|
June 12, 2002
Dave Marsh
Shelley
Stewart, Radio and the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement
Chris Floyd
Murder, Inc.
June 11, 2002
Omar Barghouti
On Dance, Identity and War
Robert Fisk
The Bush
Afghan Gang:
Murderers, Gangsters, Stooges
Minerva Wright
The Donkeys of the Holy Land
David Krieger
Stopping
a Nuclear War
in South Asia
June 10, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
Executioner's Last Songs
June 8/9, 2002
Gavin Keeney
Mademoiselle
M.
Or Getting Screwed in Paris
Susan Davis
Sleepless
in the Suburbs
Curing Insomnia: a new use for The Nation?
George Sunderland
"Send
in the Weekly
Standard": The Screaming Pundits Assault Corps
June 7, 2002
Michael Colby
Bush to the Nation:
You're All Cops Now
Tanweer Akram
Howard
Zinn's "Terrorism
and War": a review
David Krieger
New Security Challenges
Sam Bahour
The Palestinian
Intifada:
A Very American Struggle
Tom Turnipseed
A Crisis of Confidence
in US Leadership
June 6, 2002
Michael Colby
White House
vs. EPA:
Political Hot Air and
Global Warming
Ron Jacobs
The Indo-Pakistan Conflict:
It's Just a Shot Away
Francis Boyle
Take Sharon
to The Hague:
Prosecute Israeli War Crimes
at Jenin
CounterPunch Bulletin
60 Minutes and President Chavez's
Censored F-Word
Mark Weisbrot
Spying
and Lying:
The FBI's Shameful Past
June 5, 2002
Robert Fisk
Berlusconi the Censor
Danielle Brian
Nuclear
Plants and Terrorism
Ardeshir Cowasjee
For What Do We Fight?
George Monbiot
Kashmir
on the Brink
Michael Neumann
What is Antisemitism?
June 4, 2002
Dave Marsh
Bono the Useful Idiot
William Evan / Francis
Boyle
Kashmir:
Invoking Intl. Law to Avoid Nuclear War
Cockburn / St. Clair
The Future Wellstone Deserves
June 3, 2002
Ramdas / Makhijani
India,
Pakistan and Nukes:
A Road Map to Peace
Fran Shor
Meanwhile, Back in Afghanistan
Neve Gordon
The Caterpillar
Effect
June 2, 2002
Fidel Castro
From FDR to Mister "W.":
Cuba, the US and Democracy
Arundhati Roy
Under the
Nuclear Shadow
Bernard Weiner
Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies
June 1, 2002
Norman Madarasz
The
Strange Math of Roberto Carlos: Brazil v. Turkey
Gavin Keeney
Bush and Mies van der Rohe:
Architecture and Ideology
Jeff Halper
Sharon's
Post-Incursion Plan:
Incarceration or Transfer?
Walt Brasch
Crumpling the Constitution
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published March 15, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
June 12,
2002
Democracy in
Crisis
What is to be Done?
by John Stanton and
Wayne Madsen
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate
that Governments long established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn,
that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpation's,
pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce
them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards
for their future security . . ."
US Declaration of Independence--1776
As July 4, 2002, approaches, Americans can no
longer afford to practice armchair democracy and checkbook citizenship.
If the public does not rise out of its feeble and hypnotic state,
it puts the lives of its children and grandchildren at the disposal
of utilitarian political, corporate and military leaders who
view flesh and blood as human capital, easily usable and disposable
in the march for the accumulation of wealth, power and resources.
In June 2002, the United States of America resembles the Animal
Farm eerily portrayed by George Orwell in 1946--a "farm"
run by Mr. Pilkington and the "Pigs."
From November 2000 to June 2002 those
who record history's events will note that the Bush Regime rushed
the United States to the heretofore unseen Stygian depths of
greed and corruption, ushered in Gestapo-like treatment and profiling
of US resident aliens and US citizens, pillaged the environment,
education and infrastructure budgets, closed "Peacekeeping
Operations" in the Pentagon, adopted an aggressive nuclear
weapons testing and first-use doctrine, swept aside the checks
and balances of the US Constitution--most notably judicial branch
rulings critical of its detainment of anti-US rebels, and used
specious terror warnings to defuse controversy over its draconian
policies.
In a scene out of the classic thriller
Seven Days in May, Bush asked the broadcast networks for, and
received airtime on the evening of June 6, 2002, to announce
sweeping changes to the nation's intelligence and law enforcement
bureaucracy, creating a cabinet-level homeland security department.
So, on the 58th anniversary of the Allied invasion of France
to liberate Europe from the yoke of fascism, we have a president
chiseling into the marbled government infrastructure in Washington
the words "homeland security." The term "homeland"
was used and promoted by the very nation D-Day was meant to eliminate
from the planet. "Homeland" was also a favorite term
of South Africa's brutal apartheid regime. That government confined
its majority African population to sham countries it described
as "homelands."
This action and others call for counteraction
by the public and select leaders who should recall the fate of
many who signed on to the US Declaration of Independence.
According to bethlehempaonline.com, five
signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured
before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another
had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds
or hardships of the Revolutionary War. Twenty-five were lawyers
or jurists. 11 were merchants. nine were farmers or large plantation
owners. One was a teacher, one a musician, and one a printer.
"These were men of means and education, yet they signed
the Declaration of Independence, knowing full well that the penalty
could be death if they were captured." And they were mostly
20- to 40-year-old men. Are there any leaders like these in 2002
who can grapple with the insidious leadership of the country
and the sickness that pervades American society?
Abuses, Usurpations
and Negligence
Live from Moscow on June 10, 2002, with
the Kremlin in Moscow as a backdrop, Attorney General John Ashcroft
announced the military's ownership of an American citizen--and
Chicago street gang member--Jose Padilla, seized on May 8, 2002
by the US Justice Department for allegedly talking about a "dirty
bomb"--a claim which European military officials find specious
and timed to counter the Bush Regime's 911 negligence. On June
12, from Qatar, Donald Rumsfeld made the stunning announcement
that " We're not interested in trying him at the moment....We're
not interested in punishing him at the moment. We're interested
in finding out what in the world he knows." With those statements,
made on the soil of non-democratic regimes, American's were put
on notice that the Bill of Rights have been suspended and superceded
by military law. With this abominable decapitation of US justice,
and the nightmare that is the PATRIOT Act, Americans have seen
perhaps the most brazen usurpation of their rights and liberties
in their history.
And the list is almost endless.
Agence France Presse: " . . . The three-prong National Security
Entry/Exit Registration System is in response from the US Justice
Department to a mandate issued by Congress to track "virtually
all" of the 35 million foreign visitors who land in the
United States annually . . . Such visitors will be fingerprinted
and photographed at the border, be required to register "periodically"
if they stay in the United States for 30 days or longer . . .
Unfortunately, policies that single out particular religious
and ethnic groups create a false sense of security and end up
further damaging America's image and reputation around the world"
The Hartford Courant: "Three separate courts have told the US
Justice Department that its secrecy policy regarding the arrest
of 1,200 Muslim immigrants after Sept. 11 is illegal. Yet the
department, in particular its Immigration and Naturalization
Service, has failed to heed the message . . ."
The Miami Herald: Luciano Martins, Brazil's ambassador to Cuba,
wrote about what he called ''Bush's imperial unilateralism,''
which he said has unleashed ''intolerable and politically indefensible''
US reactions to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, such as the invasion
of Afghanistan. ''The [US] irrationality and arrogance may not
be just personal attributes of temporary rulers, but may also
turn into a collective attitude. As it happened in Nazi Germany
and now seems to be happening in Israel,'' Martins wrote. ''The
current silence of the Democratic Party and most American intellectuals
. . . seems to suggest that Bush somehow expresses a collective
sentiment.''
The CIA Factbook: " . . . [US] development of a 'two-tier
labor market' in which those at the bottom lack the education
and the professional/technical skills of those at the top and,
more and more, fail to get comparable pay raises, health insurance
coverage, and other benefits. Since 1975, practically all the
gains in household income have gone to the top 20 percent of
households . . . Long-term problems [for the USA] include inadequate
investment in economic infrastructure, rapidly rising medical
costs of an aging population, sizable trade deficits, and stagnation
of family income in the lower economic groups . . ."
The National Center
for Children in Poverty: "37
percent of American children (27 million children) live in low-income
families (40 percent of US children under age six--9 million
children), in families with incomes below 200 percent of the
poverty line ($27,722 for a family of three). Many of the concerns
of 'near poor' low-income families overlap with those of the
poor, such as the need for well-paying jobs and access to affordable
quality childcare and health care. 16 percent of children (over
11 million children) live in poverty (17 percent of children
under age six--4 million children), in families with incomes
below the federal poverty line ($13,861 for a family of three
in 2000). About the name number of children lived in poverty
in 1980."
The United States' child poverty rate
is substantially higher--often two-to-three times higher--than
that of most other major Western industrialized nations. The
child poverty rate is highest for African-American (30 percent)
and Latino (28 percent) children. The child poverty rate for
white children is 9 percent. The poverty rate for children under
age six follows a similar pattern: 33 percent for African-American
children under age six, 29 percent for Latino young children,
and 10 percent for white young children. 6 percent of America's
children (5 million) live in extreme poverty (8 percent under
age six--2 million children), in families with incomes below
half the poverty line. (In 2000, the extreme poverty line was
$6,930 for a family of three.) . . .
Council for a Livable
World: "The Administration
is requesting a military budget of $396.1 billion in fiscal 2003,
a 1-year increase of $45.3. This will be the largest increase
in military budget authority since fiscal 1966 at the height
of the Vietnam War. The increase alone is larger that the military
budget of all other countries beside Japan, whose budget is $45.6
billion. In fiscal 2007, the National Defense budget is slated
to increase to $469.6 billion. While the budget is being touted
for fighting terrorism, the bulk of the funding goes for buying
weapons and a force structure designed during the Cold War, not
for 'transformation' systems such as precision-guided bombs and
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)."
Business Week: "PricewaterhouseCoopers forecasts that
11,000 companies will file for Chapter 11 protection in 2002,
up from a record 10,442 in 2001."
Workingforamerica.com: "Since January 1, 2002, there have been
555,783 layoffs with Hewlett Packard announcing up to 15,000.
US unemployment was 6 percent in April 2002 . . . The states
face budget shortfalls totaling $27 billion . . . June 2002."
American Society for
Civil Engineers: "D+ for
US infrastructure . . . $1.3 trillion needed to fix roads, sewage
systems, drinking water, schools, roads, bridges. . . ."
The United Nations: " . . . global warming of between 1 and
3.5 degrees C over the coming century. This may not sound like
cause for concern, but the global average temperature has changed
by no more than one degree C up or down for the past ten thousand
years. Industrialized countries, with roughly 20 per cent of
the global population, account for 60 per cent of annual emissions
of carbon dioxide, and the biggest emitter, the United States,
alone accounts for over 20 per cent. Of cumulative CO2 emissions
from 1950 to 1992--these gases stay in the atmosphere for years--industrialized
countries account for 74 per cent and the US for 28 per cent.
Emissions by developing countries, although growing rapidly,
are not expected to equal those of industrialized countries until
2035.
Sentencingproject.org: "Roughly 2 million inmates crowd US prisons
and jails. The US incarcerates 690 out of every 100,000 Americans.
This makes the USA the world leader in incarceration ahead of
Russia which jails 676 per 100,000. These figures exclude the
millions on probation, house arrest, illegally detained under
the guise of the War on Terrorism and War on Drugs, and the disproportionate
number of African Americans, Latino Americans and Central Asian/Middle
Eastern Americans imprisoned." <Amnestyineternal.org:>
"111 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or
practice. 7countries since 1990 are known to have executed prisoners
who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime - Congo
(Democratic Republic), Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,
USA and Yemen. The country which carried out the greatest number
of known executions of child offenders was the USA (15 since
1990). Amnesty International recorded three executions of child
offenders in 2001: one in Iran, one in Pakistan and one in the
USA."
Islam-usa.com: (Shahid Athar, Associate Professor--Indiana
University): "Yes we are number one. We are number one not
only as a superpower and being the wealthiest and strongest nation,
but the highest in crime as well. For 100,000 people, the US
has a homicide rate of 9.4 while that of the U.K. is 2, and Japan
1.2 for comparison. Though we are number one among those who
believe in the commandment 'thou shalt not steal,' we have also
the highest number of robberies. For 100,000 population, the
figure for the US is 45; U.K. 9; Japan 1. We are also number
one in the number of drug offenders. For 100,000 population,
the US has 346 drug offenders as compared to the U.K. of 56,
and Japan of 1. More American women are raped than any other
country in the world. For 100,000 women, the rape incidents are
114 in the US, 9 in the U.K., and 7 in Japan. 4 million women
are physically abused every year by their husbands or boyfriends
and forced to seek emergency treatment. Domestic violence leads
to the death of 2000 women every year. 25 percent of all attempted
suicide by women is by those who were battered."
What Can be
Done?
The US Constitution makes no reference
to the "two party system." The current anticompetitive
duopoly has failed to represent, protect and safeguard the American
people from corporate and personal greed, and from foreign enemies
domestic and foreign. A viable fourth party--the Greens having
established themselves as the third--must be founded. Pillars
of such a party could be progressives such as John McCain, John
Conyers, Russ Feingold, Cynthia McKinney, Barbara Lee, Paul Wellstone,
Bernie Sanders, John Corzine, Dennis Kucinich, Jim Jeffords and
like-minded individuals within the established order. Millions
of Americans would devote time, energy and votes to a party that
included these luminaries.
The Electoral College should be eliminated,
as its presence is as sinister as the interests and money that
has corrupted the US political process. As pointed out in the
San Francisco Chronicle, " . . . to persuade southern colonies
to join the new union, they [the founding fathers] had to recognize
the South's right to perpetuate a slave system that treated human
beings as chattel. After months of dickering, they found a way
around this political impasse. Their decision to base congressional
representation on each state's population worked just fine for
the more populous North, but not for the slave states, where
only a small number of free whites lived. So they devised an
ingenious solution, appropriately called the Great Compromise.
All free men--plus three-fifths of all slaves--would count toward
the apportionment of representatives. What this meant is that
a handful of free slaveholding southern white men would now be
well represented in Congress because they could count three-fifths
of their slaves as part of their state's population. That solved
one problem. But the founding fathers faced yet another political
dilemma. If the colonists decided to elect their president by
direct vote, the South would have been vastly outnumbered by
the more populous northern colonies. As they drafted the constitution,
James Madison of Virginia worried that a popular vote would undermine
the political power of the southern colonies."
Indeed the reliance on such an antediluvian
system that also involves walking to a voting booth is entirely
dysfunctional in a time of commonplace Internet-based banking
and stock trading, telework, teleconferencing, automated battlespace
management. Moreover, it puts voters at risk. Why chance walking
a city street or assembling under the watchful eyes of hidden
cameras or spiteful officials? Why risk votes not being counted
in the electoral process? Why must the individual put herself
in danger when the elected and unelected CYA themselves at the
first sign of danger? Are they worth more than the individuals
that make up the public? An automated registering and voting
process adopting Internet-based financial transactions must be
implemented. If the US is to retain its damaged electoral system,
then United Nation's appointed observers must be enlisted to
monitor US polling places.
And as the US Capitol, White House and
Federal Buildings become off-limits to the public--and their
occupants safely secure and governing from remote and alternative
locations--its seems pointless other than for quaintness to assemble
the governing organizations in one central point in Washington,
DC. The US Capitol is now symbol, not substance, and, as such,
national governance could be conducted through regional gatherings
where those elected and appointed would be forced to face constituents
24 x 7.
The US Constitution must be amended to
include national referenda and confidence measures that collar
and leash those in power to the public. To begin this and other
changes to the US system of government, a national petition-for-change
drive must be undertaken via the Internet in conjunction with
a nonviolent change-movement involving nationwide demonstrations.
These efforts can be organized through IndyMedia and the hundreds
of nonprofits that include Americans from every walk of life.
Instead of targeting nations for preemptive
nuclear and conventional attack, US governing leaders should
call a worldwide summit at a neutral location to address global
inequities that lead to despair, hatred and hunger. Former Presidents
Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford would do the nation a great service
by immediately calling for such a meeting. Invitees must include
those nations who have most suffered most from ill conceived
US and Western European policies. Critics of such calls are fond
of dismissing diplomacy, but aggressively remind of the noble
US effort to rebuild Europe after WWII. They would do well to
support such a cause that includes the "non-white"
resource-rich playgrounds of empires new and old. Brutish capitalism
must give way to reasoned generosity, along with enlightened
US reentrance into the global community to be evidenced by adoption
of protocols and treaties gutted by the current regime and left
to languish by the Clinton administration. For starters, the
US must sign-on to the International Criminal Court, Convention
on the Banning of Landmines, Conventions on Children in War,
and the Kyoto Protocols.
Additionally, the dividing line that
once stood between US civilian and military elements must be
reestablished and widened. The "revolving door" that
places retired military officers in charge of US diplomacy and
national "blue ribbon panels," places them on the boards
of major corporations who seek defense contracts--and allows
them to spin media coverage of events and advocate military/industrial
policies--should be shut down. And many of these retired military
officers are advocates of using federal troops to police the
United States, ostensibly for homeland defense. But there are
some enlightened dissenters among them.
Dr. William Burcham, a former US Navy
officer--and a member of a group that opposes the establishment
of the US Army's Northern "Homeland" Command--indicates
that it is time to counteract the efforts of the Bush regime.
"Since 911 there has been a steady pressure exerted by some
in the current administration to infringe upon the civil liberties
of US citizens in attempts to make their own functions easier
to accomplish. Now is not the time to stand by and allow further
erosion of the US Constitution for the benefit of these few.
Anxious times make for poor policy decisions. US constitutional
tradition and years of political wisdom, combined with national
experience, clearly indicate the people do not support the use
of federal troops for law enforcement purposes."
Orwell sounded such a warning 56 years
ago through his characters in Animal Farm: " . . . Then
there came a moment when the first shock had worn off and when,
in spite of everything--in spite of . . . the habit, developed
through long years, of never complaining, never criticizing,
no matter what happened--they might have uttered some word of
protest . . ."
But they didn't.
John Stanton
is a Virginia-based writer on national security affairs and Wayne
Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist
who writes and comments frequently on civil liberties and human
rights issues.
They can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
Today's
Features
Dave Marsh
Shelley
Stewart, Radio and the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement
Chris Floyd
Murder, Inc.
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|