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Today's
Stories
October
7, 2003
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
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
7, 2003
Who Are "We?"
Who
Brought Us to This Point in History?
By CYNTHIA MCKINNEY
[Remarks at the annual Project
Censored awards ceremony in San Rafael, California October
4, 2003.]
I have just one question. Who are we and who's
responsible for what we have become?
They say that we were hit on September
11th because we are free. Does that mean that what we have become
is the product of the desires and wishes of the American people?
And if so, are we also free to change
our minds?
As I survey the landscape of the changes
that have taken place literally before my eyes, over the course
of my lifetime, I have to wonder where did we go wrong.
You see, I'm a child of the 60s. I saw
the power possible in our country when people of all races, colors,
and creeds came together to move our country forward. I also
saw that, despite our history, the coming together was, indeed,
possible.
It was possible for white people to walk
hand in hand with black people on what could easily have been
termed "a black issue"--the right to vote in the South--as
well as on an American issue--peace in Vietnam.
It was possible for white people to see
a black man as their leader too, and not just as someone consigned
to the political margins.
It was possible for black people to join
with Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, progressive whites,
to improve our country and to make us live up to our noblest
ideals.
Try as they may to malign flower power,
it was truly star power.
So how did we get from that to this?
George W. smirks, Dick Cheney sneers,
Rumsfeld jokes, Powell blusters, Rice lies.
Enron and Worldcom steal; DynCorp vaccinates;
Carlyle benefits; Halliburton feeds and feeds and feeds.
Americans hurt. And in Iraq, Americans
die.
Our national leaders insult our allies,
create more foes, reward their friends, increase our insecurity
through their own policies, and plunge the American people into
our deepest economic abyss in a generation.
Stealing an election in Florida on the
uncounted chads representing the legitimate hopes and aspirations
of black and Latino Floridians, even the Democrats failed to
pursue a remedy that would permanently secure the voting rights
of people of color in Florida and around our country.
Massive failures all around us enter
into the calculation in any answer to my original question: Who
are we and who's responsible for what we have become?
From the lies to our service men and
women and to all of us about Iraq, to the still unanswered questions
about September 11th. The Congress has failed in its oversight
of the Executive Branch and the American people have failed in
their oversight of the integrity of our political system.
It's abominable that Rumsfeld can say
America "can afford" the extra $87 billion for more
corporate outrage and human cannon fodder in Iraq while at the
same time women and children constitute the fastest- growing
segment of our homeless population.
The very act of our sitting Vice President
taking a pay check from the American people while at the very
same time taking one from a corporation that gets billions of
dollars in no-bid, sole-source contracts should make us all outraged
and should make our Vice President blush.
But these people don't blush because
in the end, they know they can get away with it.
I believe the promise of our country
was stolen two generations ago in bold and brazen acts of violence.
And our failure to appropriately respond then has led to the
conditions we face today.
That great experiment at togetherness
and purpose that I experienced in the 60s was allowed to break
down along race, class, ethnic, and religious lines. We lost
our moral purpose and our national mission. We allowed others
to define who we--Americans--really are. Those who stole our
promise became America.
Under the Bush Administration, we see
war with horrific human and moral costs. We see terrible, perhaps
criminal, abuse of office.
We see ludicrous leaders like Tom DeLay,
Trent Lott, Ward Connerly, and now Arnold Schwarzenegger, parade
across the stage and adorned with the ornaments of power while
thoughtful leaders are shunned or targeted or cruelly maligned.
But there was a time when that truly
wasn't so. When our leaders challenged the best in us and encouraged
us to shun war and invest in justice and peace.
Now, in the 1960s, when John F. Kennedy
defeated Richard Nixon, Kennedy's inaugural address set out a
new vision for our country. At a time when our country held the
power to extinguish poverty or to extinguish man, Kennedy chose
to set our country on the path to tackle poverty and to raise
the standard of freedom and liberty around the globe.
In word as well as deed, Kennedy set
out to make the world safe for diversity and to make America
safe in a diverse world. He embarked upon a path to respect the
cries of freedom from others and to make a new world order where
"the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved."
He challenged our generation to space exploration, medical achievement,
arms control, and to fight against "tyranny, poverty, disease,
and war itself."
And despite what the revisionists would
have us believe about him, JFK rejected war against a smaller,
weaker, poorer country, began to work for detente with the Soviets,
and threatened to "scatter the CIA to the four winds."
Now, that was leadership for a new generation.
And at that time, we had a choice; but Kennedy correctly pointed
out that what we really wanted was not a Pax Americana imposed
with American weapons of war; not even a peace for our time;
but, instead a peace for all time.
Snipers' bullets took that America away
from us. And almost in rapid succession, bullets took Martin
King and Bobby Kennedy from us, too. It came to my attention
during my last days in Congress that Bobby was considering King
for his running mate. Now, imagine the America we might have
had.
But when confronted with evil back then,
what did we do?
Not too far away from this very spot,
Mario Savio of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement told us what to
do.
Mario Savio told us that sometimes, when
the machine becomes so odious, it makes us sick. And at that
point, we have to put our entire bodies against the gears and
the wheels and the levers. Against the entire apparatus, and
we have to make it stop. And that we have to say to those who
own the machine, that unless we're free, we'll prevent the machine
from working at all.
I put my entire body against the gears
and the wheels and the levers--against the entire apparatus of
the machine. And I tried to stop it.
I tried to warn the American people of
the dangers that I saw emanating from this Administration. For
that, a known black female Republican was advised to run against
me in the Democratic Primary. Republicans fed her campaign coffers
and then 48,000 of them crossed over and voted for her. Just
think about it: Katherine Harris who participated in the illegal
disfranchisement of innocent black and Latino voters was rewarded
with a Congressional seat and I was taken out of one.
And sometimes I wonder what the progressive
community in Georgia and around the country was thinking as I
was running my race. Why was it so easy for national Democratic
political pundits who knew me to dump on me in the same manner
that Sister Soljah was dumped on by the Clinton campaign? Was
it that I deserved the mischaracterizations because I had dared
to hold this Administration and America accountable on the 2000
election, the missing $2.3 trillion at the Pentagon, the Pentagon's
corporate sweetheart deals with political insiders, US continued
use of depleted uranium in Iraq, US covert activities in Africa
that resulted in genocide, clearcutting of our national forests,
a return to COINTELPRO through the legislation we were passing,
the treatment of black people in this country? I had tried to
take money away from Lockheed Martin because I feared the rampant
racism gone unchecked. I had challenged Westinghouse and their
running of Savannah River Site and the numerous leakages of tritium
into the river. I had tried to stop the senseless weapons transfers
to dictators and human rights abusers and I authored legislation
to force overseas companies to identify the names and locations
of their subcontractors who might be engaging in sweatshop labor.
And I had forced the Pentagon to stop sewing its PX jeans in
Burmese sweatshops.
I worked with five of your Project Censored
2004 journalists, on thirteen of your 2004 issues, and on six
of your 2003 issues. And despite all that, I still managed to
bring home over 350 million dollars during my service in Congress.
It didn't matter.
By the time the corporate media had finished
with me, my white support had plummeted. And sadly, this was
even among people whom I had represented for a decade and who
knew me. I was even booed at our annual Gay Pride Parade despite
my lifetime 100% HRC voting record. And Atlanta's white gay and
lesbian leadership refused to march with me, including Georgia's
only openly gay Member of the Legislature whom I had endorsed
and for whom one of my trusted staffers had worked to ensure
that she won. I protected her during redistricting when other
Democrats targeted her. A white lesbian that I helped get elected
in a majority black district. She refused to march with me too.
Even some progressive journalists found
it easier to just join the bandwagon against me rather than to
simply report accurately what I actually had said and done.
But now, we have distance from that moment.
We know that this Administration will
do anything to have the appearance of winning an election. Florida
was round one, Georgia was round two, California, round three,
Texas, round four, all building up to the big one, 2004.
We also now know that this Administration
has kept many secrets from the American people: including, changing
a September 11th Ground Zero environmental impact statement in
order to speed up the opening of Wall Street. They have lied
to us on Iraq. They still haven't told us what they knew and
when they knew it about the tragic events of September 11th.
And yet, they have intimidated the poor 9-11 families into giving
up their right to sue the perpetrators and their supporters who
helped carry out the 9-11 attacks. That's why my last piece of
legislation allowed the 9-11 families to participate in the government
compensation fund as well as retain their right to sue and thereby
find the truth for all of us on what actually happened that day.
At the time, I even handwrote an impeachment
bill I was so outraged. But my mother was more outraged at the
lies in the local and national media and begged me to just leave
it alone. And so I did.
If there ever was a politician Project
Censored, I think I'm it.
So I'm proud to have earned my spot here
at the Project Censored awards tonight. And I thank you from
the bottom of my heart for including me.
But although we're all losers as a result
of what happened in Georgia and Florida. We're really losers
if a little black ink can sow hatred and division between progressive
blacks and whites. Even in the South.
Now, before I sit down, I want to go
back to that question I first asked: Who are we and who's responsible
for what we have we become?
America is us and we are responsible
for what we have become. If we answer in any other way, we are
content to have others define us. Even others who have proven
to us that they can't be trusted.
A young teacher recently asked me what
did I think she could do, to advance the cause of people who
think like us; I told her that the greatest gift my teachers
had given me was the ability to think; teaching our young people
how to think is the greatest gift our teachers can give, for
it will be those independent thinkers who will save our country.
So, my hat's off to the professors at
Sonoma State University for even conceiving such a program and
to the University for being committed to it. Project Censored
ensures that our country will have a cadre of young people trained
to think. And for those of us who care enough about our country
to find out what's going on, Project Censored makes it easier
for us to know enough to make for our country a better tomorrow.
Thank you to the journalists for writing
the stories that you've written and thank you Seven Stories for
inviting me to be a part of this wonderful occasion.
Cynthia McKinney
is a former member of Congress from Georgia.
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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