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Today's
Stories
February 14/15, 2004
Stan Goff
Beloved Haiti
February 13, 2004
Alan Maass
Kevin
Cooper's Fight to Live
Karyn Strickler
McCarthyism in the Sierra Club
Annie Higgins
On
a Street in America
Adam Federman
Democratic Snipers Target Nader
Mike Whitney
George W. Faces the Nation
Brian Cloughley
Our Imperial Leader Has Spoken
Website of the Day
Lying Action Figure Doll
February 12, 2004
Ray McGovern
George
Tenet's Spin Cycle
Robert Jensen
Bush's
Nuclear Hypocrisy
Saul Landau
Elegy to the Salton Sea
February
11, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways
Steve Perry
Bush
v. Bush?
February
10, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
Inquisition in Iowa
Ron Jacobs
Politics and the Beatles: Don't
You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)
Elizabeth
Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry
Mickey
Z
Meet the Oxmans: "The Rich
Shouldn't Sleep at Night Either"
February
9, 2004
Michael
Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change
CEOs? Inside John Kerry's Closet
Chris Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush
B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits
Bill
Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?
Dr. Susan
Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment:
Boob Tube Super Bowl
February
7/8, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with
Jewish Self-Absorption
Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping
Dave
Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine
in Transit
Alexander
Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide
from Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure:
Our Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
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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Weekend
Edition
February 14/15, 2004
Rock, Rap and the
Election
Keep
Your Eyes on the Prize
By DAVE MARSH and LEE
BALLINGER
In 1985, Rock & Rap Confidential produced
the short film I'll Vote On. It documented the efforts of the
FBI and local authorities in rural Alabama to jail civil rights
leaders for getting out the vote. Most charges (for "vote
fraud") were ultimately dropped. But the 2000 Presidential
election, marked by the deliberate disenfranchisement of thousands
of registered Florida voters, confirmed that the right to vote
in America still cannot be taken for granted.
Today, spurred by the disaster that is
the Bush administration, a growing number of musicians are working
to get their fans to register to vote. They range from punkvoter.com--started
by Fat Mike of NOFX--to the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, which
kicked off a nationwide drive to register 4 million voters in
2004 with a star-studded event (P. Diddy, Beyonce, LL Cool J)
in Houston during Super Bowl week.
As a tactic, this is fine to the degree
that it brings more people into one aspect of the political process,
creating a potential common activity for punks and professionals,
b-boys and bohemians, headbangers and health care professionals.
The problem is that registering to vote is being put forward
by musicians as a strategy, as an action that can, by itself,
somehow impact our rapidly disintegrating society.
The first fact to be faced is that the
majority of Americans who are registered do not vote. As Tom
Morello put it after the 2000 election, "If there were a
candidate who was running, say, for a six-hour work day at full
pay, you might get more people going to the polls."
Since we lack candidates running on anything
remotely like such a platform, we wind up with the strategy put
forward by John Mellencamp for 2004: "I'll support whoever
the Democrats put forward." Ditto for Lou Reed: "We
must all unite and work for whomever opposes Bush, regardless
of whatever differences we may have. Our motto: Anything but
Bush."
Not long after I'll Vote On was released,
RRC brought Albert Turner and Wendell Paris, the Alabama civil
rights leaders featured in the film, to New York to attend the
New Music Seminar and talk with some of the musicians who were
part of the "Sun City" anti-apartheid project. Both
Turner and Paris repeatedly stressed that while voting was very
important, their goal was to lift the entire South up out of
poverty and that elections were only one of many tools in that
process. Indeed, the civil rights movement was a national tidal
wave defined by sit-ins and freedom schools more than by elections.
Can we imagine something similar in scope
to the civil rights movement in 2004 and beyond? Instead of a
motto of "Anyone but Bush" imagine if we had a motto
of "Universal Health Care." Imagine if that motto led
us to expend our political energy to link up every fight against
a hospital closing, every strike over health care benefits, every
one of the thousand-plus benefits musicians in America do each
week for other musicians in health crisis, every one of the growing
number of volunteer clinics which attempt to keep us alive. Imagine
that as these links began to be made, the millions of uninsured
or underinsured individual Americans began to be drawn in. Imagine
that this is something America is ready for because, in fact,
it is: Every poll shows at least 70% of us believe quality health
care should be our right whether we can pay for it or not.
Imagine that we transform the effort
to register voters from passive to active and make the fight
for universal health care a part of the voter registration efforts
musicians are devoting their time to. Imagine the Democratic
candidates being challenged to commit to restoring universal
health care to the Democratic Party platform. Imagine that the
day after the November elections, no matter who wins, we aren't
once again left wondering "Now what?" Imagine that
we're part of a movement that's actually stronger after the election.
Imagine being independent of the whims of corporate candidates.
Imagine not being reduced to meekly waiting
for 2008.
Dave Marsh
and Lee Ballinger edit Rock & Rap Confidential, one
of CounterPunch's favorite newsletters.From the February Rock & Rap Confidential,
For a free copy of the issue, email your postal address to: RRC,
Box 341305, LA CA 90034. Or email: Rockrap@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for February 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
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