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Recent
Stories
May
7, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Quoting Under the Influence: Breasts,
Martinis, Hitchens
David
Krieger
Winning the War; Alienating the World
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush's Troubling Speech
Bruce Jackson
Bill Kunstler's Last Big Speech
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/07
Website
of the Day
The Truth About Bush's Military Records
May
6, 2003
Paul
de Rooij
An Activist in the Trenches: an Interview
with Gretta Duisenberg
Anthony
Gancarski
Money to Burn: in Defense of Bill Bennett
John
Stanton
Bush's War on Jesus
Sam
Hamod
W. Bush: the Little Snot, the Little
Bully
Robert
Fisk
Bush Says the War is Over: Tell It to
the Shi'a
Kathleen
Christison
A Roadmap to Nowhere
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/06
May
5, 2003
Gary
Leupp
Phase Two: Syria and Iran
Jorge
Mariscal
The Militarization of US Culture
Ishmael
Reed
A Family Values Man
Tarif Abboushi
Sharon's Confidence: Bush Won't Come to Shove on Roadmap
Leila
Matsui
Regime Change Begins at Home...Literally
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Sam
Smith
Coalition of the Shilling
May
3, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Tears of Rage: Remembering May 1970
Elaine
Cassel
William Bennett, a Freudian Perspective
Sam
Hamod
Understanding the Shi'a of Lebanon
Scott
Fleming
Getting Shot on the Oakland Docks
Mickey
Z.
Cuba and Puerto Rico: 100 Years of Terror
William
S. Lind
Don't Take Col. John Boyd's Name in Vain
Dr.
Bruce Blair
The New Nuclear Terrorism Threat
Joanne
Mariner
Cluster Bombs Over Iraq
Anthony
Gancarski
Hot Fun in the Summertime
Ilian Pappe
Searching Jenin
William
MacDougall
America's Kids Are All Right: Pre-Teen Conservative Commentators
Seth Sandronsky
Incarcerated and Invisible
Rich
Procter
Over Our Dead Bodies
Lenni Brenner
How Bob Dylan Found His Voice
Adam
Engel
American Bulk
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Albert
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/03
May
2, 2003
Caoimhe
Butterly
Crowd Control American-style
Neve
Gordon
US: No Right to Know About the Disappeared
John
Chuckman
Tom Friedman's Life as a Pet Hamster
Bradley
Burston
Betting on Abu-Mazen...To Lose
Harvey
Wasserman
Bush's Military Defeat
John
Troyer
Question Those Writing History
Saul Landau
The Cuba Conundrum
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/02
Website
of the Day
Moussaoui's
Quiz
May
1, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Santorum: That's Latin for Asshole
Iain
Boal
A May Day Message to the FCC: "We
Are Many; They are Few"
Diana
Johnstone
About Cuba
Sam
Hamod
Killings at Al Fallujah, City of Mosques
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Intelligence Fiasco
Lee Sustar
Greed Air: Airline Workers Agree to Pay Cuts, While Bosses Stuff
Their Pockets
Peter
Linebaugh
May Day at Kut and Kenthal
Stew Albert
Straight Shooters
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/01
Website
of the Day
South Bay Mobilization
April
30, 2003
Ashley
Smith
Under Uncle Sam's Thumb: a History
of Washington's Occupations
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/30
Gary
Leupp
Shooting Schoolboys: Preliminary Thoughts on the Fallujah Massacre
Robert
Jensen
Fighting Alienation in the USA
Wayne
Madsen
The Four Horsemen of Propaganda
Ahmad
Faruqui
Bush's Strategic Myopia About the Middle East
Gabriel
Kolko
Iraq, the US and the End of the European Coalition
Adolfo
Perez Esquivel
A Nobel Laureat's Letter to Bush:
"You Talk of Freedom; You Detest Freedom"
April
29, 2003
Gary
Leupp
Disorder and Opportunity: the Results
of the Iraq War
Uri
Avnery
Don't Envy Abu-Mazen
Anthony
Gancarski
Brush with the Law
Mickey
Z.
POWs: Then and Now
CounterPunch
Wire
How to Spin Israel on the Hill: Internal Lobbying Documents
Robert
Fisk
Did the US Murder Journalists?
Chris
Floyd
Bush Telegraphs His Punches on Syria
Wayne Madsen
About Those Iraqi Intelligence Documents
Wallace
Gagne
Pilgrimage or Demolition Derby?
Eliot Katz
Playing Catch with Cracked Globes
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/29
Hot Stories
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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May
8, 2003
Partisan Protests?
Questions to
Ponder
by MICKEY Z.
Why did Operation Iraqi Freedom (sic) provoke
such a massive anti-war outcry? Hold on, that's not the question
I'd really like to ask. Let me rephrase: Why did Operation Iraqi
Freedom (sic) provoke so much more protest than 78 days of U.S./NATO
bombing over Yugoslavia in 1999?
There is an assortment of possible answers
to that question...but the one I dread involves America's alleged
two-party system. So let me rephrase one more time: Did the recent
anti-war protests occur because Bush is a Republican and has
surrounded himself with the likes of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell,
Rice, and Ashcroft while Clinton, a purported liberal, enjoyed
more freedom to commit war crimes?
Bush demonized Hussein as the "next
Hitler" in order to attack him. The Left demonized Bush
with Hitler comparisons. I've written many articles criticizing
U.S. policy towards Iraq and have received dozens of e-mails
in support. During Clinton's bombing of Yugoslavia, I published
one anti-war article and was called a Nazi for supporting ethnic
cleansing. Who called Clinton a Nazi then? Who made Hitler analogies
when he ordered revenge on those "two-bit pricks" (Clinton's
words) in Somalia? Who drew a square black mustache on Clinton
posters when civilians died in Yugoslavia during an illegal bombing
or a pharmaceutical plant was blown up in The Sudan to distract
us from Monica?
All these questions bring us back to
the 2000 election when Nader voters urged Gore supporters to
go Green because Gore was essentially no different than Bush.
While this argument  may appear foolish post-9/11,
I don't think the events of the past three years change this
fundamental reality: The primary difference between Democrats
and Republicans is that they tell different lies to get elected.
Would Al Gore have responded in a drastically
different manner to 9/11? We might want to believe so. It might
comfort us to think that Bush is an anomaly and once he's removed,
everything will be better. But during the Clinton/Gore years,
the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act was signed
into law (April 24, 1996). This USA PATRIOT Act prequel contained
provisions that Clinton himself admitted "makes a number
of ill-advised changes in our immigration laws, having nothing
to do with fighting terrorism." This unconstitutional salvo
did little to address so-called terrorism but plenty to limit
the civil liberties of anyone-immigrant or resident-who disagrees
with U.S. policies, foreign or domestic.
Should we believe President Gore would
not have clamped down like Dubya's boys did after September 11?
If he did, would he have faced the same cries of fascism Bush
does now? What if Gore got around to giving Iraq the same medicine
Clinton gave Yugoslavia...would we have seen tens of millions
marching across the globe? Would publications like The Nation
be so motivated in their dissent? Will outrage over Iraq manifest
itself in nothing more than co-opted support for whichever Democrat
raises the $100 million necessary to run for American CEO?
Is there really a sharp distinction between
the two parties or is Gore Vidal correct when he says: "Our
only political party has two right wings, one called Republican,
the other Democratic"?
It might help to recognize that this
concept of a single corporate-controlled party isn't exactly
new. By the late eighteenth century, the U.S. government was,
as Zinn put it, "behaving as Karl Marx described a capitalist
state: pretending neutrality to maintain order, but serving the
interests of the rich."
When Grover Cleveland (Democrat) was
elected president in 1884, Robber Baron Jay Gould wired him:
"I feel...that the vast business interests of the country
will be entirely safe in your hands." For anyone wondering
if Gould was right, bear in mind that one of Cleveland's chief
advisers was William Whitney, a millionaire corporate lawyer
who married into the Standard Oil fortune. Cleveland was succeeded
by Benjamin Harrison (Republican), a man whose main qualification
was working for the railroads as a lawyer and soldier. Prior
to his election, Harrison prosecuted railroad strikers in federal
courts. Still, he was bumped out of the White House in 1892 when
Grover Cleveland (still a Democrat) reclaimed his throne. In
light of this development, Robber Baron Andrew Carnegie received
a letter from the manager of steel plants, Henry Clay Frick.
"I am sorry for President Harrison," Frick wrote, "but
I cannot see that our interests are going to be affected one
way or the other by the change in administration." Right
on cue, President Cleveland used U.S. troops to break up "Coxey's
Army," a demonstration of unemployed men who had come to
Washington to protest (so, all you out-of-work loafers, don't
get any ideas).
More than one hundred years later, who
recognizes that the Democratic Clinton/Gore administration's
callous policies on Haiti, Somalia, Cuba, Bosnia, Iraq, gays
in the military, David Gergen, NAFTA, GATT, labor, welfare, Medicaid,
Medicare, "anti-terrorism," telecommunications monopolies,
etc. reflected little variation from their Republican rivals?
During 1993 and 1994, when Clinton had
the "advantage" of a Democratically-controlled Congress,
Emperor Bill abandoned his pledge to consider offering asylum
to Haitian refugees, he reneged on his promise to "take
a firm stand" against the armed forces' ban on gays and
lesbians, and he backed away from his most high-profile campaign
issue: health care. While "enjoying" a Democratic House
and Senate, Clinton signed NAFTA and GATT, increased the Pentagon
budget by $25 billion, fired Jocelyn Elders, dumped Lani Guinier,
bombed Iraq and the Balkans, renewed the murderous sanctions
on Iraq, and passed a crime bill that gave us more cops, more
prisons, and 58 more offenses punishable by death.
After presiding over the much-hyped Republican
"revolution" in 1994, Slick Willie continued to march
in lockstep with his corporate owners. The next two years of
foreign policy provided us with more bombs and more sanctions
over Iraq; covert support for war criminals in Haiti; a tightening
of sanctions against Cuba, Iran, and Libya; and the overt support
of a corrupt Boris Yelstin. Domestically, Clinton continued his
assault on the working class by delivering a telecommunications
bill further narrowing the already laughable parameters of public
debate. As a final slap in the face of the "liberal"
wing of his party, Clinton signed the welfare repeal bill.
What about the environment...allegedly
Gore's domain? In 1996, David Brower, former president of the
Sierra Club, penned a Los Angeles Times op-ed entitled, "Why
I Won't Vote for Clinton." In this piece, Brower offered
a litany of Clinton-sponsored moves, which utterly smashed the
public image of Bill or Al Gore as "pro-environment."
Some of these crimes include the passage of the salvage logging
rider, the signing of the Panama Declaration, the continuation
of the use of methyl bromide, the weakening of the Endangered
Species Act, the lowering of grazing fees on land, subsidizing
Florida's sugar industry, weakening the Safe Drinking Water Act,
reversing the ban on the production and importation of PCBs,
and allowing the export of Alaskan oil. These, and other proud
Clinton/Gore accomplishments, have led Brower to declare that
the dynamic Democratic duo had "done more harm to the environment
in three years than Presidents Bush and Reagan did in 12 years."
Today, if Dubya looks cockeyed at a tree he's labeled a reactionary.
The supposed two-party system is like
a giant corporate puppeteer wearing a Democrat puppet on his
left hand and a Republican puppet on his right hand. The puppets
themselves look different so we appear to have a choice. Nonetheless,
this so-called choice is neatly framed within the bounds of the
economic status quo. We can choose, but only from a pre-determined
range of choices. The puppets look different but both hands are
controlled by one economic brain. We are merely choosing sides
in a false conflict and allowing those is power to determine
our freedom of choice.
Like the bull in a bullfight, the voter
chases the elusive red cape. We are distracted from the real
targets through an attractive image or illusion. Our energies
are so poorly focused that we offer no threat to the status quo.
In fact, we willingly contribute by assuming our predetermined
role as a consumer. Media-hyped millionaires with blow-dried
hair are sold to the public like any other commodity. Ideologies
are neatly packaged and marketed with the same intensity and
deception as a cell phone or SUV. Once in office, we trust these
men (and women) with our moral decisions and are satisfied with
the illusion of having elected them, never comprehending the
reality that if voting could really change anything, it might
be made illegal.
Why did this illegal war inspire such
outrage and disapproval while 78 days of carpet-bombing over
Yugoslavia did not? We must hope it's more than partisan protest
based on the faulty premise of a two-party system because a movement
based on that foundation is certainly doomed.
Mickey Z.
is the author of The
Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet
and an editor at Wide Angle.
He can be reached at: mzx2@earthlink.net.
Today's
Features
Alexander
Cockburn
Quoting Under the Influence: Breasts,
Martinis, Hitchens
David
Krieger
Winning the War; Alienating the World
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush's Troubling Speech
Bruce Jackson
Bill Kunstler's Last Big Speech
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/07
Website
of the Day
The Truth About Bush's Military Records
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