How the NYT's
Pimps for the White House
August
2 / 3, 2003
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
August
1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Stopping Prison Rape
Alex Coolman
Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing
Prison Rape
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Stan Goff
Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq
Wayne
Madsen
Europe Unplugs from the Matrix
Robert
Fisk
Wolfowitz the Censor
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico
Website
of the Day
Stop Prisoner Rape
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)
Elaine
Cassel
The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
Hammond
Guthrie
Speculation Blues
Website
of the Day
Army of One?
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
29, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
"Journalist Spotted! Journalist
Dead!" Guatemala Bleeds; US Press Yawns
Thomas
J. Nagy
The Belligerent Dr. Pipes
Kurt Nimmo
Tom Delay Goes to Jerusalem
Chris
Floyd
Dead Reckoning: Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes
Robert
Fisk
Another Botched Raid; Another Massacre
Jason Leopold
Did Chalabi Help Write Bush's State of the Union Address?
Conn Hallinan
Food Bully: Bush's Biotech Shock and Awe Campaign
Dan
Bacher
Sacramento's War on Free Speech
Ray
McGovern
Cheney Chicanery
Website
of the Day
Julie Hilden Caught on Tape
Hot Stories
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
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
August
8, 2003
Snoops
Night Out
FEMA's Paranoid Communities
By DAVE LINDORFF
Leave it to FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management
Agency) to take a good idea and turn it to crap.
If there is one thing missing in America
these days, it's a sense of community. I remember a few years
ago my kindergarten-aged son missed his bus to school. My car
was in the garage, and my wife had already driven off to work
with the other vehicle, leaving me stranded. This was in mid-December
and bitter cold (about 15 degrees Fahrenheit, with a ripping
wind blowing, and making it feel like -10). The school was a
straight shot two miles down a rush-hour artery. I figured anyone
would pick up a father and his small boy in this weather, but
to make double sure, I made up a large cardboard sign saying
"Missed the schoolbus!"
For longer than I want to admit, my son
and I huddled on the corner, watching car after car drive by
us, eyes guiltily averted. Many of the drivers--most of them
male--actually looked familiar; they were people I'd seen many
times in the local stores. But no one stopped. Finally, mercifully,
a woman in a van, going the other way, who had already passed
us once, turned around, picked us up, and, nervously confessing
that  she had done so against
her better judgement, delivered us to my son's school.
Welcome to suburban America, where almost
nobody will go an inch out of their way for anyone unless it's
a relative or a close friend.
Logically, our civic institutions, beginning
with government, should be trying to combat this modern day curse
of fragmentation and atomization, this profound loss of communal
consciousness.
So what does FEMA do? This haven for
right-wing zealots and martial law planners has brought us the
National Night Out program, an annual law-enforcement extravaganza
which, in FEMA's words, is part of "a year-long community
building campaign designed to:
(1) heighten crime prevention awareness;
(2) generate support for, and participation
in, local anticrime programs;
(3) strengthen neighborhood spirit and
police-community partnerships; and
(4) send a message to criminals letting
them know that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back."
Building better communities by fighting
crime.
At National Night Out festivities across
the country this Friday evening, local police will show off their
S.W.A.T. gear, let kids try on handcuffs and learn how to dial
911--all kinds of good stuff designed to make everyone, what?
Feel good and neighborly about the strangers
in their midst? I don't think so.
A real community-building program should
be teaching people in a community to get to know one another,
to learn each others' cultures and needs, to find common interests,
and to figure out ways to work together to improve the life of
the whole community. It should, in short, be trying to reduce
fears, suspicions and hostilities. A real community-building
program might, for example, organize a community ride-sharing
program, so people with cars could volunteer to help house-bound
neighbors (or parents stuck with a car in the shop) to get to
work or school. Or it might just host get-to-know-your-neighbors
block parties. It might even include a meeting to look into the
causes of crime in the community.
National Night Out, which does none of
these things, appropriately is part of the Bush/Ashcroft Citizen
Corps--the folks who tried to bring us TIPS, the Terrorist Information
and Prevention System which, until cancelled by an outraged Congress
last summer, was hoping to enlist millions of Americans to spy
on their neighbors. It's also sponsored by the National Association
of Town Watch, a mini version of the TIPS concept.
I'm not saying getting a community involved
in crime stopping is a bad idea per se. Watching out for your
neighbors' house when they're away on vacation is a community-spirited
thing to do. But centering a so-called "community building"
program around crime fighting and crime prevention is exactly
the wrong way to go about building a community.
FEMA has always had a police state mentality.
But the Bush administration seems to have a one-note song. With
these guys everything is about crime, terror and paralyzing fear.
National Night Out is playing right into
this theme.
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 August 2/3, 2003
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
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