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Today's
Stories
September 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
The
Expulsion of Cat Stevens
Patrick Cockburn
As British Muslims Plead for Bigley's Life, US Airstrikes Pound
Fallujah
Sam Husseini
The Problem with Public Opinion Polls
Kevin Pina
The Tragedy of Gonaives, Haiti
September 25
/ 26, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
C'mon
Ralph, You've Got Nothing to Lose
Dave Zirin
The Courage of the NBA's Etan Thomas:
"I Am Totally Against This War"
Saul Landau
The Reality of Empire and Campaign Rhetoric
Dave Lindorff
Our Heroic Baby-Killers
Brian J. Foley
Bush at the UN: the Sound of No Hands Clapping
William Blum
Progressives and the Election
Alan Maass
Why is Kerry Running Such a Lame Campaign? You Can't Blame It
All on Bob Shrum
Lucson Pierre-Charles
Haiti: Another Lost Story
Solange Echeverria
An Interview with Kevin Pina on the Floods in Haiti
Nicole Colson
What About the Supreme Court?
Justin Smith
The New Sparta
Joshua Frank
Iraq: From Clinton to Bush
Karyn Strickler
Momma, Don't Let Your Babides Grow Up to be Cannon Fodder
Michael Donnelly
Rather Disingenuous: "Remember in November"
Greg Bates
The Politics of Nader's Republican Support
Todd Chretien
Lesser Evilism: We Are Living in the Logical Conclusion
William Loren
Katz
Dire Warnings from the Past: From Wilson to Bush
Omar Barghouti
Americans, You've Lost Your Alibi!
Poets' Basement
Holt, Clarke, Albert, Laymon and Ford
Website of the Weekend
Carnival of Chaos
September 24,
2004
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Value of One Life: Keeping Up Appearances and Leaving Hostages
to the Wolves
William S.
Lind
Destroying
the National Guard
Mike Whitney
The Bush Tent Show
Nancy Welch
What's
at Stake for Women in 2004?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Logical Limbo
Joshua Frank
Fear Mongering 101
Victor Kattan
An Interview with Afif Safieh
Ben Terrall
Kerry and Haiti: Will He Stand Up?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
"Finally
It Broke My Heart": Random Impressions from Palestine
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
September 23,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Are They Still Holding "Mrs. Anthrax?"
Christopher Brauchli
Ashcroft's "Distressing Lack of Care": Hamdi and the
Phony War on Terrorism
Derek Seidman
Fighting for a Union at Starbucks: an Interview with Daniel Gross
Michael Neumann
Three
Years and Counting? How Time Flies
September 22,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Zarqawi's
War: the Mysterious Sadist from Jordan
Neve Gordon
The
Wall, the Court and Sharon
Joshua Frank
History Repeating: New York, 1832 and Now
Ron Jacobs
Stormy Seas on the Citizen Ship
Jack Random
Defending Dan? Rather Not
Tarif Abboushi
Kerry's Final Straw: Confessions of a Despairing Voter
Mickey Z
Stupid White Guy Quiz
John L. Hess
Faking the Difference: a Serious Debate?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: The House Rules
September 21,
2004
Gary Leupp
"We
Are Not Secure": Kerry's "Unwavering Commitment"
to Securing a Middle East Realm
Robert Jensen
Large
Dams in India: Temples or Burial Grounds?
Elaine Cassel
Fourth Circuit to Moussouai: Ask Your Questions; Prepare to Die
Stanley Heller
Reagan and the Killing Fields of Lebanon
Adam Federman
America Will Disappoint the World, Again
David Whitehouse
What's Behind the Horror in Darfur?
M. Junaid Alam
How to Avoid Becoming an Anti-American
Paul Craig
Roberts
Attention
Deficit America
Website of the Day
True American War Heroes: the Iraq Refuseniks
September 20,
2004
Cockburn /
Buncombe
Get
Fallujah
David Price
Relying
on Phonies: What If The Problem with Phone Polls is That They
Are Phone Polls
Dave Lindorff
How
Dems Fight: Tigers Against Nader, Pussycats Against Bush
Harry Browne
Pre-Nup at Leeds: Talked Out, But Does IRA Give Up?
Mark Wesibrot
Bush's
Ownership Society: No Taxes for Owners, Only Workers
Karyn Strickler
The Keys to the White House v. the Shrum Curse?
Uri Avnery
The Temple Mount Bombers
September 18
/ 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Forgeries,
Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery
Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Bush's Mask of Anarchy
Patrick Cockburn
Into the Abyss: the Week Iraq's Dream of Peace Fell Apart
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture)
Joe Allen
The Comrades Kerry Abandoned: the Real Story of Vietnam Vets
Against the War
George Corsetti
Poletown Revisited: Finally, Some Vindication
Scott Handleman
The Knock-Knock of a Sledgehammer: Sequestered in Nablus
Richard Ward
Two Weeks in Beit Arabiya
Conn Hallinan
Ashcroft and Indonesia
Lori Smith
Health Care in America: And Then I Got Sick...
Dave Zirin
Hold the Booyah!: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East
John L. Hess
Rather Will Take the Heat, As Bush's War Deteriorates
Brian J. Foley
W is for Wimp: So Why do Manly Men Love Him?
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman and Osama bin Laden: Odd Juxtapositions
Poets' Basement
Vest, Landau & Albert
Website of the Weekend
Eye on the NYTs
Septemeber
17, 2004
Ray McGovern
Gossing
Over the Record
Patrick Cockburn
The New Iraqi Economy: Baghdad's Thriving Kidnapping Industry
Lee Sustar
The State of Working America: an Autopsy of the American Dream
Mike Whitney
John Kerry: 195 Lbs. of Political Helium, Not an Ounce of Sincerity
Victor Kattan
Black September
Ray Hanania
Israel's Demographics
Greg Bates
Nader's Victories: a Mid-Campaign Assessment
Website of
the Day
The Road to Hell
September 16,
2004
Landau / Hassen
Meet
the New Villain: Syria
Joanne Mariner
Inside
Darfur: a Photo Essay
Patrick Cockburn
US
Offers Conflicting Accounts of Baghdad Bloodbath
Greg Moses
Four Million Children Might Be News
Joshua Frank
Nader in the Battleground States
Christopher Brauchli
The Bush Drug Lottery Flops
David Himmelstein
Folke Bernadotte: a Rosh Hashonah Remembrance
Website of the Day
The Abu Ghraib Index
September 15,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Hell
on Haifa Street
Ron Jacobs
Oppose War, Not Just Bush
David Lindorff
Blanking Out Dissent
Joanne Mariner
Talking About Darfur: Is Genocide Just a Word?
Angela Godfrey-Goldstein
An Open Letter to Madonna: Please Don't Support Israeli Apartheid
Dave Zirin
Is the NFL Ready for Us?
Yigal Bronner
"They
Are Building Walls Around Us"
September 14,
2004
Gary Leupp
The
Problem of Chechnya
Jennifer van
Bergen
What's
Wrong with Torture?
Stan Goff
Wake Up and Smell the Jungle Rot
Patrick Cockburn
The
Punishment of Fallujah: US Precision Strickes...on Ambulances
Anis Memon
Nader
in Michigan
Michael Donnelly
The Nuance Comes Off: Former Naderites Beg for Kerry Votes
Werther
Zell Miller: the Peckerwood Pericles
Website of
the Day
Osama Bin Forgotten?
September 13,
2004
Gabriel Kolko
Elections,
Alliances and the American Empire
Phillip Cryan
How Do You Say "Death Squad?": Language in Colombia's
War
Patrick Cockburn
One of Baghdad's Bloodiest Days: "I'm a Journalist! I'm
Dying! I'm Dying"
Noah Leavitt
The War on Civil Liberties
Robert Jensen
Highjacking Catastrophe: Bush, the Neo-Cons and 9/11
Mike Whitney
Alan Greenspan: Fed-Master to the Wealthy
John Chuckman
Stop Talking About the "Election"
Mike Burke
Kerry/Edwards Website Censors Discussion of Israel/Palestine
Issues
CounterPunch
Wire
The Quotations of David Cobb: "I Don't Care How Many Votes
I Get"
Website of the Day
Keep It In Your Pants: the Bush Plan to Combat Teen Promiscuity
September 11
/ 12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Swatting
at Flies
Fred Gardner
Yet Another Prozac Scandal
Saul Landau
When Our Assassins Go Free
Jennifer Van Bergen
How to Beat Bush: a Simple Strategy for the Average American
Roger Burbach
/ Jim Tarbell
The Real Dead Enders: Iraq and the Crisis of Empire
Christopher Reed
9/11 in an Historical Context: a Minor Event When Compared to
Worldwide War Casualties
Francisc Catalin
An ABC of American Interventions
Carl Estabrook
Big Science and Government Terror
Bernard Chazelle
Anti-Americanism: a Clinical Study
Sharon Smith
Third Party Blues
Dave Lindorff
Perhaps This Time We're the Silent Majority
Mike Whitney
Fallujah: an Iraqi Beslan?
Frederick B.
Hudson
Their Sons Perished in the Flames, But Not Their Faith
Mickey Z.
Round Up the Usual Suspects: a Look Back at 9/11
Ron Jacobs
Redneck Music for the New Century
Greg Moses
Soap Opera Moments in Texas School Funding Trial
Benjamin Dangl
/ Andrew Kennis
An Interview with Leslie Cagan
Poets Basement
Del Papa, Albert, Gelman
September 10,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Disappointment
at Samarrah?
Michael Donnelly
Democrats v. Democracy
Alan Farago
Mosquitoes in a Hurricane
Doug Giebel
Karl Rove's Terror Playbook
Mike Whitney
Bob Graham's Political Tsunami
David Domke
God's
Will, According to the Bush Administration
September 9,
2004
Joe Bageant
Karaoke
Night in Bush's America
Ed Kinane
Abducted in Baghdad
Peter Bohmer
The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future
Todd May
The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution
Jeremy Scahill
The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad
Joshua Frank
Green House Party Gasses
Fran Shor
The Crisis in Public Dissent: When Protest is Considered a Terrorist
Act
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome
to the Dirtiest City in the World: Despair in Baghdad
Website of
the Day
Liberty Street Protest: No to War at Ground Zero
September 8,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
This
Doesn't Smell Like Victory: A War on Two Fronts in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush Confuses; Kerry Mute: Spinning 1000 Dead
Bulent Gokay
Russian and Chechnia After Beslan
Lisa Viscidi
Land Reform and Conflict in Guatemala
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Byrd's Eye View
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan: American's Drug Colony
Stan Goff
Body
Count: 1001
Website of
the Day
Bush and the Love Doctors
September 7,
2004
Diane Christian
Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker
Joshua Frank
Greens
Unravel from Within
Patrick Cockburn
Fallujah
Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000
Ron Jacobs
Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men"
Chris Floyd
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed
Dr. Carol Wolman
No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade
John Ross
The
Politics of Darkness North / South
September 6,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
An
Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted
For Taft-Hartley?
Ralph Nader
The
Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for
Working People
Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
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.
|
September 27, 2004
Talking International
Contra
Kerry
By
NORMAN MADARASZ
The 2004 U.S. presidential elections
are international in every sense of the word. This does not mean
that the concept of nation-state is over, much less that the
international stage has become democratic. The United States
is still somewhat of a democracy, though its edges have frayed
substantially. As for countries refusing democracy, far too many
of them still tend to do so under the most brutal infringement
and abuses of its citizens' basic freedoms and civil rights.
Unlike countries such as North
Korea or Myanmar, however, the United States de facto runs
a large part of the world. It does so either directly or indirectly.
Needless to say, this has many repercussions on what the citizens
of the world expect from an American leader. That is also why,
when elections are merely limited to its national borders, it
only covers part of the political equation that adequately describes
American rule.
The world has no voting rights
over the American president who will be leading them-either directly
or indirectly. That's why the United States is both democracy
and dictatorship, since its political system is international
in scope.
Internationally, the Bush administration's
foreign policy is the most unpopular of any American administration
in recent memory. It was not very surprising, then, to see a
recent poll showing the international mood to be overwhelmingly
aligned against the prospect of George W. Bush's re-election,
at 76 percent of those polled by the German Marshall Fund.
Naturally enough those who
see innocent civilians paying for the "war on terror"
with their lives favor Democratic Party candidate, Senator John
Kerry, as the next president. At home and abroad, their banner
is now familiar: "Anyone, but Bush." It is true that
for many American voters, political activists and citizens, Kerry's
persona exudes a breath of sanity over the future of international
affairs. He fought hard in "Nam", got injured, and
won medals. Then he turned against the generals and war masters
by denouncing the entire endeavor on humanist and moral grounds.
More than in recent memory, however, what the persona represents
on a television screen, and the words it utters, makes the automatic
nature of political opposition in the US seem moot at best.
This has less to do with the
uncertainties, ambiguities and confusion of Kerry's campaign,
as many sly Republican pundits have festively observed, than
it does with the fact that one of Kerry's functions, as it were,
is to calm the anti-Bush resistance in the United States itself.
That job was reflected in his choice for an east coast white
boy campaign set up with John Edwards named as his vice-presidential
running mate.
Kerry's v-p choice has all
but extinguished the chances of having the flame of resistance
simmering in the "other America", in all of its cultural,
religious, linguistic and economic diversity, register under
his representation. This is why any prescription to vote in favor
of Kerry, if only to block Bush, amounts to a ill-conceived gesture
in which something akin to hope in the goodness of the afterlife
ends up replacing political wisdom.
BACKGROUND
"Anyone but Bush"
is an election fraud based on the same misguided belief that
voting actually matters in the United States. Convincing oneself
of the legitimacy of voting for Kerry, even as "reluctantly"
as did Naomi Klein in a recent advocacy piece published by The
Guardian, is an act of political nihilism, a dead-end.
Klein opines that under the
Democrats, Americans will be led to think about "politics,
economy and History" again. She seems to have forgotten
that the whole battle waged by both the Republicans and
Democrats is to pulverize legal and moral facts surrounding the
Bush administration's actions into a perpetual present, as if
nothing the "enemy" does has a legitimate cause. And
both the Republicans and Democrats picture the invasion of Iraq
in the instrumental terms of managing a rowdy company, and breaking
its employees' trade unions.
A recent article in the New
York Times claims that, in a bid to rekindle his flaccid
presidential campaign, Kerry's Senate colleagues are pressing
him to take up broader issues. The Senate, however, has long
been a thorn in the side of US democracy. As proof of its great
concern over the fate of Americans, the Senate Armed Services
Committee voted to repeal a prohibition on "mini-nuclear
bomb" research in May 2003. Only two Senators, Kennedy and
Feinstein, passed an amendment to block this new spark to building
bombs whose purpose is not deterrence, but actual use. Senators
Kennedy and Feinstein lost their battle.
John Kerry as a Senator never
distinguished himself by opposing what has been an essentially
war-mongering Senate, whether controlled by Democrats or Republicans.
This is why the problem with the US government is as much the
Senate as the Presidency. There is nothing purportedly "vague"
about their positions. It's just a matter of opening one's eyes-and
preventing them from being shut.
In the best of worlds, Kerry
would have proven his worth by engaging only in an indirect battle
against Bush on Iraq. Instead, he has only suggested escalating
the war on terror until some supposed victory is achieved. Kerry
should have strived to rally a majority of the roughly 55 percent
of Americans who have dropped out of the "world's greatest
democracy" by simply not voting. Recall that recent presidents
have been elected with "landslide" victories barely
accounting for a third of the American voting population. There
exists a wealth of voters just dying for a proposal, had
Kerry known how to speak their heterogeneous language.
That is no easy task, especially
when the language to be spoken involves terms that have now been
deemed unsavory for the American media to voice. These terms
involve higher taxation of the rich and corporations and the
production and purchasing of guns, in exchange not just for universal
quality health and education services, but for something much
more astonishing: food and housing for America's growing numbers
of underprivileged and underserved.
America's working and non-working
poor have no active voice by which to bolster their vote. In
addition to losing political and purchasing power, most Americans
have also lost the right to a representation-form dealing with
the most basic necessity of their lives: their jobs. Today, trade
union representation in the US (though this is a broad feature
of contemporary capitalist economies worldwide) is not merely
a dirty word. In many industry sectors it has all but become
illegal. Why would the disenfranchised then want to participate
in a process stripping them of their most basic rights?
Outside of political action,
there has been a long process of translating social ills into
religious solutions. At times, they have culminated into salvationist
visions of UFOs. Meanwhile, real grassroots from-the-people-by-the-people
political solutions and reforms have been swiftly side-lined
by the ruling establishment as "contrary" or "foreign"
to the American way.
THE DEMS
BLEW IT
In the run-up to the Democratic
Party primaries, the media had ample time to rally progressive
voters. Instead of tapping into this wealth of opposition votes,
internal doings twisted Howard Dean's ascension into humiliation
after he skyrocketed to prominence on an anti-war ticket. Since
then, Dean has proved to be the imposter he always was. More
seriously, his disgrace has left the anti-war ticket with a severe
blow to its credibility, which has allowed Kerry to ape Bush's
war-mongering in speech after speech.
In the campaign Kerry has since
led, blind faith is expected from a population reared on local
media that feed only obscure explanations and gut history of
critical consequences. Love of country should never be an excuse
for blind rage and revenge. Understanding economic disparity
as the single driving force behind the US's military might has
fared even worse.
The bitter irony for progressives
choosing Kerry is this. After decades of chastising the shift
in television news to a parade of talking heads and pundits,
that is, to empty-headed fashion model look- and sound alikes,
opponents to Bush are now consolidating the idea that all of
our politicians and pundits are and always were those vacuous
head-body assemblages. Their primary task? To keep the President
on the tube day after day, night after night. There is a word
associated with this thought: personality cult.
Narcissism is the dominant
mood in the developed nations. Not self-love, as simplistic understood,
but the love of a group-self in the midst of desperation. Until
recently, only America's sternest critics have seen non-democratic
societies as more desirable to live in. These political analysts
bore out the deep, irreconcilable contradiction between the kind
of life the American system provides for most of its citizens,
and the hell it has often imposed on those unfortunate enough
to live in nations falling under its zone of economic and geostrategical
interest.
The hell of US invasions and
occupation is an ever unfolding list. At times, it has taken
root in Iran, at others in Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Korea,
Vietnam of course, Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, East Timor,
Cuba, Chile-and Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan's death was celebrated
in the rightwing neoliberal press as the passing of the man who
"beat communism". But it was Jimmy Carter-a Democrat-who
sparked the final battle, that is, to provide the USSR with its
Vietnam in Afghanistan. And it was Bill Clinton who led the incessant
bombing and enforced the U.N. embargo which made Iraq bleed for
eight years. In the meantime, under his presidency the U.S. decided
to assume the right to wage preventive war, all without Bush's
hoopla. The Democrat Party is no ally of progressives.
Being against Kerry is not
tantamount to opting for Bush. I would be the last one to suggest
one actually vote for Bush-although we might all have some stakes
in letting him win.
Consider some of the hypocrisy
around so-called Democratic "opposition" in the US.
You have overheard the noise being made about the heroism of
those who fought in Vietnam. There's still the old bitterness
around, of course, for those who fought and then went on to publicly
denounce the US's criminal invasion of that country. But what
of the many, many others who took risks to their lives and careers
by rejecting the war, and refusing to go? In a
very American way, they demonstrated against Washington, and
organized. What they interpreted Vietnam as being was the American
power class's political desire for world dominion. But these
heroes have not been given space to voice their position. These
heroes are still considered traitors for putting their finger
on what both Kerry and Bush stand for: a political formula in
which economic disparity is equated with political liberty. America's
future lies in the hands of the anti-Vietnam war heroes-those
who refused to go.
The upshot is that it is impossible
to trust any of the two parties to stand for the kind of "freedom"
that is harmonious with economic equality and a long term plan
for international diplomacy that will set up a legal framework
to enforce a moratorium on American military interventions. Where
real change at home can take place is in a solid restructuring
of the House of Representatives, and especially of the presidency
and Senate. These days, the latter two are merely the power windows
through which America's wealthiest are able to rule, irrespective
of the party.
Conservative America blames
single mothers for the misery in which they live. Their solution
is for marriage to keep women at home. Failing such surrender
of real liberty, the State refuses to help its people. Conservative
America accuses the free spirits who strive out on professional
careers that have nothing to do with becoming the technicians
of the petroleum pollution war knowledge society. But failing
to submit to it will wind persons up with no health and retirement
plan and no means to pay for a quality education for their kids.
Accuse Conservative America, but don't give in to its cynical
make over.
Bill Clinton had eight years
to change the plight of those who do not accept the conservative
agenda, and he did nothing. His successor, John Kerry, is even
less inclined to. We should bear that in mind instead of the
delusion that a "boring guy" like Kerry will guide
us to smoother ground, let alone suggesting that it is "thanks
[to Clinton that] the 'progressist' movements from the West began
to pay attention to systems again."
Surely, foreigners would object:
American streets are superbly paved, their hospitals are among
the best in the world, their cities glimmer in ways to prove
the Conquistadores' vision of El Dorado as a premonition of what
was to come four hundred years after their invasion of the Gulf
of Mexico, in the future states of Texas, Florida and Georgia.
But the tourists do not know Pine Ridge, the Reservation of the
Lakota Oglala Sioux. They remain oblivious of Oakland and the
tattered remains of the Black Panther Party, while the South
Bronx and South Central remain off limits due their high crime
rates attributed to "Blacks". The Justice that rules
in such economic disparity is uniformly built upon violence and
subjection. All that changes between rich and poor is the glean
and power of one's weapon.
As for the tiring question
of Ralph Nader stealing votes from Kerry, it's simply the case
that Kerry has not catered to Nader's voters. Judging by his
campaign, it often seems as though Kerry's task has been to avoid
them outright. What's most likely is that many Americans will
simply skip the elections instead of voting for an impostor.
This is the presidential election's greatest failure.
So for those who can actually
vote in this dictatorial world system, some meager advice: Don't
vote for Kerry, just don't vote.
Norman Madarasz, Ph.D., is a Canadian philosopher.
He teaches and writes in Rio de Janeiro. He can be reached at:
nmphdiol2@yahoo.ca.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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