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Today's
Stories
October
8, 2003
James
Bovard
The
Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster
Michael
Neumann
One
State or Two?
A False Dilemma
October
7, 2003
Uri Avnery
Slow-Motion
Ethnic Cleansing
Stan Goff
Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta
Ron Jacobs
Yom Kippurs, Past and Present
David
Lindorff
Coronado in Iraq
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required
Cynthia
McKinney
Who Are "We"?
Elaine Cassel
Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case
Walter
Lippman
Thoughts on the Cali Recall
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
Website
of the Day
Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot
October
6, 2003
Robert
Fisk
US
Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria
Forrest
Hylton
Upheaval
in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity
Benjamin Dangl
Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War
Bridget
Gibson
Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman
The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus
Nicole
Gamble
Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
Website
of the Day
Guerrilla Funk
October
3 / 5, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
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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October
9, 2003
A Black Day for Democracy
Schwarzenegger
and the Failure of the Dems
By DAVID LINDORFF
The election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor
of America's largest state represents a kind of milestone in
the decline of American democracy. This is not "Reagan II,
the Movie," as some have suggested--a second actor being
elected governor of the tinsel state. Reagan, for all the criticism
that he was "just an actor," in fact had paid his political
dues, leading the actors union and getting involved in a variety
of campaigns--for example against Medicare--before jumping into
electoral politics to run for governor. While he certainly relied
on his actor's charm to manufacture a persona, he had a conservative
political agenda and was fairly candid about it.
Schwarzenegger, in contrast, has no political
background. He is a total artifice, a creation of a group of
Republican backers who care little or nothing about his personal
beliefs or ideology, and see him as a vehicle for restoring Republican
control in a state that has been becoming increasingly Democratic.
What is incredible, and terribly demoralizing
about this election is that a majority of voters in a state holding
a fifth of the U.S. population bought the product. In a moment
of nihilistic fury at the corruption and cronyism of the Democratic
Party apparatus and its titular head, Gov. Gray Davis, they cast
their votes along with the state's Republicans for a man who
stands for nothing but himself, who is a long-time misogynist
with a history of assaulting women, and who is in thrall to business
interests (who can be expected attempt to gut the state's once
model regulatory apparatus).
Make no mistake: the Democratic Party
richly deserved this debacle. California Democratic politicians
have long taken their traditional liberal, labor and minority
base for granted. The ultimate Clintonians, California's Democratic
leadership bought into the neo-Liberal idea of deregulation,
bringing on the state's electricity crisis; they have endorsed
right-wing get-tough approaches to crime that have made the state
a leader in prison construction, and in the grotesque mass incarceration
of minorities, and most seriously they have  surrendered to the three-decades
long Republican-led drive to limit property taxes (a grossly
favor-the-rich campaign), refusing to offer progressive alternatives
that would tax corporations and the rich to pay for schools,
roads and other essential local services. Little wonder then
that in a crisis, that progressive Democratic base not only failed
to turn out to defend an embattled Democratic politician, but
in many cases actually voted for his nemesis.
The sad thing is that they didn't have
to do it.
There was an alternative, and I don't
mean Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamonte, who despite his Hispanic name
and working class background was just another cog in the Clintonian
centrist Democratic Machine.
The alternative was Peter Camejo, the
Green Party candidate--a genuine progressive and, like Bustamonte,
a Latino.
Why the huge wave of Democratic support
for Schwarzenegger?
My guess is that these normally Democratic
voters weren't really thinking. They were understandably angry
at Gray Davis and the Democratic Party. That would explain the
yes vote on the recall, and the failure to vote for Bustamonte,
who is really just a better fed and less hirsute Davis. But if
they had been thinking, they wouldn't have voted for Schwarzenegger,
who will in the end do nothing to help the state's school system,
which is beginning to rival Mississippi's, especially in urban
districts, in terms of poor outcomes, and who is likely to continue
with deregulation schemes while gutting environmental protections
and undermining organized labor. No Arnold, who has admitted
to admiring, if not the actions of, then at least the style of
countryman Adolf Hitler, has managed to copy his mustachioed
mentor, in portraying himself as a muscular leader (the Austrian
word for that is Fuehrer). And millions of Californians--many
of them registered Democrats according to exit polls-- apparently
liked that.
Well, an awful lot of Germans also liked
that one back in the election of 1932.
Of course, that's not to say Arnold is
Adolf. He has said he despises everything Hitler did and stood
for, and we have no reason not to believe him. California is
not about to become a fascist outpost on the North American continent
because of his election. (If fascism is to come to America, it
will arrive in Washington, not California, and more likely in
creeping form via actions of the Pentagon and the Justice and
Homeland Security Departments than overtly via election.)
What is dismaying about this recall election
is how many Californians were willing to vote for that empty
muscle shirt with the carefully dyed and coifed hairstyle above,
and the carefully scripted and equally empty slogans. (Equally
dismaying is the poor showing by the Greens' Camejo. If there
were ever a time for dissatisfied progressives to turn to a third
party for a protest vote, this was it. For Camejo, who was articulate,
campaigned aggressively, and who was able to get unprecedented
state-wide attention in a heavily viewed televised five-way candidates'
debate, to have still garnered less than 3 percent of the vote,
means that hard-line third party advocates need to seriously
reassess their strategy of shunning, and running against, the
Democratic Party. For whatever reason, that strategy ain't working.)
Gen. Wesley Clark, the "muscle man"
in the Democratic presidential primary campaign, has meanwhile
offered an Arnold-like example of vacuity in announcing his candidacy
with a speech that called for moving the country "forward,
not backward," a line that somehow managed to evoke wild
cheering from his audience.
Nature may abhor a vacuum, but apparently
California voters, and American voters in general, love it. Schwarzenegger's
big win in California--based as it was on such deliberate emptiness--is
likely to reinforce this tendency in a national Democratic Party
that for years, and especially since the election of William
Jefferson Clinton, has consciously and carefully stood for nothing.
If the California electorate is in any
way indicative of the state of the national electorate, the outlook
for 2004, and for American democracy, is grim.
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 Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
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